I've had a long-term fantasy of taking a team of engineers ("little e engineers!") who are current with some of the advanced analysis methods, metalurgy and other techniques developed in the prior century since these locomotives were built and "disassemble them down to requirements". First requirement being: the external visuals have to remain the same.
But firebox drafting seems like a HUGE opportunity. Both on the smokebox end and the firebox end, and looking at both coal and oil. Mass air flow analysis tools are a 'toolbox' item, they're not a specialty item anymore, so optimizing the front end to be efficient and strategically place some 'dead zones' to drop cinders becomes a realistic goal.
Boiler? Superheaters? Eh, those are constrained by basic design and limits of sticking with familiar, easy to work with materials. Firebox? Lots of thermal circulation opportunities some of which are being tried now with different arch tube designs.
Fun speculation!
SRK
rainbowroute Wrote:
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> When I look at the photos of K36 and other
> locomotive's smokebox internals, I can't help but
> wonder if there isn't a considerable amount of
> drafting capability just left on the table. The
> exhaust nozzle and base of stack are merely a
> steam-air ejector pump where a jet of steam
> entrains the hot smokebox gasses to pull a draft.
>
> In the 1950s and 1960s, NACA/NASA funded a lot of
> research into studying the design and performance
> of ejector pumps - largely for thrust augmentation
> and noise reduction on jet engines (in aviation,
> we also use them as fuel transfer and circulation
> pumps). However, all of that research and
> knowledge is directly applicable to any other
> ejector design...and all of it was gained
>
after anyone cared to put calories towards
> steam locomotive development and optimization.
>
> My own experience with designing ejectors for
> aircraft systems leads me to think that some
> tweaks and changes to the current setup in the
> K36s may yield noticeably better drafting. But
> maybe I'm naive and am missing something. Or
> maybe it's not needed or value added. Anyhow,
> just the curious musings of an engineer in a
> different industry.