For this seasonal edition, we bring you Graham Sykes with his record-breaking season with his "Force of Nature" Steam Bike:
2024 has been very kind to the Force of Nature team this year. We ended 2023 by running a 0.91 second 60 ft and a 3.6 second 1/8 mile and 6.169 second 1/4 mile time with the quickest 1/8th speed of 185.8 mph. This made the bike the fastest Steam powered vehicle in the world.
We retired the old 2023 pressure vessel as it was time served and started designing the new CPE pressure vessel for 2024. This new design would incorporate a completely new main valve set up to try and improve flow and reduce turbulence. The new valves are also category 5 (Bubble tight) as they utilise a special
"Soft Seat" which gives 100% seal, but can still withstand the pressure temperature of the water at 250 deg C temperature and 40+Bar pressure. This is no mean feat as the valves have to open in under 200 milliseconds and indeed have to be able to close in the same time if I need to shut off. Safety first!
These valve were supplied by my colleague over in Texas, John Allan Hudson. Himself a well recognised Hydrogen Peroxide Rocket car driver. Historically campaigning The "Texas Starship" and has been an invaluable friend in bouncing ideas of each other for many years.
The new Vessel was slightly smaller volume because of the new design and larger burner tubes fitted through the vessel. We had a capacity of 88 litres of super pure deionised water and with last year's flow rates we calculated around 2.6 seconds of thrust. As things turned out during testing we found the new valve set up was performing incredibly well, and we were surprised at just how much they could flow, with 44.0 litres per second, so very quickly we found ourselves running 0.8 60 foots.
Having made the difficult decision at the start of the year of informing Santa Pod that I just wasn’t ready to run the bike until later in the year, because we wanted to test the new valve system and safety, we agreed that we would run at the end of the season at Flame and Thunder. The October meeting at Melbourne raceway on Saturday, I ran a 0.86 60 ft and also broke the outright track record again running a 3.58 1/8 mile
Knowing that we were tuning the bike in the right direction we turned it up a little more by fitting slightly larger nozzle inserts, it was agreed that Phil Wood who has ridden the bike before run on the Sunday so I could watch the bike run.
Phil rode the bike well and with larger inserts we broke the track record again at 3.42 seconds, but this time running our first 0.78 60 ft. We were all really pleased, but by having the luxury of actually observing the bike as opposed to being on it! I noticed that the steam plume and nozzles were "Underdeveloped" meaning the air pressure in the plume was greater than atmospheric pressure. So We needed larger nozzles.
The last meeting was to be at Santa pod Flame and Thunder, so it was decided to make some new nozzles to fit for this meeting. After calculating the size required I set to and had them machined at Wyvern Precision who have better turning capacity than I have at home. These were duly fitted and everything looked good to maybe beat our own record to the 1/8th and 1/4 mile. Perhaps to even become the fastest bike to the 1/8th! But unfortunately it wasn’t to be as the British weather decided to not play ball, and before we were due to run the due point dropped, and we lost the opportunity to run on safety grounds.
It was a great shame but safety first. We were left not knowing if the larger nozzles would work or not, and this information was critical for us to be able to make informed decisions on the design for the 2025 new pressure vessel. However, I was contacted by Straightliners and said we could run at Elvington in November so could at least gain run data. I asked if we could run on the World record studs marked off on the runway, and we run 4 separate clocks for the run could be at world record level. Trevor Duckworth and team duly obliged and with Phil Wood assuming the riding duties again as I had damaged my shoulder on the last run on the bike, we set up for the run on the Sunday afternoon.
We planned on running twice in the day, so this meant starting the heating process at 5.00 am Monday, and by 10.28 am we were on the start line on the main runway. With the jig on the beam, Phil aligned the bike and with a count-down from 5 to 0 he set off with more power than ever before. After the steam had cleared, we were told the times, and we had run faster to the 1/8th than any 2 wheeler. With a time of 0.723 60 ft 1.968 330 ft 3.284 1/8th mile and 6.165 1/4 mile. We turned the bike round, and we ran again at 16.25 as the sun was setting we were ready to run. We had made more changes and didn't know if we would run slower or beat the morning's times, but we ran marginally slower with 0.759 60 ft 1.981 330 ft 3.313 1/8 mile and 6.243 1/4 mile . Still backing up the record run.
So what’s next.... 2025 will see yet another different pressure vessel and set up to improve the performance of the rocket and also increase the thrust duration to around 3.2 seconds. This will take us under power to around the 700-800 ft mark and will see a big difference in times and speeds because to date we have only used 1.902 seconds of power.
Rockets are not everyone’s cuppa! (No pun intended), and It's not an internal combustion engine that is driving a rear wheel, but we are only using water and kerosene to achieve these times and speeds, and it's something very different and spectacular. If you have not seen the bike run, then you are in for a treat!
Can we run faster than any other bike? I don’t know, but let's see what power we can deliver with the new bike set up which we are aiming to début somewhere in the middle of 2025 time and money permitting. Its a big balance between work and play!
You can keep in touch with what’s going on in the Yorkshire Rocket shed over winter at www.force-of-nature.com
I could not have done any of this without a strong team and backing, so thank you too,
- Diane Sykes: My wife and teammate
- Billy Hudson: Team rock and all round good guy
- Jim Dickman: The diagnosis guru and grafter
- Mike Hodgkiss: Chief coat holder and food taster!
- Phil Wood: World class rider and water supplier
- CPE Pressure Vessels: For manufacturing World beating Stainless Steel and Carbon Pressure Vessels
- IMI Norgren: For supply of Pneumatic and fluid motion control Systems
- Mial Coach Builders: For Race Trailer and parts
- AIM Technologies: World's Leading Data logging systems
- DSG Apicom: One Stop Solution for Automotive testing requirements
- Firebird: Britain’s leading Kerosene and HVO Burner suppliers
- Hall Bros: Quality Fuel and Lubricant suppliers to Force of Nature and Melbourne raceway
- Carbon-Fibre.com Bespoke carbon fibre and Kevlar Components and parts.
- Straightliners. Europe’s leading organisers of straight line events
All the very best and season's greetings to you all, Yours in sport,
Graham Sykes Designer, builder, rider.
