Affordable Hybrid Vehicles

Dear Engs,

The compressed air like in old mining locomotives was used ,just using the elasticity of the air , as it would be a spring , that can be temporary compressed ,storing the energy and than released to give back the compression energy ,is definite not a good deal.The spring is better that air for this job : it give back almost quite energy used to compress it. But the air not.Because of the huge losses thru compression heat ,at least 50% of the compression heat is to recover after its release .The engineers of the beginning of the 21th century applied some thermodynamic tricks to improve this poor efficiency : they made a 3 stages with inter-heating expansion procedure , the heating between steps being achieved by some heat exchangers heated by the environmental air warmth and the efficiency jumped by 20%. A new procedure to improve more the pneumatic storage was made by myself in the THP-Motor and in the AESTechnology (see the Automotive topic of this blog) by the new process called by me "Regenerative Isotherm". Using these technology and process , a pneumatic car is possible and cost effective, because the recovering of the compression heat, the storage of this heat and its injection back into the compressed air tank in order to boost the expansion , increase the efficiency above the known and future electric car The technology is simple and affordable and don't need special stuffs or chemicals,is clean and if the primary energy comes from wind or solar, the better.A year ago I sent this technology to Mr.Ingo Valentin which also attend the X-Prize Car contest with a pneumatic-hybrid powered car as a co-operation offer to work together in a team.But, unfortunately, after he saw my report he refused to write me anymore.Hope he understood that these are already patented and published technologies and don't need to be "reinvented".

Assuming that the compressed air is taken from an already compressed air station produced by a very efficient compressor device, it would be useful for a pneumatic hybrid car system, from where, like any gas station, would fill the car's compressed air tank maybe in less time than we fill our IC cars gas tanks today. I agree meantime with Mr.Nemes (and I gave him a GA for that) that a spring would do a better job if the hybrid system car would be equipped with such a "recharging" device, and why not actually the spring to drive a fly wheel finally? And now to give my opinion if an "affordable pneumatic hybrid vechicles save the auto industry?" ....I would say maybe, if the range is small, like in some golf carts cases or inside into an established facility's perimeter, an airport, hospital, factory, etc. or even a city buss or tram where the compressed air could be available at each block and street corner lets say, but not more than a 55%: YES.

This system assumes that the point on the earth where the air is compressed (and the heat energy collected) is also the same place and time where it will be needed......

So no charging of tanks "up front".......either a serious loss of energy or lots of waiting.....impractical.

This is still for me a fairly pointless direction to go in (compresses air), sorry, not the slightest bit interested (and it would appear that I am not alone according to the OP)....

Such systems have their uses where heat or the risk of an explosion are high.....but nowhere else.....

Lets see if I am alone and wrong, time will quickly tell.......I am prepared to eat my hat (done in a chicken Korma sauce) if a large company takes up this idea for general use in the next 2 years......specialized usage not to be counted.

Fair enough?

Hi Andy,

I for one, agree with you on this one!

Spencer.

I'm currently working on a project for a hybrid vehicle that uses an air compression system to regenerate braking energy and use it for free turbo charging and potentially as a start stop system. It will be lighter than a comparable electric hybrid and have less of a mass penalty because of no need for a large heavy battery pack. We have even envisioned a system that works on a light truck and utilizes a stressed box frame members as a dual use low pressure/high volume storage tank.

Maybe it works, maybe it doesn't but we are modeling the system and working on the potential savings numbers.

Dear Engineers,

If our ongoing project to attend the X-Prize contest wouldn't be high confidential , I would tell you why you are so wrong . Take a look on www.Valentrain.com and on www.innas.com , projects that struggle just to recover the brake energy as well as the EPA & Eaton for UPS delivering trucks project and you will see the huge difference between these technology and our THP engine .But ,with the new approach and improvements we done , the air car will be not just an option but, due to its qualities , as low price, long life, no need of infrastructure,high performance ,it will be the only choice for the next future many years from now...

I will not hold my breath....

But please try to prove me wrong with your deeds, words alone are simply not good enough! Simply hot air......

I am patient, you have two years, is that enough? Or do you need more?

The final X-Prize Competition will be in 2010 , so if we still live until than, is OK!

About Churchill : I pay no shilling on this name , is a bastard who sold us

for 50 years (by Yalta) to Stalin and communism and that is unforgettable

and unforgivable .

Cursed be their name now and for ever , amen !

I should make it to the end of 2010.....We will see what your invention brings/achieves by then....I truly wish you 100% success....

Stalin had his fans too I believe........!! Not me though!!

Churchill did not start WW2, but he sure helped to finish it!

Your country was on Hitler's/Nazi side (the Axis) in WW2 and supplied a large part of the oil needed by Germany to keep the war going. So as such, your country was basically was on the wrong side and what happened after the war was if you like mostly "Pre-programmed!" Its best to be on the side of the eventual winners, in 1940, it looked as though Germany would win, indeed right up to 1943.....

Remember also that the war would have ended far sooner if Romania had not supplied Germany with oil!!!

