To: news:rec.crafts.metalworking
Hey, gang! Feeling better lately. Getting ready for Thanksgiving.
In Kinematic Self-Replicating Machines
=A9 2004 Robert A. Freitas Jr. and Ralph C. Merkle
the authors mention actual machine tools in section 3.12. I am wondering if 4-stroke, 2-stroke, or turbine engines would make the best prime movers for a self-powered self-reproducing machine tool (SPSRMT). You see, we distribute power with electric wires now, to various types of tools: machine tools, power hand tools, stationary power tools. If, as these authors propose, certain design changes can be made to produce a universal tool, it would only require a single prime mover. Now, electric machines are difficult to produce with machine tools, but engines are not.
So I am now asking for any comments on internal combustion, self-powered, self-reproducing universal machine tools.
A few random thoughts:
It seems like complex turbine blades are out of reach. So that's why I titled this post with IC. Turbine engines are technically EC. But hey, if it's in the machine capability, turbines could be an option.
Jet A and other purified kerosenes constituting rocket fuels might be appropriate as a fuel base because the whole field of SRMT technology is related to the colonization of space. Only in the extreme case of a seed ship carrying SRMTs to a destination colony would the nature of this technology be required. It can't compete here on Earth; it's too costly compared to mass production of machine tools. I don't see a use for LOX in the shop unless it's in a compact welding unit. Kinda dangerous stuff. Powering machine tools on H2; any thoughts on that?
The authors above do not mention the utter primacy of the anneal/machine/harden/temper sequence as it applies to carbon steel and a few other materials in shop operations. It is the lever by which the Industrial Revolution was lifted from its base. I'd like to hear more on this. Does anyone here remember carbon steel lathe bits, or are we all too young for that?
I have learned from snipped-for-privacy@micapeak.com that two cylinders are optimal for self-repair of a motorcycle; when one goes bad, you have one left to either limp home on or provide motive power and battery energy with which you can debug the other. My latest bike has Direct Injection Technology in a 2-stroke. However this is controlled by semiconductors. What's a simple reliable, *easily built* 2-cylinder engine; a diesel? Some design already on road or in use?
Compressed air has uses in the shop; is there an integrated engine/compressor design capable of enough pressure to form liquid air, from which LOX and LN can be separated? Maybe one that can run on four cylinders at full power, or two at half power, or on two driving and two compressing cylinders, with little useful mechanical power output. Is there some ratio to be had, assuming modular cylinders, between the work of compressing air and the work available from an engine cylinder, something in the low integers? I just proposed that this ratio be 1:1. Should it be 4:1? 8:1?
My apologies for any spelling errors.
The Dougster Replikon Research Falls Church, VA 22044-0394 snipped-for-privacy@aol.com email