Communities

Writing
Writing
Codidact Meta
Codidact Meta
The Great Outdoors
The Great Outdoors
Photography & Video
Photography & Video
Scientific Speculation
Scientific Speculation
Cooking
Cooking
Electrical Engineering
Electrical Engineering
Judaism
Judaism
Languages & Linguistics
Languages & Linguistics
Software Development
Software Development
Mathematics
Mathematics
Christianity
Christianity
Code Golf
Code Golf
Music
Music
Physics
Physics
Linux Systems
Linux Systems
Power Users
Power Users
Tabletop RPGs
Tabletop RPGs
Community Proposals
Community Proposals
tag:snake search within a tag
answers:0 unanswered questions
user:xxxx search by author id
score:0.5 posts with 0.5+ score
"snake oil" exact phrase
votes:4 posts with 4+ votes
created:<1w created < 1 week ago
post_type:xxxx type of post
Search help
Notifications
Mark all as read See all your notifications »
Q&A

Building a powerful coiled spring engine

+0
−0

I trust Brandon Sanderson to have done his research - in his book "The Rithmatist" he writes about coiled spring batteries that power a passenger train. I do wonder what could be achieved with a spring engine, in a world where the internal combustion engine hasn't been invented?

Specifically:

  1. What would be required (tech and material wise - metalurgy, math etc.) to build a powerful engine, such that would power a full passenger train at practical-for-serious-transportation speeds, say 50 miles per hour? For how long would one battery last (Note that Sanderson wisely put in the ability to switch engines/batteries. A train/ship is allowed to stop for a couple o' minutes, then to keep going)?

  2. How powerful can we get? Could we go 100 mph? more? Could we get ships and tanks and other power-hungry machines going on spring engines?

Think of how much gas can be saved, cost and green environment, etc...

EDIT: I found an article where something similair is discussed: why not a wind up car . ?In my question, however, I'm talking about a world where combustion/electric engines don't exist.

History
Why does this post require attention from curators or moderators?
You might want to add some details to your flag.
Why should this post be closed?

This post was sourced from https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/q/23395. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

0 comment threads

0 answers

Sign up to answer this question »