FReeper Canteen ~ Camp Run-A-Muck ~ WooHoo! ~ Friday, MARCH 5, 2004

My "VOICES", "kitty-katz", Linda, the Canteen Crew, and FRiends of the Canteen

[tomkow6]

For the freedom you enjoyed yesterday...
Thank the Veterans who served in
The United States Armed Forces.

Looking forward to tomorrow's freedom?
Support The United States Armed Forces Today!

Welcome to
Camp RUN-A-MUK!

PART II of Concept CARS

 
Where the Plan Of the Day is: Mirth...Merriment...and FUN!
Kick back! Relax! Tell a joke or two! Have a brew !
The BAR is OPEN!  We've got Eye candy...Mind candy...and 
Chicken soup for the soul!

concept car:
n.:  prototype car with new design features:
a prototype or specially built car of a completely new design or with particular new design features.

Chrysler concepts started in 1941, and with the Viper, Prowler and now the 2001 Chrysler PT Cruiser, it seems fitting to look at what they chose not to produce.

The '41 Thunderbolt was designed by Alex Tremulis (a.k.a. Tucker Torpedo). It had a one-piece retractable hardtop. Five built, four survive.

The amazing Chrysler Norseman featured a cantilevered roof which did not require A-pillars. Intended to be the premiere show car of 1957, it went down with the Andrea Doria in July of 1956 en route from Ghia in Italy.

 A car designed specifically for women

… inspired idea - or utter lunacy?

A press release at the time describes the La Comtesse: “… Chrysler's exotic new plastic top car presents a gorgeous two-tone exterior of dusty rose with a pigeon gray top. The interior is luxuriously finished in cream and dusty rose leather with seat back inserts of platinum brocatelle fabric.” Built on a New Yorker Deluxe Newport chassis, the car was powered by a 235-horsepower Chrysler FirePower V8 engine and featured fully automatic PowerFlite transmission, power steering and power brakes.

Then there was the Dodge La Femme. As a motor historian tells it: “The American public should have known the La Femme was coming. If you were to look at Dodge advertisements, owners manuals and press releases back then, you'd see female models in various Paris-designed finery, fur coats and stoles. You'd also see plenty of white-gloved hands pushing buttons, twisting knobs, shifting dash levers and inserting keys. This was pretty obviously showing the "weaker sex" having an easy time operating the heavy machinery. Men are depicted in the owner's manual as shadowy figures, usually wielding gas nozzles or garden hoses.”

In the American spring of 1955, Chrysler’s Dodge division offered the special "La Femme" trim and accessory option for its Custom Royal Lancer 2-door hardtop. The specifications, drawn from a company bulletin to dealers, say it all: “Exterior colour scheme of the car is Heather Rose over Sapphire White, and there is a gold La Femme name plate on each front fender, replacing the Royal Lancer name plate. The interior consists of specially designed Heather Rose Jacquard Fabrics and Heather Rose Cordagrain bolster and trim.

“The crowning touches which personalize the La Femme are its special feminine accessories. Two compartments located on the backs of the front seats are upholstered in Heather Rose Cordagrain. The compartment on the driver's side contains a stylish rain cape, fisherman's style rain hat and umbrella which carry out the Jacquard motif. The other compartment holds a stunning shoulder bag in soft rose leather. It is fitted with compact, lighter, lipstick and cigarette case.” * For the record, the car bombed.

Chrysler turbine engines and cars

Chrysler research scientists and engineers then returned to their original objective - the automotive gas turbine engine. In the early 1950s, experimental gas turbine power plants were operated on dynamometers and in test vehicles. Active component development programs were carried out to improve compressors, regenerators, turbine sections, burner controls, gears, and accessories.

Here they faced many challenges: fuel consumption had to be competitive with conventional engines; components had to be small and highly efficient; noise had to be in the tolerable range; engine braking was a necessity, and the acceleration time-lag had to be reasonable.

In addition, readily available and non-strategic high temperature materials had to be developed, exhaust gas temperatures had to be low, and development work had to meet the requirements of building an engine which would be light, compact, reliable, easy to maintain and, from the cost aspect, competitive with the conventional automobile engines.

In spite of these difficult requirements, Chrysler research engineers were convinced that the potentialities of the automotive gas turbine engine were more than sufficient to warrant intensive research and a full-scale design and development program.

Today, it is obvious that the advantages of the gas turbine over the conventional engine are, indeed, real. Some of these advantages are:

• Maintenance is considerably reduced
• Engine life-expectancy is much longer
• Development potential is remarkable
• The number of parts is reduced 80%
• Tuning-up is almost eliminated
• Low-temperature starting difficulties are eliminated
• No warm-up period is necessary
• Antifreeze is not needed
• Instant heat is available in the winter
• The engine will not stall with sudden overloading
• Engine operation is vibration-free
• Operates on wide variety of fuels
• Oil consumption is negligible
• Engine weight is reduced
• Exhaust gases are cool and clean

 

1964 turbine car specifications:

130 horsepower at 3,600 rpm (output shaft speed); 425 lb-ft of torque at zero rpm!

