On 31/08/10 04:24, sirdarnell wrote:
> I keep seeing this. The military has been using diesel generators with electric engines since the 1930s (maybe earlier) to get more range. So it must be work. Not to mention trains, cruise ships, Ice breakers, freighters, etc.
>
It's not more range, it's fine control of extremely large power flows -
with the large ships and the ice breakers, it's power outputs so large
that mechanical gearboxes become a challenge to build and maintain.
For the railways is was for a simplified transmission at high power.
Diesel mechanical locomotives do exist, but generally at the lower end
of the power spectrum. The Germans built high power mechanical drive
railway locomotives but they required meticulous maintenance to get any
level of reliability, but they persisted with it as they could get quite
high power efficiencies. The American railroads wanted something tough ,
reliable and easy to maintain. Diesel-Mechanical didn't cut it on the
'easy to maintain' front.
Until you are at those extreme power levels, any small scale electrical
transmission is going to have higher losses than a pure mechanical one,
thus less range than a mechanical transmission. You can't have a higher
loss system but also get more range out of it!.
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