You should read Churchill's 6 books on WW2 before you make such comments as he worked for the good of the many, therefore the few suffered, he wasn't Jesus Christ.... But that was still better than 100% suffering!!!Communism was too powerful to fight against, Hitler can verify that point!!!

Being on the side of Germany was the decision of Romania, not Churchill.......look in Wikipedia for a true history of what happened (link below), it fits in well with Churchill's books, written in the 40s after the war ended.....so I believe it.....

Shout at Hitler if you want to do something even more useful...... He started it all....

Also remember that Churchill became Prime Minister AFTER war started, in fact in May 1940.....your country joined the Axis about the same time!!

Your country changed sides in 1944, which was not soon enough for many people, including Churchill......the side change was NOT recognised at the peace conference in Paris in 1947 either....too little, too late!

May I suggest that you confine yourself to the facts of what happened and not try to blame a world statesman for your country's own foolhardy decisions, of which he had no part!!!

You can read a very good history of Rumania at this link:-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rumania

Andy,

I am also sceptical that compressed air car will ever be used when the thermal energy of air compression and detente is loss.

But, in closed loop hydraulic, the thermal energy can be stored in the oil and is available for cooling / heating the air bladder. If enough thermal capacity is built up in the oil tank, one can see a good argument for efficient operation.

When stopping at a refill station, the oil would be pumped back from the low pressure reservoir to the high pressure reservoir. The air bladder would be heated by the compression. This heat would be transfered to the oil to be used later to keep the temperature from dropping too much when the bladder expands.

In this case most of the heat of compression and expansion could be kept in the accumulation system to reach a good efficiency.

This is different from your typical air motor and compressor.

I have hope.

......and how long will this recharging take? That is where I see the greatest problem for acceptance. 2 hours? longer?

Also, what happens to that heat energy when you park the car for 3 days? or a week? Losing it will seriously affect efficiency, if I have understood everything correctly....as a Retiree, I sometimes do not use my car for 5 days at a time.......insulation nowadays is good, but THAT good?

Dear Andy ,

You have 100% right about the known technologies and I agree with you . But as I

already said, there is about a new , absolute new concept and all those

disadvantages will be forgotten.

Sadly (for you maybe) I have heard such words, if not thousands of times, at least in the hundreds......

I await nothing, that is what usually happens too, please surprise us all.

May I suggest that there are many other Blogs where the members are far less critical than here, here you have to put up or shut up!!! So please do just that, one or the other!!

Have a great day.....

Andy,

I am certain that there will be losses but maybe not that much if it's just a matter of adding good insulation around the accumulator. Recharging may be quite fast if the station is equipped with a large horsepower pump.

I don't know exactly what they are trying to do but there is potential. Often ideas are born in complexity and inefficiency. It takes time to make them simple enough to become really useful. This can be a long road with many failures along the way.

Eventually, somebody will get it right. Meanwhile the combustion engine is still the best alternative in most conditions.

Regards,

In an earlier post I offered to eat my hat if this was taken up in a reasonable way within 2 years by a reputable firm for production and sale on the open market in direct competition with more conventional transport.

The OP feels that one year is enough, but my offer still stands.

I see too many problems that to my mind at least, can never been fixed......

I used to work in the RN on gun turrets (MK44 Twins), we used air of 4000Lbs Sq.Inch to recharge the recuperaters ......if you knew just how dangerous such pressures are, its like so many sticks of dynamite.....

Any vehicle will need even higher pressures to achieve practical distances......wait till a cylinder gets damaged and ruptures in an accident and kills all involved.......and leaves a large hole in the ground at the same time.......it must only happen once......

Then the problems of retaining that heat for days on end to keep the efficiency reasonable.......the electricity costs in producing the air pressure in the first place and and and and......

Let us see what the next 24 months brings.....

Yes, energy stored in 1 l of gasoline much much more, than in 1 l of compressed air (even up to 300 bar). Compress air for regen brakes might be perspective, but not as main source of energy in vechicle.

BUT, its actually impossible to release the energy of petrol instantly, unless you put a stick of dynamite in the middle of it.....even then its not instant!!

Whereas a bottle of compressed air, if the cylinder ruptures, releases its energy in the blink of an eye.

I can only believe that you have not worked for any length of time with really high pressure air......I have, as have many on CR4.......its unbelievably dangerous.......only high pressure oxygen is to my mind even more dangerous......

But, lets be not so stubborn. It is a wide range of hight pressure of vessels to hold propane gas for gas motors in vechichles. This vessels are made from composite materials, light weight, have capacity up to 50 litres and pressure up to 200 bars. This equipment already tested and thousands of cars every minute runs on our streets. This vessels safe, this is not bomb. But energy capacity of pressured air in such vessel even if 50 liters and 200 bars much much lesser than 10 lt of gasoline. And ofcourse, gasoline can not blast, this energy can not be released quickly.

You are missing an important point (or two!):-

1) Vehicles MUST have a reasonable range without "re-fueling". What is termed reasonable is difficult to quantify, other than to say "more is better!". But a minimum range of at least 100 miles is a reasonable starting point. Naturally 200 miles is better etc etc.

