Guest Sixcav Posted April 12, 2006 Share Posted April 12, 2006 If you know of and have a link to an alternative method to power cars, i.e. electric, hybrid, compressed air and so on, post your link here. Maybe we can get Ford to look into these. I'll start with this French designed compressed air car though I understand there is an American version that is an improvement over even that. Still, lets post the links and see what's out there. http://www.theaircar.com/ Bluecon, Ford4v, post your links too please. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ford4v429 Posted April 13, 2006 Share Posted April 13, 2006 (edited) Americans will never give up their cars. So if we want to drive them we need to find ways to power them without continuing to use non-renewable resources like oil. So compressed air is a viable alternative. It doesn't pollute and it is renewable. Yes we may need to build another neuclear power plant somewhere, but at least that is money that stays in this country. But the other part of the solution is to utilize mass transit. We gotta stop making highways wider. It never solves the traffic congestion in the long run. A mile of highway is 10 times the cost of a mile of rail to build and maintain. Think of all the non-renewable fuel we waste sitting or creeping along in traffic. I applaud the creativity of this compressed air car, whether it ends up being a success or not. It shows there are people out there working to solve the problem. If compressed air were energy, I'd be all for it, but its just more of an inefficient energy storage method...if for reducing innercity pollution, fine, but I bet its still creating several times more pollution at the power generation plant out in the boonies burning oil/gas/coal... heres a snippet on air- from http://www.compressedairchallenge.org/ : <<Rule of Thumb In a typical compressed air system, to operate a 1 horsepower air motor, about 6-8 hp of electrical power is required by the compressor.>> Like I mentioned above, Ive never heard of an even remotely efficient way to use air as a storage medium. If they can get it worked out to where it actually CONSERVES energy/cuts our fuel demands/etc, I'm all for it- my worry is the marketing gurus will hype it up as cheep/pollution free/etc, yet behind the scenes increase fuel consumption(even if 'off peak'/somewhere else- its still WASTING energy), and all the associated stuff that goes along with it...like the environmentalists burning down the big houses in protest of deforestation- ok, now they can mill up 10,000 more trees so insurance can rebuild what they burned down...hmm, that worked well. off peak compressed air might be cheep for a while, as plants have excess capacity, but what if the market took off? if everything was run on compressed air we'd likely multiply our net fuel consumption by 5+ times. I think the direct injection small displacement diesel is going to be a true way to improve net fuel consumption. Theres tons of ways to get free energy, but it will cost a bunch to develop them...imagine if a big ass turbine were installed parallel to the panama canal- the moon keeps pulling that water around everyday, we couldnt build a big enough turbine to drain the gulf overnight...basically unlimited power available. Ive seen smaller scale concepts of just damming up chunks of coastline, tides come in/out thru turbines...free energy, neat ideas. Compressed air=inefficient storage medium- even if free(for now) its wasteful, and wont help our kids in the big picture. We need to find something better than a 10-20% efficient way to store energy. Ford We're not talking about powering cities here man. We are talking about powering automobiles. Get with the program and quit it with the doubting thomas crap. lol Lead me, follow me, or get the fuck outta the way but good God come up with something other than how you think it won't work. let me lead you to a different alternative- do a search on stirling motors. they have already achieved somewhere around 70% efficiency, vs near 40% for diesel, 30% for gas. Theoretically the Stirling is 'most likely' the most efficient way to extract work from a given amount of fuel, it can literally burn anything, and its been around since before the Otto cycle engine. Its all about the heat loss, and the Stirling is the winner- with todays materials, it WILL become better than it ever has, and like a ventless fireplace, combustion technology can achieve near 100% efficiency with todays systems. I'm sure its going to be a household name someday again(original use was pumping well water way back in the 1800's- build a fire, give a spin, walk away) Stirlings are cool- Ive got a couple small ones at home- heat up one end, give it a spin, and it runs dead silent till it cools off(or cold side warms up). no intake, no exhaust...to conserve energy, we gotta conserve heat loss. Sounds good, but can it be applied to an automobile where it would have to spin up and slow down rapidly. If so then I expect you should develop a suitable application, patent it and get it on the market. :P And do it quickly the fuckers are already talking