c94e551f   
   From: DGoncz@replikon.net   
      
   I'm aware of Sorenson's book on gas turbines my father used it in study in   
   1954. Sadly it is not in my current selection. I owned it for years.   
      
   Most gas turbines including fixed plants operate on the Brayton cycle and   
   this original post refers mostly to those fixed plants running a Brayton   
   cycle. However for aircraft propulsion and afterburner is usually added to   
   what is typically a Brighton cycle mobile plant to produce high speeds   
   exceeding the speed of sound. This original post refers only to one very   
   special and apparently novel cycle which I call the von Neumann cycle for   
   the following reasons:   
      
   If there were a fixed plant with a centrifugal compressor, and extended   
   long shaft connecting the centrifugal compressor to a remotely mounted   
   radial inflow... For the sake of argument... Power extracting turbine,   
      
   And   
      
   Some nut job like me overloaded the burner to produce afterburner   
   conditions between the compressor and the turbine:   
      
   1: the shaft would melt   
   2: nothing useful would be accomplished   
   3: there would be equipment damage and possible loss of life   
      
   So let's say they were a way around that,   
   Let's say that like the very common turbo fan configuration used in large   
   aircraft   
      
   There was, after the beginning of the cycle,   
      
   A secondary airstream dedicated not so much to propulsion but really   
   dedicated only to cooling that long shaft, the evidence suggests since this   
   is already been accomplished in turbofan configuration, enough bypass air   
   could be directed around the long extended Central shaft to not only cool   
   it but to get something useful done   
      
   That usefulness would be precisely what I now propose   
      
   Just for the sake of visualization imagine a is centrifugal compressor with   
   enough capacity to flow some bypass air of diameter say a foot   
      
   Imagine that it's 8 in off the floor and is ingesting air right now and   
   making a horrible noise   
      
   Imagine the air flows upwards and a foot higher in this long system around   
   this long Central shaft   
      
   We have the first burner   
      
   A conventional burner which adds enough energy to the gas stream to make   
   the compressor turbine a self-enhancing power generating system   
      
   And then next upwards in the imagination right about it waist level   
      
   We have positioned a secondary burner for afterburner use   
      
   The question is why would anyone do it   
      
   The answer is this tiny thing could melt metals   
      
   That's the answer   
      
   And why call it a von Neumann cycle?   
      
   The cycle is novel. No one's ever put in afterburner inside the gas stream   
   between the compressor and the turbine. The long shaft is novel. Melting   
   metals is novel.   
      
   The problem of machine tool is self reproduction was first looked at in our   
   share literature by John von Neumann in notes which contributed   
   posthumously to the book edited by Arthur Burke's, with whom I spoke some   
   years ago, that book being self reproducing automata.   
      
   Mostly it was about cellular automatons   
      
   But the idea of a universal constructor really started there as far as we   
   know in the literature we share. If you drove back you find others making   
   contributions but he's got the name for it   
      
      
   So when I call it  a von Neumann cycle?   
      
   The long shaft between the turbine and the compressor which certainly be   
   need to be explored but there are designs for long slender shafts that   
   don't whip they tend to look like the spokes of a chair they are skinny on   
   each end and fatter in the middle   
      
   If you had a small furnace that could blow that kind of air you can melt   
   metal quickly and cleanly   
      
      
   Which six metals would you melt?   
      
   That answer lies to be researched but for now for the rest of my life at   
   least   
      
   I will call a fixed plant with an afterburner interposed between remotely   
   mounted centrifugal compressor and radial inflow turbine such that metals   
   can be melted in the combustion chamber and used after melting to pour   
   castings which are near net shape of the compressor and turbine components,   
   and thereby used after melting to forecastings which are really of any   
   conceivable form in a non-trivial way which contributes to calling that   
   portion of the system a universal constructor,   
      
   I'll call that von Nueman cycle power plant   
      
   I will be looking for which six metal best that is the same most   
   effectively comprise neay universal selection. Certainly inconel and Invar   
   would be there, certainly brass, certainly aluminum leaving too and there's   
   the rub   
      
   You see to get steel really hot you have to blow the carbon out of it and   
   in the Bessemer process. Is the carbon in the steel ignites the still gets   
   really hot so you pour good steel that way   
      
   So cast iron would be the fifth exempting steel leaving it for a secondary   
   methods.   
      
   And conceivably such a plant could power electrical generating machinery to   
   do the rest of the things that are involved in universal construction like   
   power a 3D printer and keep the lights on and keep people warm and happy   
   and all that.   
      
   Anyhow those are my thoughts when I was chatting about this with Jan   
   Bochenek, who is advised me about these self reproducing machinery ideas   
   for some 39 years now, and we came up together with calling it the von   
   Neumann cycle.   
      
   Jen already has a pair of 55 gallon drums one of which the upper one is   
   used for burning the wax or melting the wax out of an investment casted   
   mold, and the lower one of which is used for heating metal until it's hot   
   enough to pour into that mold after the upper mold has been lowered to the   
   floor meaning a very carefully prepared for and everyone is ready to adopt   
   the risks involved with a pour   
      
      
   I'll tell you more about the additive and subtractive machinery later   
      
   But I think this is a useful contribution towards self-replicating   
   factories in general   
      
   Let's see what's the physics content   
      
   Well the long shaft makes the combustion chamber toroidal and then the   
   insulation in the middle makes it sort of thermally toroidal, that is to   
   say that that toroidal coordinates are involved in the analysis of the   
   combustion chamber in the shaft configuration to keep the whole thing for   
   melting in place and blowing up   
      
   And I like stuff that blows up or can blow up   
      
   I like toroidal coordinates and probably so do you   
      
   So there's your coordinate system and that's physics   
      
   Good night   
      
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