2) Due to the lesser energy in compressed air, one must increase the pressure 3 or 4 times, think of 1000 bar for example, also the size of the cylinders, and their strength, therefore the weight gain here, reduces the distance that can be travelled.

3) Gas requires far smaller tanks for a 200 mile range than compressed air does.

Energy loss in the form of heat when compressing has already been discussed, so I will not address it here.

These are some of the reasons why such vehicles have not taken over the mass of vehicles, and in the future, when energy costs will probably sky rocket, even less likely.

To support compressed air we will need super cheap and abundant electricity from Fusion or similar, then and only then, it may become a method of propelling a vehicle. But that same electricity could produce hydrogen, to be burnt in modified Petrol engines, as has been demonstrated by many car manufacturers already.

1) Performance and distance are less of a problem than with compressed air.

2) Fuelling has brought far less problems for hydrogen than it has with compressed air, there are even DIN standard connectors designed for such refuelling.

3)There is even Hydrogen filling stations in some areas of Europe, few and wide apart I do agree at this moment.....

4) The engines can burn petrol or gas as well with little modification.....to get to the next hydrogen filling station ....

5) Gas will be around long after the last oil has been pumped.

6) Once oil gets scarce, I personally guess that the oil still in the ground (usually only 10% of oil and gas can actually be recovered by present methods) will suddenly be pumped using methods not yet fully devised......remember, there is still far more oil & gas in the earth than has ever been pumped.

Even not including the oil shale areas in the world that also have more oil in them than has ever been pumped......

Please check the following link for further info:

http://www.fossil.energy.gov/programs/oilgas/eor/

My conclusion is still that compressed air systems will only form a tiny proportion of transport methods for the next 100-200 years or so......if not even longer.....

You have repeatedly applied your "it can't be done" retort to a good part of the comments on this blog. You missed the main subject of this arena. It is about air-hybrid vs electric hybrid. Your comments are based in the world of compressed air cars and that is not what this line of comments is supposed to be about. I understand every topic can evolve in many directions but I'd like to put this back on topic.

Some information on this subject according to the "important missing points" listed above

#1 Range concerns are handled by the gasoline engine that is part of the hybrid system.

#2a Super high pressure is necessary for motoring a car long distances, but not for hybrid brake regeneration where the pressures top out at the same magnitude of a scuba tank or paint ball gun tank. Most of my calculations reveal pressures under 450psi (30bar) but I can envision a system capable of around 4500psi (300bar). Scuba tank systems have evolved into a nice carbon fiber resin wrapped design that has a wonderful crack and leak failure mode and not an explode and die failure mode.

#2b The weight gain of an air tank is not nearly as large as the weight gain encountered with a battery pack for the electric hybrid.

#3a The tanks on an air hybrid are completely variable but can be designed to take up a similar volume as a battery pack. Air-hybrid and electric hybrid both require a gas tank.

#3b Energy loss is minimized b/c regeneration energy is planned to be used immediately after pressurization and remember it is regeneration so it is free. It is not from a power plant or fusion. Losses due to cooling need to be minimized but they are not show stoppers here are a couple of links on the subject.

http://wardsauto.com/ar/compressed_air_engines_090223/

http://www.imrt.ethz.ch/research/engine/phybe

http://www.greencarcongress.com/2009/02/eth-zrich-devel.html

Hang in there Smith. The question is not what if it doesn't work. What if it does?

If you are right, then I expect such a vehicle to be on the road within 2 years, at a price the normal man in the street can pay.......let us wait and see who is right, time will tell!

We can argue further, but what's the point, we each have our own take on the subject!!

If 2 years are not enogh in your estimation, please be so kind as to set the length of time needed, then let us simply wait!!

I wish you a great day.

Hi Andy,

Basically I agree with you on this subject, and I cannot envisage any form of motorised transport using compressed air as it's fuel?

To be able to power a car carrying four people 20miles at 50mph would require a vast air reserve that would be much bigger that the vehicle itself!

Now, I have seen the kind of devastation that occurs when an air receiver explodes due to it being hit by a heavy object, it killed one man and injured four others. So, anybody that wants to develope a vehicle run on compressed air would have to take this into account?

Spencer.

Whats the difference between a pneumatic and hydraulic system - besides the density, compressibility, and viscosity of the working medium? And of course the design of the accumulator.

Check this out Ladies and Gentlemen.

http://jalopnik.com/5196124/lightning-hybrids-lh4-100-mpg-biodiesel+hydraulic-concept?skyline=true&s=x

Gavilan

The most demands on any car is during the acceleration. I've used a lightweight hydraulic launch assist for this, using a 5 gallon piston accumulator and a couple of 3200 PSI scuba tanks filled with N2. The piston is recharged when braking is required. I use firmware from ME labs to control everything. For constant speed I use some Li polymers ( 42 ea of 3.7VDC @ 105 AHr from China ). Everything is off the shelf, including the 1990 Acura Integra I used as the testbed. Other components include an Advanced DC 28HP series wound motor and Curtis motor controller, pretty much like everyone else building an electric for themselves. If you're honest about the efficiencies, the energy and mechanical equations say this is the most cost effective design. No gasoline or diesel is needed.