about $3.00 a gallon for gas again. I kinda think that the variable rpm engine will have to go away eventually... its takes energy to spool it up. Metallic traction drives that are infinitely variable from zero to 'pick a number' have been around for a long time for machinery, and are finally starting to migrate to cars(I think Subaru was first- but Ford is first Ive heard of using in a fullsize car), keeping engine rpm steady has efficiency and emissions benefits too...the chain type CVT's cant go to zero output speed though, unlike disc type traction drives. A engine of any type with big flywheel for additional acceleration energy along with a variable tranny will allow smaller hp motors to still provide momentary bursts of acceleration power. On the Scuderi, thats neat, but (always the naysayer) gotta wonder how long 'high efficiency mode' lasts...seems like on a highway trip of any distance at all the compressor would still need to maintain tank pressure, and if at the 750psi mentioned, thats gonna take some power-I gotta do some more reading on this, pretty neat website. They mention about thermal efficiency being improved- and again thats what its all about. Seems to me the city start stop mode of operation would benefit a lot more from this type than highway operation- but as thats where we waste most of our fuel, makes a good arguement for it. Like the idea that its compressed air use is for combustion rather than operating an airmotor like on the french one. Theres another engine type thats a radial three cylinder that looks promising, I'll have to see if I got a link here somewhere...missing a lot of 'conventional' parts like connecting rods and piston rings... heres a link to the three cylinder radial stirling: http://www.qrmc.com/animationtext.htm I'll try to take a little video of a model one ive got at home for you to see running later... attached is a framegrab of a CVT tranny that has infinite ratio to zero speed- torque ratings increase at lower speeds- ideal for getting something heavy like a car moving while using a relatively continuous rpm flywheel/engine power source. these have been in use on machinery for decades. I think current power limit is around 40hp, so put a 15-20 hp engine with a bigass flywheel to accellerate the car to highway speeds, then throttle back to 5-10 hp needed to maintain speed, using excess hp(and braking too) to respool the flywheel. I really think this is a system that could hit equal mpg city/highway and be built today. just thinking about something else to mention- as its a 'differential-ish' method of varying speed, slightly changing one of the ring diameters can also allow 'crossing zero' for lowspeed reverse ratio at NO COST. this is the ultimate tranny- even if hp limited somewhat. Edited April 13, 2006 by ford4v429 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ford4v429 Posted April 13, 2006 Share Posted April 13, 2006 (edited) heres a clip of one of my toy stirlings running- it dont make much torque, but will spin 4-5000 rpm. This is the 'beta' configuration and the regenerator is the very thin walled 'displacer 'piston. Coolest thing is it sounds like an electric motor- just the whirring of bearings. Ive got an 'gamma' configured also, but it is a lot more fickle to get started- the pressure has to be exactly balanced internally before they'll run, and the alpha has two piston rod seals that leak air in/out as heated. the beta types have no seals except for the power piston. First time I saw one about 20 years ago, it about blew my mind- then to find out they were patented back in 1820 or so...with todays materials technology, these things are going to become mainstream eventually- I'd bank on it. oops- cant upload .mpg files- copy/save/rename with .mpg extension if you want to see it... 000.bmp Edited April 14, 2006 by ford4v429 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ford4v429 Posted April 14, 2006 Share Posted April 14, 2006 (edited) Some Stirling links: 'beta' type: http://www.keveney.com/Stirling.html 'alpha' type: http://www.whispergen.com/main/stirlingcycle/ (this is one of the few commercial variants to actualy get built/sold) 'gamma' type: http://www.ent.ohiou.edu/~urieli/stirling/engines/gamma.html theres been like a gizillion different approaches, all seem to work with varying degrees of efficiency. the highest efficiency models use molten sodium as the 'fluid' but the corrosive nature is a problem...in Japan they use sodium cooling for fast breeder nuclear reactors- nasty stuff...do a search on 'monju' if you want to hear about why we dont use them here... I'm tinkering around with a different approach yet, although technically I think its still considered a stirling cycle...maybe this summer... Edited April 14, 2006 by ford4v429 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ptschett Posted April 20, 2006 Share Posted April 20, 2006 If Mazda=Ford, then Ford's already working on one alternative: Hydrogen Wankel RX8: http://www.mazda.com/publicity/release/200410/1027e.html Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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