Safety valve muffler

[Lopez Mike]

My safety is up on the end of a 1/2" pipe about three feet long. I have a small concern about the pressure drop over that length but the gauge reading drops rapidly when it lifts so that's not why I'm posting.

Every time I trailer I drop the stack, along with the valve and whistle. This means disturbing the union where the valve piping leaves the boiler. I would rather move the valve down close to the boiler and just remove the larger pipe that I would plumb upwards from the valve output.

This is a normal 150 psi, 650 pound per hour valve with a 1/2" pipe input and a 1" pipe output. I plan to use thinner wall tubing on the output with a small condensate drain hole at the valve end.

My question is this: There are all sorts of references here and there to safety valve mufflers. But no pictures or diagrams. I know lots about infernal combustion mufflers to reduce pulse noise but this isn't pulse noise and the volume increases or stays the same rather than decrease as with exhaust gasses.

Any links or information would be welcome.

[barts]

http://cuservices.net/noise_diff.html

- Bart

[JonRiley56]

Hey Mike,

Have you thought about using a drip pan elbow ? They allow you to mount the valve close to the boiler and not have the issue of the discharge blowing on people etc. You can put an up pipe on the elbow and dump the steam higher up.

I intend to set mine up this way.

jon

http://www.kunklevalve.com/catalog/KUKMC-0386-US.pdf

[farmerden]

Jon- Ijust drilled and tapped a small drain into the street elbow coming out of the safety.As it seems I use all the steam I produce, the safety very seldom activates. And the adrenilan rush that the noise creates when it does lift is way better than coffee for waking one up! The pipe on the exhaust side is standard 1/2 in copper water pipe. Den[/img]

[fredrosse]

The drip pan elbow is generally used to disconnect the safety valve body from any piping loads coming from the discharge piping, and to collect any condensate formed in the discharge pipe by a leaking safety valve. With a properly sized discharge pipe, when the safety valve opens there will be no discharge of steam from the open gap at this junction. The discharging steam acts like an inductor (eductor??), and carries ambient air into the discharge stream. Of course, if the discharge pipe is too small or restricted by fittings, etc, then back pressure will build up and steam will discharge all around the open gap.

It seems that this arrangement would be good for steamboats that typically remove their stacks (along with the safety valve discharge pipe) when trailering the boat. No connection to make up when putting the stack on/off, plus no potential loads on the safety valve body.

[Lopez Mike]

Hmm. Lot's of good information. There's a reason we all hang out here, other than to irritate our partners!

The muffler that Bart sent the link to is on my list for a future project. I like drilling lots of little holes on my index head. But too big of a project for now.

The drip pan idea has the important things I need. And some that I don't. Den's system is fine if I wasn't taking my stack down a lot. I might chose a larger diameter exhaust pipe though.

I think I will probably build something like this:

My valve has a one inch female thread output. I'll find an adapter from that to 1" copper pipe. Then an elbow with a drip hole and a couple of inches of 1" copper pipe. All of this rigidly mounted to the safety. Then a 1" inch riser going up most of the height of the stack. The 1" pipe will have a 1" to 1.5 inch reducer on it's lower end so that it fits loosely over the one inch stub. Centered by some small screws or dimples but not tightly. Prevented from dropping down too far over the 1" stub by a cross pin. Maybe not. The riser can be held at the upper end by the bracket I have up there for the safety.

Probably the first time the safety pops the 1" pipe will take off like a rocket. My usual luck. Someone has to provide the entertainment. Maybe a bail of some sort to keep it from taking off.

A friend came by today and offered to take my hull off of my hands. Something about using it for raised beds to grow vegetables. I told him to come back in a year. Sigh.

[DetroiTug]

Mike,

The stack on the tug folds down as well. The whistle currently routes through roof and is simply connected to the end of a pipe. The new whistle will be mounted to the stack near the top. I'm going to run rigid pipe and break it with a pipe union at the roof. On the collar nut of the union I am going to weld to short handles to keep from having to use a wrench every time.

-Ron

[barts]

Otter's stack comes down for trailering; I use copper unions, but nothing is soldered. The pipe is captive because of it's size.

- Bart