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/cgi-bin/YaBB.pl General Category >> The Cafe >> Air Powered Car....Really! /cgi-bin/YaBB.pl?num=1341747834 Message started by Drifter on 07/08/12 at 04:43:53 |
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Title: Air Powered Car....Really! Post by Drifter on 07/08/12 at 04:43:53 No im not talking about an air..plane car but one powered by compressed air. I first read about this and was shocked at the range something like 200 miles per charge at 60 MPH recharge in 3 min or 4 hrs with the on board compressor. Sounds to good to be true right, well...the holding tanks 3 of them hold 3000 lbs of presure each. Thats one hell of a bomb if punctured!!! :o The good thing they are making them from carbon fiber so if punctured they wont explode...? They are testing in europe now, the engine is a modified piston engine and sounds alot like a normal car. I could see me owning one of these and flying the bird as i pass gas stations!!!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztFDqcu8oJ4 |
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Title: Re: Air Powered Car....Really! Post by Gyrobob on 07/08/12 at 07:25:00 It is a cool idea and needs to be researched and developed, BUT, there are a few goofy statements,.. 200 miles I doubt. This is similar to electric car range claims. Wildly optimistic. 60 mph top speed, eh? This means in its current configuration it'll be unacceptable to 99% of the driving public. This sounds like something bill thought up: Put an air compressor on board that pressurizes the tanks. The compressor would be driven by an air motor that would use the compressed air in the tanks for power. Perpetual motion. Dream on. For this to work, the motor and the compressor would have to be greater than 100% efficient. This would be like having a battery power an electric motor. The motor would be hooked up to an alternator that would recharge the battery so the battery could keep supplying power to the motor. As a kid, when I was into building flying models, I had a C02 powered motor which used the same principle as this propulsion system. Sorta like this one: [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUWQ2LkZ2Es[/media] |
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Title: Re: Air Powered Car....Really! Post by justin_o_guy2 on 07/08/12 at 07:59:03 I had a CO2 BB pistol,, I liked shooting it, but I didnt like buying the CO2. Id expect a CO2 powered engine to be Just a bit Pricey to run, |
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Title: Re: Air Powered Car....Really! Post by 360k+ on 07/08/12 at 08:25:04 I think this belongs in the Cafe. It has nothing to do with the Savage (see guidelines). absolutely correct |
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Title: Re: Air Powered Car....Really! Post by Serowbot on 07/08/12 at 11:05:36 I want one!.... a few solar panels at home, to run the compressor and you're runnin' pure green... Now,.. consider the bike version,.. with the exhaust output being ice cold, clean, air?.... Oooooh!.... air conditioned motorcycle!... ;)... |
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Title: Re: Air Powered Car....Really! Post by verslagen1 on 07/08/12 at 11:26:01 state of the art... [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aec5g0cLt-w&feature=related[/media] |
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Title: Re: Air Powered Car....Really! Post by Pine on 07/08/12 at 14:38:54 I actually heard about this several years ago. From what I can tell it all works pretty much as advertised. While the motor is a piston motor... it is not anything like a internal combustion engine. The air is simply a store of energy, just like a battery would be. There is energy used to charge the tanks, there really isnt that much of a "savings" in energy used over other ideas. But, the choice of what produced the energy to pressurize the tanks means a country/area could have transportation based on something other than oil, which itself IS a pretty big deal. The carbon fiber tanks is stronger, and as I understand it, does not fail catastrophically (explode). Instead, when punctured they just kinda "fart" the air out. As I said I read up on this years ago, and it has kinda gone dead since. Such ideas cant flourish with gas prices going up and down. It really is hard to beat good old gas for a source of energy for transportation. Also an Aussie has one that looks good as well. I might need to check up on how he is doing. |
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Title: Re: Air Powered Car....Really! Post by runwyrlph on 07/08/12 at 14:43:30 I don't think the compressor is air powered ;D Doesn't sound that crazy to me at least in theory. You're just using your electrical "plug in" to store energy in the form of compressed air. Analogous to storing chemical energy in a battery using your AC to charge it. What I have no clue about is efficiency I.e. how much power does it use to "charge " the air tank vs. charging a chemical battery? I guess you would want a network of high pressure "stations " for fast recharges One potential benefit I think of immediately is it wouldn't require all the heavy metals for batteries... Interesting idea! |
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Title: Re: Air Powered Car....Really! Post by arteacher on 07/08/12 at 15:24:28 These things are not eco friendly- you have to get the energy from somewhere. If electric you get the electricity from coal powered generators, or nuclear generators, or to a small degree hydro electric generators. Hydrogen takes more energy to manufacture than it gives back. If air you need to use electricity to compress it. Ethanol requires a lot of corn (arable land) and energy to manufacture. So where is the gain? If everyone had electric cars could you imagine the drain on the power grid?? |
