Horse power needed to turn a 22" dia X 31" tall cylinder weighing about 250lbs @  500 to 1500 Rpm

Hi

Could you please tell us what load you expect? If the cylinder is balanced, it will require very little HP to maintain the speed. I assume that that the cylinder does something like tumbling or mixing some sort of material. Please expand your description of the machine then we will be better able to help.

Bill

Per request:  load is essentially inertia of the mass of the cylinder, and drag from the air around it, and friction of the  bearings, there is fluid running thru it but it's volume will remain constant.so I don't believe it matters. Not quite sure regarding your question of "load" (not my area of expertise)  Think of it being similar to a washing machine in the spin cycle..

Hi Robert,

As Bill pointed out there is very little horsepower needed for the spinning of the cylinder, friction with the air, or bearing friction if the bearings are good quality. The fluid that runs through it could present considerable load if it is being spun up to the 1500 RPM as it passes through the cylinder. This will be able to be calculated by determining the mass and volume of the fluid that enters the cylinder each second. This mass and volume will act as a cylinder of fluid that has to be accelerated from 0 to 1500 RPM each second. This will take a certain amount of energy and this will be supplied by the Horse Power of the motor. What we need to give you more information is an answer to these questions

1. What is the volume and specific gravity of the maximum amount of fluid that enters the cylinder each second of operation?

2. Are there vanes or other mechanisms, in the cylinder, that cause the fluid to spin up to full RPM. If not what is the assumed percent of full spin RPM that is expected for the fluid.

3. What is the Max RPM that is ever used.

4. To be very accurate the moment of inertia for the cylinder should also be calculated as this will dictate a baseline horse power needed to spin the cylinder alone from 0 to full RPM in a specified period of time.

If this is critical you should have an engineer or physicist look at the system. If it isn't critical you could go empirical and try a motor and see how well it handles the job and adjust the size of the motor up or down from there.

John

1500 RPM is quite fast for something this size - are you sure that it is rated to spin at this speed, including the load of whatever is inside it ?

Having said that - measure the power going into you existing drive system at a range of speeds - the plot input power against speed on a graph and you may well be able to extrapolate the power needed for 1500 RPM.

(This assumes that you have a variable speed drive and that you can get the thing spinning at all.

What is it, and can we have  a picture ?

MK

Due to the fact that our patents are not yet approved I can't give out much more detail than I have already. So at this time pictures are not an option.

As for it's purpose it is intended to provide all the existing products currently provided by fossil crude, but from a net carbon zero source that is from a virtually inexhaustible supply. Will reduce human caused fertilizers leached into  the environment without any detrimental environmental effects of its own.

It will allow all nations in temperate to tropical zones  100% energy independence.

The structure is designed to handle 1500 + RPM, is balanced, We have run it dry up to 1100 RPM but shut down as the motor was getting hotter than expected. (may have been a power supply problem). It will have between 10 & 20 GPM running thru it entering from the center shaft.at the bottom.

Currently it is belt driven thru a pulley at a ratio of 3.6363.....  to 1

My resources are nearly exhausted and this is the last hurdle before running full operational test. I just need to be sure it can run continuously with out burning up a motor in front of potential investors.   Any help is appreciated

Hi Robert. The flow rate that you mention is not a lot. I am guessing that you are using a 3600RPM motor and with the pulley ratio mentioned are getting just shy of 1000 RPM on the cylinder. Unless you have engineered a provision it is likely that initial flow fills the cylinder and accelerates to between almost 0 feet per second at the center to about 96 meters per second near the outer shell of the cylinder. Once full of liquid any further liquid would tend to flow fairly undisturbed down the center of the cylinder and out the other end. This may not be your intention. If you had a motor that was working but getting hot then you could try upping the horse power. Make sure the motor has the recommended voltage. All motors that operate under load will get too hot to touch so do not be alarmed at this specifically. If you have a clamp amp meter you can watch the amperage that is being drawn and as long as this stays below motor specifications you will be ok. This is probably all I can say as your inability to be specific leaves me guessing at a lot of things and my answers are therefore at best guesses.

John