Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Advanced Uniflow Steam Engine


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was   delete. Consensus and strength of argument indicate that this invention doesn't meet WP:GNG.  Sandstein  18:18, 1 December 2013 (UTC)

Advanced Uniflow Steam Engine

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So far as I can tell the article is a spam-like advertisement for a patent. The work described is OR and there are no reliable sources other than the original patents, which are not reliable sources for notability, and so the article does not show notability of the topic. GliderMaven (talk) 13:47, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

Are there any references here, especially independent ones, that discuss the AUSE engine in particular, as opposed to being about uniflow engines in general?

So far I'm seeing a novel engine put forward as a notable subject:
 * It is a novel engine. It is a new invention by one particular team. If it isn't, then it belongs in the existing uniflow steam engine article.
 * It uses a single electromechanically-actuated inlet valve.
 * It has a void within the piston, controlled by a sprung bash valve. (I don't believe the benefit of this)
 * It doesn't use a condenser on the exhaust, because it doesn't need one. (I don't believe the authors understand why this isn't an advantage)
 * It abandons the recompression of exhaust steam when approaching TDC. This is an advantage of the Stumpf uniflow engine. The authors here appear not to appreciate the thermodynamics of either engine.


 * Although it's not a key part of the design, the piston is made of Invar. At this point I stop believing its technical credibility.

I'm seeing no independent sources for the engine described above. I'm seeing almost nothing (outside this article) that meet the standard of well-presented OR by the team itself, such as would be in a technical paper. Overall I find this engine simplistic and far from an improvement over previous practice. It appears to have been designed by someone unskilled in steam engine design and thermodynamics and it makes many decisions from a basis of ignorance. Particularly it seems to operate as an engine with no expansion, using some incompressible fluid. It entirely ignores (as Stumpf had such a deep understanding of) the effects of expansion in the steam and the conversion of heat energy into pressure energy.

I'm in no rush to be a deletionist, but if this appeared at AfD, I'd have no basis for arguing to keep it. Andy Dingley (talk) 11:36, 12 November 2013 (UTC)


 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Technology-related deletion discussions. Northamerica1000(talk) 15:20, 24 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of History-related deletion discussions. Northamerica1000(talk) 15:20, 24 November 2013 (UTC)


 * Weak keep -- This may be a bad article, but it is not WP:OR as it appears to be reporting on a US patent, as indicated by the talk-space item on the main page. It certainly needs tagging for improvement, but not in my view deletion.  Peterkingiron (talk) 21:35, 24 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Where's the patent? I can't see one related to this engine. If this was decent quality OR, this would be published as someone's MSc thesis or whatever and this article could then at least reference that. As it is, we've a dubious invention supported by nothing else other than this article. That's textbook OR and just exactly what we're not here to do. Andy Dingley (talk) 21:55, 24 November 2013 (UTC)


 * No, see WP:PATENTS. Patents are not reliable sources for notability in wikipedia; you can put virtually anything in a patent, and the patent office will rubber stamp it. They're not reliable; there's no editorial or refereeing in patents, the patent office just check nobody has patented it before. They can only be sources to prove what was patented, and when. They don't show anything about notability; for that we need something in books and refereed papers, there's none of that here.GliderMaven (talk) 23:18, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

Note from author: Below are responses to the above comments on this uniflow engine.


 * The uniflow engine primarily the work of Dan Gelbart, a well known retired engineer who specializes in ressurecting obsolete and forgotten technologies. He has worked to restore Galileo's optical instruments in Italy. He reburbished (rebuilt) the very first ruby laser and demonstrated it at Simon Fraser University. In the current effort, he has recreated the uniflow steam engine, the development of which was stopped by the advent of steam turbines and diesel engines. Gelbart is not in business and his efforts are not product prototypes. The motivation for the work is to preserve important historical technologies that have otherwise been forgotten. The nature of this work on forgotten technologies means there are few references to be cited. The Wikipedia article is an attempt to document forgotten historical knowledge before it is lost again.


 * The electromechanically-actuated inlet valve is logical progression for steam engine control, previously patented. Note that an electromechanically-actuated inlet valve does not require complicated valve gear (cam shafts, etc).


 * The inlet valve (not the piston valve) is a "sprung bash valve". The benefit of this is that large solenoid current is not required to open the inlet valve against high pressure steam. The mechanical energy needed to bash open the inlet valve (force X travel) is only about 0.03% of engine power. This is much less that standard valve gear.


 * The uniflow engine actually does use a condenser on the exhaust. However, the condenser is not a vacuum condenser, which is more expensive and complicated.


 * There are three methods of handling spent steam in a uniflow engine. 1) The engine can adiabatically recompress spent steam at TDC to convert mechanical energy (stored in the flywheel) back into heat, some of which is lost though the insulation around the cylinder head. The advantage is mechanical simplicity (no valve in piston). The disadvantages are that a heavier flywheel may be needed and that energy is lost through waste heat. 2) A vacuum condenser can remove spent steam from the cylinder. This can add efficiency at the expense of greater mechanical complexity. A vacuum condenser may not be appropriate for a small engine. 3) A valve in the piston allows the return stroke of the piston to pump used steam from the cylinder. This eliminates the need for a vacuum condenser but adds a precision moving part to a complicated piston design. The engine described uses 3) as the most economical approach.


 * An Invar piston is an economical choice to avoid steam leaks and cylinder wear. The Invar alloy is not intrinsically expensive; only low demand makes the price high. An Invar piston can be cast and machined, just like an aluminum piston.

Editor Andy Dingley says: "Particularly it seems to operate as an engine with no expansion, using some incompressible fluid." This is a misunderstanding. The engine operates on expanding steam. No incompressible fluid is used.

I hope the editors will not delete this article. --Guy Immega (talk) 23:26, 25 November 2013 (UTC)


 * This wiki article will inevitably be deleted because it fails the basic tests of a wiki article – in particular WP:N and WP:RS. As it seems to go nowhere in meeting them, then deletion will happen. I'm not calling for it, I doubt that the names on this page known for their interest in steam engines will be keen to remove it either, but as soon as one of the teenagers sees it, it'll be gone. WP:N and WP:RS. I would suggest saving a draft of this in userspace at User:Guy Immega/Advanced Uniflow Steam Engine, as something to work on with a view to obtaining such sources.
 * The question of whether it works or not is interesting, but simply irrelevant to WP. This isn't an academic journal, it doesn't care. You can describe a water-fuelled car here and, provided that some other source has also discussed it, water-fuelled snake oil is WP:Notable per WP policy.
 * As to the engine details, then I remain unconvinced, but that's too much detail for the moment. Andy Dingley (talk) 11:54, 26 November 2013 (UTC)


 * Delete fails WP:GNG. Requires multiple reliable independent sources that discuss the topic. -- Green Cardamom (talk) 04:40, 30 November 2013 (UTC)


 * Delete - Patents and self-published sources do not establish notability. ~KvnG 23:59, 30 November 2013 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.