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Title: Re: Air Powered Car....Really! Post by Serowbot on 07/08/12 at 15:47:45 The gain would be in having a solar charging station at home,.. with a tank there, that is charging all day.... Get home,... hook yer' car to the tank, and fill up... Also,... over batteries... Batteries are expensive, and wear out, and lose power sitting... also,.. fill-ups at a station would take minutes instead of hours with batteries... Aussies have an air engine with only a couple moving parts... Cheap repairs... I'm ready, when they are... |
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Title: Re: Air Powered Car....Really! Post by Pine on 07/08/12 at 17:13:23 303B3B323E31302A2B5F0 wrote:
I had heard this argument before which is why I prefaced my post like I did. You are right.. this requires massive amounts of power from the electrical grid. But I disagree that they "cant be" eco-friendly.. such as you stated using a hydro-electric dam or solar. The current state of oil is getting pretty bad (as a user of power). It takes power to turn oil into gas.. and thats once you shipped it barrel by barrel half-way around the globe. Gasolines value is a store of energy while in the car. Its certainly not eco-friendly, nor very efficient. But of course at some point we leave the cool factor of the car.. and get into the politics of energy.. which is a thread for a different forum... |
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Title: Re: Air Powered Car....Really! Post by Drifter on 07/09/12 at 04:42:07 I agree with Bot, charging a carbon fiber tank would take less electrical energy than charging batterys. I have friends with golf carts they take hours to charge and discharge pretty quick batterys are 100 bucks each and last 3-5 years. Its well known all the bad things about batterys.....this car sounds like a great idea to me and i would buy one!!! For 90% of my driving which is under 60 mph it would be no problem at all. 200 mile range is far better than our Savages and as bot says if you have a problem spending the change to run the charging compressor or 3 minutes to recharge the tanks use solar or wind. The other big advantage there is no polution going in the air...NONE. Think of the money we spend on gas and oil and upkeep for ICE powered machines. To darn much! I would buy one of these in a heartbeat. I spend about 4000 in fuel cost per year plus another 200+ on oil and filters. This car would pay for itself in less than 3.5 years! :) And it produces no Exhaust!!! Win Win! Is there a link to the aussie engine? |
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Title: Re: Air Powered Car....Really! Post by Serowbot on 07/09/12 at 10:13:44 67514A45574651230 wrote:
This is, knock your socks off, cool!... 8-)... [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dq8aZVLpf-c[/media] |
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Title: Re: Air Powered Car....Really! Post by Drifter on 07/09/12 at 11:01:35 Very cool, i bet big oil buys him out and it disappears....or him? Not much detail compared to the piston engine, i really hope this takes off....i will buy one. Getting screwed by big oil is really old! Think of the money and billions of barrels of oil that coud be saved an order of magnitude change in our lives! :) I guess future bikers will argue my tank is bigger than yours....o yea well mine blows 4000psi o yea well.......... ::) |
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Title: Re: Air Powered Car....Really! Post by Serowbot on 07/09/12 at 23:06:32 50667D72607166140 wrote:
Feeling a bit gassy 'bout now... :-?... Fight terrorism... get yer' groceries n' ride to work,.. on air... ;)... |
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Title: Re: Air Powered Car....Really! Post by Drifter on 07/10/12 at 05:01:21 I think the future looks great! Where do i sign, i want one! Get a model T horn oouuuga and cruise..... |
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Title: Re: Air Powered Car....Really! Post by Gyrobob on 07/11/12 at 05:14:12 I like the idea of solar panels in my back yard, slowly keeping a large carbon fiber air tank (maybe buried) charged to 4000 psi. I just hook up the hose to the air car (or air cycle) when I pull into the garage and get my next load of free energy. No emissions. No cost other than maintenance. No money sent to the ragheads. No strain on the power grid. All we need is a motor that can put out enough power to haul around something with the size and convenience of, say, a Honda Civic. Until something is put together that will actually sell successfully (appeal to the masses, not just the tree-huggers), this will just be a cute idea to show in documentaries. The epitome of self-sufficiency. |
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Title: Re: Air Powered Car....Really! Post by Charon on 07/12/12 at 05:16:49 Very old idea. Air motors have been around for decades. Any steam engine could also be run on compressed air. Overall efficiency of compressed air systems runs about 65%, give or take. When the air is initially compressed, it gets hot. While in storage in the tank, it cools. This is lost energy and cannot be recovered. It is interesting to note that the 65% efficiency is just about the same as that of electrical storage batteries. |
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Title: Re: Air Powered Car....Really! Post by Boule’tard on 07/12/12 at 06:12:16 Great to see you around, Charon. Hopefully you find the 'holding tank' for politics and religion satisfactory. So far so good. This guy knows his thermodynamics, folks. |
