Lee
Peter Crew estimated 300l/min from some of his heats which I think were
bellows blown.
I may be wrong there because he does not say in the report what he was using
and he does now have a mechanical bellows. His hand powered bellows are
quite big.
If you want a high flow through a finite pipe (we know the size of the
tuyere hole) you have to increase the air pressure. This may mean reducing
the
size of the bellows if they are to be operated by one man. You then have to
pump at a high rate - jolly hard work. It also produces a highly pulsed air
flow. No doubt for a short time you can produce high flow rates.
I don't know the power of your blower but a man can sustain about 100-150
watts
in steady work.
While I cannot see the comparison between your experiments and the early
iron age furnces being easy the American bloomeries (which I would class as
industrial archaeology) seem not to be well understood. Turner wrote that
they could make high carbon steel at will. From what you say on your website
perhaps you can too with a little more work.
Peter
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