Weight: 410 lb - 25 inches long, 25.5 inches wide, 27.5 inches tall (without accessories, which make the overall length 35 inches).

Fuel requirements: what've you got? diesel, unleaded gas, kerosene, JP-4, others. No adjustments needed to switch from one to the other.

Compressor: centrifugal, single-stage compressor with 4:1 pressure ratio, 80% efficiency, 2.2 lb/sec air flow

First stage turbine: axial, single-stage, 87% efficiency, inlet temperature 1,700 degrees F.

Second-stage turbine: axial, single-stage, 84% efficiency, max speed 45,700 rpm

Regenerator: dual rotating disks, 90% effectiveness, 22 rpm max speed

Burner: single can, reverse flow, 95% efficiency

Maximum gas generator speed: 44,600 rpm

Maximum output speed, after reduction gears: 4,680 rpm

Exhaust temperature at full power: 500 degrees Fahrenheit.

The 1977 turbine car shown below, based on the LeBaron body, was the last unique-bodied turbine car made.

Could Chrysler sell a turbine now? and other answers 

Barry Dressel, manager of the Walter P. Chrysler museum, offered a number of insights (responding to Russell Richardson's request) as to why the turbine never made it into full production, and why it would be difficult to offer it now.

Chrysler Engineering began working on automotive applications for gas turbines because they were attracted by the multi-fuel capability, along with the reduced number of moving parts and the absence of vibration. The difficulties to overcome included the fact that turbines, even at the lowest end of their operating spectrum, turn at very high rpm and thus consume considerable amounts of fuel at idle, plus the fact that the application of throttle does not produce instantaneous response, but a lag while the turbine "spools-up." This is basically the same characteristic as the "turbo lag" in turbocharged piston cars.

Turbines also have a high operating temperature, requiring use of special--and expensive--alloys, and the exhaust generates considerable BTUs and exits at a very high temperature.

Turbines are also very loud. Addressing the heat and noise requires considerable more sophistication than required by the piston engine exhaust system. And while our experience with turbine cars even today is that they are quite reliable and require little maintenance, when something does break, its makeup guarantees it will expensive to replace.

For these reasons it's easy to see why aircraft and naval applications are ideal for turbines. Today the US and the British navies use destroyers powered not by steam turbines--which require constant maintenance by a comparatively large and well trained crew--but gas turbines, which are "pod" installations requiring less crew to operate and are "overhauled by replacement" during refits. The noise of these units can be dealt with fairly easily, the rpm range required is narrow, and the heat produced can be scavenged for other purposes.

By 1962 Chrysler engineers ameliorated most drawbacks to using a turbine in a domestic automobile so that the renowned fleet of fifty experimental turbine cars with custom built Ghia bodies could sent to consumers for a two-year evaluation program. The verdict the consumer evaluators was favorable overall, although throttle lag remained an issue--especially noticeable in those days of big V-8s.

The big complaint from the consumers was poor fuel economy at idle and lower speeds. Unfortunately, this wasn't something further refinement could alter very much, since high rpm is inherent in gas turbine operation. I suspect this was the main reason that the U.S. Government ended its support for Chrysler's turbine research--the Government's goal was to lower fuel consumption in vehicles, not increase it, never mind the fuel flexibility.

Parenthetically, based on our present day experience with our two operative turbine cars, high fuel consumption at idle does result in a lot of exhaust heat BTUs. This may not be a problem with one car, but the possibility of traffic jam including numbers of turbine vehicles, occurring, say, on a steamy summer morning in Atlanta, might have resulted in some interesting thermal pollution problems.

Ultimately the cost of producing turbine vehicles and the inherent drawbacks to their use in an automotive application would have produced very limited market acceptance. In talks about making cars cleaner and more fuel efficient with engineers here, I've asked whether a small turbine, turning at a constant rate, wouldn't be an ideal way to power the generator of an electric motor-driven car. Alas, the noise, high rpm and heat are still expensive problems, and turbines small enough to serve such a purpose are prohibitively expensive compared to existing alternatives, such as small diesels. In a sense, that's where Chrysler left off. In this context, the allure today of the fuel cell becomes clear.

I do know that both Volvo--the truck and bus company, not the car division now owned by Ford--and NASA have developed the sort of gas-turbo-electric hybrid I mentioned before, but the application has evidently not been feasible in an automobile--only in bigger machines, like buses.

All the types of automotive turbine uses seem to be targeted for larger vehicles--tanks, road equipment, busses, etc. The use of new ceramic materials in place of metal alloys seems to offer thermal efficiencies and economic efficiencies unheard of earlier, and the various researchers interested in gas turbines keep mentioning the future development of practical small automotive gas turbines, but no auto company I know of is currently experimenting with cars in the manner of Chrysler from the 1950s to the 1970s. In the future a small, efficient turbine may be developed that can replace the small diesels presently touted for hybrid cars.