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Title: Re: Air Powered Car....Really! Post by Gyrobob on 07/12/12 at 07:30:24 49626B7865640A0 wrote:
True, but carbon fiber compressed air tanks would cost 10% of what high-tech batteries would cost, they would last ten times as long, and weigh 1/4 as much,... so the energy storage situation for a vehicle would be much more efficient. Also, using solar panels to restore energy for compressed air at home would be more efficient and cheaper than electricity for the same reasons. |
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Title: Re: Air Powered Car....Really! Post by Charon on 07/12/12 at 08:39:04 7D4348555855583A0 wrote:
True, but carbon fiber compressed air tanks would cost 10% of what high-tech batteries would cost, they would last ten times as long, and weigh 1/4 as much,... so the energy storage situation for a vehicle would be much more efficient. Also, using solar panels to restore energy for compressed air at home would be more efficient and cheaper than electricity for the same reasons.[/quote] There may be some confusion between "efficiency" and "cost." Efficiency is defined as the percentage of the input energy you get back in useful output. Cost and efficiency are not always directly related. Compressed air for vehicles presents the problem of recharging. Low-pressure air, say up to 150 psi, is easy to find. High-pressure air, such as the cited 4000 psi, isn't so easy. Using the old marine rule of one-third for the voyage out, one-third for the return, and one-third for the unexpected you can only travel one-third of your maximum range away from home unless you have a known recharge location. You can carry a compressor, but something has to power it. Way back when I briefly tried SCUBA diving, the club's little gas-powered compressor took about half an hour to charge a single SCUBA tank to 3000 psi. Using solar cells to charge an air tank sounds attractive. Solar cells produce electricity, which in turn will have to drive a motor to drive a compressor to charge the air tank. It can be made to work, but it will probably be less efficient than simply charging a battery bank. Don't get me wrong - I am not condemning the idea. Air-powered vehicles have been used for special purposes such as mining for decades. They are used because they make no heat or sparks which might ignite flammable gasses, and they produce no unbreathable exhaust. Their technology is well known and proven. |
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Title: Re: Air Powered Car....Really! Post by verslagen1 on 07/12/12 at 09:02:35 a solar powered stirling engine would be a better solution for generating compressed air. |
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Title: Re: Air Powered Car....Really! Post by Gyrobob on 07/12/12 at 09:06:54 Charon ses: There may be some confusion between "efficiency" and "cost." Efficiency is defined as the percentage of the input energy you get back in useful output. Cost and efficiency are not always directly related. Compressed air for vehicles presents the problem of recharging. Low-pressure air, say up to 150 psi, is easy to find. High-pressure air, such as the cited 4000 psi, isn't so easy. Using the old marine rule of one-third for the voyage out, one-third for the return, and one-third for the unexpected you can only travel one-third of your maximum range away from home unless you have a known recharge location. You can carry a compressor, but something has to power it. Way back when I briefly tried SCUBA diving, the club's little gas-powered compressor took about half an hour to charge a single SCUBA tank to 3000 psi. Using solar cells to charge an air tank sounds attractive. Solar cells produce electricity, which in turn will have to drive a motor to drive a compressor to charge the air tank. It can be made to work, but it will probably be less efficient than simply charging a battery bank. Cost and efficiency are always related in one way or another. Sometimes the correlation is positive. Other times it costs a lot to build something with good efficiency. Yes, creating an infrastructure with easily available 4000psi air is a challenge,.. much the same as finding places to recharge your plug-in hybrid in Macon. The solar cells in my back yard charging a buried air tank would be less expensive to buy and operate than a wall of batteries. You could have a pretty small electric motor driving a pretty small compressor if the system was putting air in the tank every day during the day. The air tank would last forever,.. trying to do the same thing with a wall of batteries would cost a lot more to install, and would require battery replacement every several years, most likely. If I were going to have plug-in hybrid cars, instead of having a $15,000 wall of exotic batteries I had to buy, install, maintain, and periodically replace, I would have the system set up so I sold my solar panel electricity to the grid, and then drew on that account to recharge my plug-in hybrid from a wall socket,.... in effect forcing the utility company to store my energy for me. |
