Have any steam engines capable of transporting themselves over land ever been designed to run on that sort of pressure? I was pretty sure they were quite a bit higher than that. Not two whole orders of magnitude (like this compressed-air bomb/car) but a lot more than 35-40.
Though that brings up another interesting point: have any land steam engines ever been designed to use a condensor to generate below-atmospheric pressure on the low-pressure side of the drive piston? I know the first steam engines operated entirely below atmospheric, but those were huge things that didn't generate enough power to move their own weight.
No more pressure than required to drive the pistons. Granted, the low end would be 35 to 40 but the high end would be 80 PSI. Then consider this, about 200 to 250 HP out of four cylinders. Todays tech and they could produce a steam car that will get in excess of 500 miles before you had to re water and put more methane/whatever for the boiler. One of the articles I had seen on the Stanley was that you came home in the winter..shut down the boiler to pilot and quik coupled it to your hot water heat in your home. So you heat your house with the car as a add on heat source. The boilers were copper coiled..need not say any more as you dont run copper with anything with high pressure. No more danger than todays gasoline engines...matter of fact I would sooner drive one than a gas engine car if one was made.
The one particular car I saw looked like a Hudson conversion and it had no brakes as the engine was the brake. About 100 moveable parts and was direct drive. Could stop and start on the steepest of hills. Took about 3 minutes to get up a head of steam to start in the morning in winter. Cruised at 60 plus MPH.
The world land speed record was held for many many years by a Stanley. 127.7 MPH at Daytona Beach in 1906 or 7.
Why did they go by the wayside? Because gasoline was 5 gallons for about 13 cents back then..thats why.
The Stanley Steamer gave IC engines quite a run for the money in the early 1900's. Its biggest drawback was slow acceleration and startup time.