Cole Quinnel, Engineering and Technical Affairs Public Relations Manager, noted:

Those (multi-fuel, etc) were the advantages touted in the 1960s. How much of this would still be true today is unknown because so many elements changed in conventional vehicles, automotive legislation, and related technology. Today we do an incredible amount of testing and modeling to determine cost, efficiency, customer acceptance, customer value, durability, and so on. These testing capabilities just didn't exist 40 years ago. ... Regarding [the ability to use] various types of fuel, this is true. However, they were all petroleum based fuels which does not reduce our dependency on oil. ...

You are correct that the turbine engine has evolved as well in those 40 years and that may be an advantage. The fact that Chrysler built some of these cars in the '60s is interesting trivia, but it may not be of any real value in considering whether a turbine car is viable in the future. You really must start from a clean slate of paper considering all of the changes in customers, environment, and technology.

Regarding fuel--from an immediate customer perspective, less expensive fuel options are desirable. In the long term, however, vehicles that use non-petroleum based fuel are what the government would prefer. ... that the availability of oil is decreasing is a reality and companies are working to develop alternatives.

And now, for a word from TODAY'S Sponsor!

BURKA MAN FOR PRESIDENT IN 04 !!!!

A vote for Burka Man is a vote for.....

 

[tomkow6]

 

SALUTE!

 

 

[tomkow6]

 

Good morning, Tonk! Good morning, Canteen Crew! Good morning, EVERYBODY!

GOOD  

MORNING

TROOPS!

 

Me for PREZ! VOTE !!!

[tomkow6]

 

Today's FEEBLE attempt at humor:

I was going shopping to buy a gift for my wife and asked her for her sizes.

"If it's clothes, I wear Small," she said. "If it's diamonds, I wear Large."

[tomkow6]

Chicagoland Weather

March 5, 2004
Chicago, IL
Sunrise	6:19 AM (CST)
Sunset	5:40 PM (CST)
Hrs. of Daylight	11 Hrs., 21 Mins.

Currently
57°

Rain

	Hi: 61

	Lo: 34

5 Day Forecast

FRI

SAT

SUN

MON

TUE

Scattered Thunderstorms/Wind

High:	61
Low:	29

Mostly Cloudy

High:	42
Low:	35

Cloudy/Wind

High:	37
Low:	29

Cloudy

High:	41
Low:	26

Partly Cloudy

High:	37
Low:	27

[tomkow6]

RanDUMB Thoughts from My "Voices"

Some days it's just not worth chewing through the restraints.

Only the shallow know themselves.

Did Adam and Eve have belly buttons?

Defeat isn't bitter if you don't swallow.

Nobody makes a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could only do a little.

How do you know when sour cream or yogurt goes bad?

Always drink upstream from the herd.

How does destroying the rich man help the poor man?

After the government takes enough to balance the budget, the taxpayer has the job of budgeting the balance.

To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk

Why are boxing rings square?

[MeekOneGOP]

Mornin', everybody ! Happy Friday !

Have a cup while you Freep !

For those who prefer hot chocolate.....

[SouthernHawk]

Good Morning Tomkow! ! ! Good morning to our military and good morning to the entire Canteen crew.

Warm up exercise for today. . . . . Prize Winning Lover

A man meets a gorgeous woman in a bar. They talk, they connect, they end up leaving together.

They get back to her place, and as she shows him around her apartment, he notices that her bedroom is completely packed with teddy bears.

Hundreds of small bears on a shelf all the way along the floor, medium sized ones on a shelf a little higher and huge bears on the top shelf along the wall.

The man is kind of surprised that this woman would have a collection of teddy bears, especially one that's so extensive, but he decides not to mention this to her.

After a night of passion, as they are lying together in the afterglow, the man rolls over and asks, smiling, "Well, how was it?".

She replied, "You may select any prize from the bottom shelf !"

[tomkow6]

Morning, SH! Happy Friday!

[SouthernHawk]

...Happy Friday!...

And the same to you! Hope you have a great day!

Got a lot of work on my plate today, but I'll see if there's a chance to stop by later. Take Care and have FUN

[68-69TonkinGulfYachtClub]

Click on the pic and I'll guide you
to the start of today's thread



FR CANTEEN MISSION STATEMENT
Showing support and boosting the morale of
our military and our allies military
and the family members of the above.
Honoring those who have served before.
CLICK HERE TO FIND LATEST THREAD.

[Aeronaut]

Good morning Tonk.

[SouthernHawk]

Good Friday Morning to you Brother! Glad to have been able to stop by. Gotta run for now, but wanted to tell you to have a great day!

[68-69TonkinGulfYachtClub]

[68-69TonkinGulfYachtClub]

Have a great day and tell Lady Hawk hi also!

[tomkow6]

Morning, Tonk! Got any WARM Krispy Kream donuts today?

[68-69TonkinGulfYachtClub]

Good Morning Brother!

[tomkow6]