Office of Steam Forum for Model & Toy Steam Gas & Hot Air Engines

Thanks Nick  trying to workout how much fuel an engine would take to boil xx amount of water. Maybe there is a table somewhere
Regards
RON

I think you could estimate that - fun to try to think that through in any event..  To convert one fl oz of water at 70º F to steam requires about 70 BTU's.  Burning one fl oz of methanol produces about 490 BTU.  Looks like that tank holds maybe 2 oz of water, so that says you need to get about 140 BTU's into the water. The big unknown is the transfer efficiency of the meth burner through the boiler into the water - I'm guessing that would be about 40%.  If that is all true.....you need to burn about 3/4 of a fl oz of Methanol to empty the boiler.

Okay - I could be way off, but it is always fun to shake off the cobwebs and figure this stuff out.  What do you think?