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Title: Re: Air Powered Car....Really! Post by Pine on 07/16/12 at 11:30:37 Actually I think the "storing energy as air" has a value, esp if NOT for a transportation. But for those not willing to move to compressed air as a store of energy there is this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THOy-DAerGY VRB: Vanadium Redux battery. Scales to any size, and lasts much longer than other chemical battery designs. Talks are to use this technology for power companies to store power for the grid! Thats pertty dern big! Back to air. Someone had the bright idea to store not compressed air... but vacuume! As I recall the idea was to use wind energy to pump air out of natually occuring cave-like structures. Then during low wind, the vacuume would turn turbines as the air was drawn back in. To me though it goes to political end.. the efficiency of the grid versus the security of a more distributed power generation grid. ... another topic for another forum.. |
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Title: Re: Air Powered Car....Really! Post by greenmonster on 07/16/12 at 13:38:40 78535A4954553B0 wrote:
That is going to depend a lot on the composition of your batteries. Electric vehicles have been proven to be more efficient than internal combustion even when run off "dirty" (coal) power. An electric motor can be that much more efficient. However, if all we are concerned about is efficiency... electric bicycles have been found to be the most power efficient method of transportation available. That's right, walking uses more energy than riding an electric bicycle. Go figure. |
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Title: Re: Air Powered Car....Really! Post by Boule’tard on 07/16/12 at 13:58:50 Well I'll tell ya whut, a couple of advantages a scuba tank might have over a conventional battery are 1) no loss of energy by just sitting there. Airtight = Energytight and 2) the adiabatic heating/cooling of air that causes the energy loss on filling the tank could make for a nifty air conditioner.. just expand the air partially through an AC coil on its way to the engine. |
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Title: Re: Air Powered Car....Really! Post by verslagen1 on 07/16/12 at 14:02:23 While electric motors have an efficiency of 80% You also have to figgure in the battery efficiency, the generator efficiency and the motor to turn that generator's efficiency. In the case of land based charging... then the transmission efficiency. A whole lot of 80% will knock it down pretty quick. |
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Title: Re: Air Powered Car....Really! Post by Charon on 07/16/12 at 14:47:43 I think the usually stated efficiency of delivering electrical power to your house is about 22%, from chemical energy in the fuel to electrical energy at your house. The overall efficiency of fossil fuel fired plants is about 30 - 33%, depending on the age and size of the plant. That does not account for energy used in transporting the fuel from its source to the plant. It is estimated that a coal train on an "average" run burns the equivalent of 1 - 2% of its load. It isn't clear whether that includes the fuel used getting the empty train back to the mine. Nuclear plant efficiency is similar, but accounting for the amount of energy used to produce the fuel is much more difficult. A percentage of the generated electricity is wasted in line resistance, one reason why electric utilities like to build plants near the point of use. Funny enough, that 22% overall efficiency comes close to the efficiency gotten by burning gasoline in cars. |
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Title: Re: Air Powered Car....Really! Post by Drifter on 07/16/12 at 15:11:15 Consider this just using the car as a run about like a golf cart that will go 200 miles and do 60mph. Lots of oldsters where i live never travel anywhere close to 200 miles or go 60 mph. This car would be ideal for most city or burb people. Fill the tanks once a week or month.. Electric golf carts are a pain in the arse after every ride plug it in or next time...no go and the range sucks and batteries are 100 bucks each and last 5 yrs if your lucky. Air tanks stay charged. I want one of these things!!! :) I have no idea why this hasent caught on before any ideas? |
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Title: Re: Air Powered Car....Really! Post by Charon on 07/16/12 at 16:29:42 Thing about electric golf cars (current terminology is "cars" and not "carts" - "carts" being unpowered vehicles usually drawn by animals) is that they are purpose-designed machines. They are designed to go a few miles at low speed, and to be plugged in back at their shelter when not in use. That make them great for golf courses and compact residential areas, but not too good for actual commuting. Add a set of lights, brake lights, turn signals, and the range drops even more simply due to limited energy storage. Heaters or air conditioners can be forgotten completely. Electric cars as originally designed over a hundred years ago were also urban vehicles. They were designed for a speed of 20 mph or so, and a range seldom exceeding twenty or thirty miles - enough to visit people and run errands in a small town. The problem then, as now, was energy storage. That confounded the likes of Henry Ford and Thomas Edison, and decades of their successors. The problem never was the motors or the controls - it was and is the batteries. Air powered cars have no doubt been experimented with. Air powered trams have been used in mines for a long time, where distances are short, speeds are low, there is a considerable risk of fire or explosion, and air is conveniently available. The problem is the same as electric vehicles. There is a limited amount of energy available in a given sized air tank. To get more energy for either more speed or more range, bigger and heavier air tanks are required. Yes, carbon fiber air tanks can be made and yes, pressures can be higher. Yes, air tanks can be less expensive than batteries. I have (a long time ago) gone through the math involved in using air starters for diesel engines, including the size of tank (receiver) required, the amount of air required for a start, and the time required for recharge for another start attempt. Most of that would be applicable for an air-motor powered vehicle. By the way, given an air-powered vehicle, what would you use for a heater/defroster in cold weather? |
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Title: Re: Air Powered Car....Really! Post by Boule’tard on 07/16/12 at 16:37:48 Charon, what do you think of inertial batteries? A coil is used to spin up a flywheel suspended on magnetic bearings in a vacuum. So it can stay spinning at 100s of thousands of RPMs, and that kind of rotational speed means it doesn't have to weigh that much to store a large amount of energy. The same coil that gets the flywheel spinning during 'charging' is later used to draw off electricity, slowing the flywheel back down. For vehicular use, two or more flywheels could be set up in tandem, counter rotating to cancel the gyroscopic effect. |
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Title: Re: Air Powered Car....Really! Post by Charon on 07/16/12 at 17:02:05 I read of the inertial energy storage system quite a few years ago, but I seem to remember it being called a flywheel storage system. Way back then there were problems with the required strength of the flywheel - something about wanting it to remain in one piece. It was to be a regenerative system in that whenever the vehicle slowed energy was to be transferred to the flywheel, much like today's hybrids. Fact is, seems to me the last reference I saw to it involved its use in city buses, where there is room and weight carrying capacity, and normal operation involves a lot of start-stop use. Running the flywheel in a vacuum is pretty much mandatory, as are bearings with as little loss as possible. I can't recall hearing much about it lately, but I would expect someone is still working with it. |
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Title: Re: Air Powered Car....Really! Post by bill67 on 07/16/12 at 17:19:21 In Bowling Green Ky. back in the 1940's they had electric street cars the electric line was over head and rod like thing went to the electric line.The street cars were like bus's, rubber tires and no rails.They could go left and right about 10 feet from center to pull up to the curb. |
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Title: Re: Air Powered Car....Really! Post by Drifter on 07/17/12 at 06:11:00 Charon, how about an electric heater driven from the exhaust of the engine, reverse turbo if you will. Or a solar panel on the roof to power a small fan or propane or.....lots of things would be invented. A very large portion of the world does not need heat in a car besides an electric vest could keep you warm like bikers wear. Golf carts vs car... all the dealers and people i know call them golf carts not cars maybe because they are used to haul stuff like a cart..... BTW, mine is Kawasaki single powered. I would take an air powered one today if avaible has would lots of people! :) |
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Title: Re: Air Powered Car....Really! Post by Charon on 07/17/12 at 07:43:54 I still think of them as golf carts, too. The official designation has been changed according to Wikipedia, I think as part of a UN-led initiative to standardize labels. We'll leave feelings and discussions about the UN to a different area of the forum. Any street-legal car is required to have an effective windshield defrost system. That happened in the '60s as part of a Federal act, which also standardized shift patterns for automatic transmissions be requiring a Neutral position betweeen forward and reverse positions. Street-legal vehicles also must have headlights, tail lights, stop (brake) lights, turn signals, horn, and so on. As a practical matter this means there must be an electrical system, normally incorporating a storage battery. Air powered vehicles will not be exempt from these requirements, so they are going to need a battery and some way to charge it. Cars and trucks with liquid-cooled internal combustion engines have a convenient source of hot water (since the engine wastes about a third ot the fuel's energy into the coolant). This is a no-cost source of heat for heaters and defrosters. The only "extras" are ductwork, an extra radiator (known as the heater core), and one or more electric blowers. Electric cars do not have the free heat. Many years ago someone marked a City Car (I think), and the problem of cabin heat was solved with a propane heater. The current electric cars use electric heaters, powered by the propulsion batteries, with the penalty of reduced range. Air conditioning requires a compressor, conveniently powered by the engine. If no engine, then a motor must be used, and range again is reduced. Most cars have power-assisted brakes, the power for which comes from engine vacuum. Diesels don't have engine vacuum, so the brake boost is derived elsewhere and that technology can likely be used for electric or air cars. An air car could use air brakes, but there may be licensing issues (air brake endorsement). Speaking of brakes, right shortly (either the 2012 or 2013 model year, I think) a new Federal requirement takes effect requiring electronic stability systems on all cars and light trucks. There is no way I know to implement such systems without computers, which means electrical power for actuators and controllers. Compressed air might be used for the main propulsion motors, but electricity will be needed for a lot of other stuff. I'm sure others can come up with other issues and/or solutions. |
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