Air Engine

Making compressed air and using it in a reciprocating engine is a very inefficient way of doing it. It is far better to drive electrical generators with a direct connection to the fluid motion capture equipment instead, which is what everybody else is doing, which is why virtually no-one is using the compressed air route.

What am missing?

Do you have unlimited funds?

Is this the highest and best use that you have for those funds?

milo

What am missing?
You are missing nothing. It has been done before I'm pretty sure.
If you have an 'unlimited supply' then efficiency isn't an issue. Capital outlay, simplicity and maitenance would be the issues...
Del

Instead of using a combustion engine remove the engine and in its place build a sealed turbine to adapt to the automatic transmission, power the sealed turbine with the compressed air. Drive by my house when your done I want to see it.

The first question you need to ask yourself is what form will the energy you extract have to be in for you to make productive use of it. The next question will be "is that energy going to be worth the cost I'll have to put into capturing it?"

Generally the most useful form of energy is electricity. A case could be made for compressed air if you have a workshop that uses a lot of air tools. Heat is also a possibility for areas with cold climates. The nice thing about heat is that the storage media is relatively cheap. Mechanical energy is tricky to store in large quantities and can be dangerous.

Unless you are looking for a hobby activity of some sort inventing new uncommon hardware for energy collection will very likely lead you into having to spend more time fiddling with the hardware than it's worth.

The worst possible situation is building a trap for yourself where other family members, particularly the female type, become dependent upon the energy source and are likely to have urgent needs for any interuptions in service to be corrected immediately.

Ed Weldon

Adjm,

I would think that the lower pressure and higher volume of the old steam engine would be more suited to the pressures of tides. The idea of the recycled internal combustion engine that has been modified to work as the old steam engine is intriguing.

Kind of a high powered stirling engine?

Jon

"Kind of a high powered stirling engine?

Jon"

Ahhhhh, ahhhhh.......Where is the temperature differential?

Travis

Other options:

1. Get a pump and pump water into a large storage tank or tower or build a mini dam. Get a water turbine and generate hydro electric power at night. If you live near or on a cliff, it's feasible.

2. Get a motor/generator, build a tower or use the wind turbine tower. Get some rocks, weights or old batteries. Run the motor when you have excess wind/tidal power to lift the weights up. Then release them at night and the kinetic energy will run your generator. If you live near on on a cliff, it's feasible.

3. Get some spring steel, motor/generator and use the motor to flex the steel. Then have it released to run the generator.

Options 2 and 3 require gearing and ratchet assemble. Think or a hydraulic car hoist except you are jacking up rocks, batteries, weights, etc...

An air compressor in reverse?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ffl1LJ5EmiM

http://gizmodo.com/5062376/airpod-is-like-a-smart-car-full-of-hot-air-and-thats-the-idea

bioramani

Could't make the link work to see the you tube but thanks and I will try again. Most feedback is that I am a nut case for thinking like this. I pay thousands a month for energy, you people in America have have it made. Yes I wish I had what you had.

Have you considered an air tank for storage? Store the air in the tank and release it to power the motor-generator. This way, you would have a constant supply of fuel for the motor. Your only variable would be the filling of the tanks. When calculating the size and structure of the tanks, the costs may be too much. Air tanks would be a lot simpler than batteries.

Have some fun today,

PAPADOC

RMFR

Yes, I have access to air tank storage that can handle more pressure than what my compressors can produce, and yes I agree that this is cheaper than batteries and dealing with the suedo sine-wave factor when dealing with inverters. adjm

I don't think you're crazy. One idea though would be go ahead and use the wind to generate and store the electricity. Then it can be used for many things. As far as the engine I don't see what's wrong with steam. The efficiency of the new heating elements now (electric igniter to oil or gas or maybe just electric I'm not sure) then power a steam engine as water is plentiful as well at your location.

Or perhaps I am craizer than you.

Hi; Vertical shaft turbines are difficult; mainly vibrations become a big problem. Also, they tend to be close to the ground, so that they don't see the laminar, less turbulent, winds that make airfoils efficient. As already mentioned using a turbine is more efficient (get your hands on a used turbo from a car like the guys in STG (http://www.stginternational.org/specs.html)) There is also a loss factor in compressed air; the air will heat up, and if you can't insulate and keep that heat, you will have very cold air blowing out of your turbine and ice may become a problem. I've been toying with something similar, mainly to avoid battery storage and to use what can be found locally, which is air compressors and air tools. Good luck, the idea has merit, but requires several energy convertors, and that means loss.

Welcome,

Here's an old discussion about converting a ICE [internal combustion engine] to steam.

Steam Engine Design

Compressed air should actually be easier, since there won't be the problems with contamination of the crankcase oil.

How did you envision converting tidal shift into compressed air?

Garthh, I do not have a good vision on how to capture tidal or wave action forces. I have a 4 foot tide coming in and out twice a day. To me that is a lot of work when considering a 500 ton barge takes the vertical trip a total of 16 feet per day. Could that be looked as the kind of work it would take to lift 3 million gallons of water 16 feet? When you look at that barge bobbing up and down in the water, it doesn't take long before you figure out that power available by wave action makes the tidal forces look small. If you pump the water up to resevior and drop it down through a pelton wheel style hydro unit, it may make sense to compress the air with electricity that can not otherwise be used. Still in head scratching mode. adjm

Do you have a 500 ton barge?

how deep is the water?

You are on the right track (do not take into consideration all comments) in fact the solution many work on now is to combine a direct electrical generation with a pneumatic compressed air reserve for the time of the day the wind is not any more as active.

The solution is to use the coupled generator and to use an excess of energy in loading a reservoir, when the wind is lower the reservoir content will be used to actuate same generator or an other via a pneumatic motor. It is NOT recommendable to work only via turbine-compressor-motor -generator since the sum of all looses is too important.

You have me scratching my head, I can understand not relying on any one source, are you suggesting to not combine any of, or all of, turbine-compressor-motor-generator as a single mechanical link? Loss is a big factor any time power is redirected. Your statement had me picturing a shared power shaft that would engage or disengage based on what optimum output would be. Simple clutches and a cheap computer could do that. When wind dropped to inadequet for electrical generation, your pneumatic motor could take over, the prop could then become a compressor that not give much, but give something. adjm

The wind power source should be dimensioned so that its peak output will be > average needs.

If the is a + power available it is either possible to de-rate the propeller generation or to save the available energy. Since the wind can also go down under the average need it is better to choose second path.

How this can be done is up to you to choose. Either you can have a chain propeller-generator- motor- compressor- reservoir which has important loss of energy or you divert part of the mechanical power to a compressor and use the compressed air from the reservoir when needed to activate a pneumatic engine which can be either connected to an other generator or to the one which is connected to the windmill. The second solution could permit via a planetary gear to sum the effects and combine power from wind and power from reserves.

Of course what I write is a rough thought which deserves further analysis and refinement.

Do not scratch to hard it can hurt!

be very careful, large volumes of compressed air are very dangerous to store. (think pipe bomb, but much much bigger.) Be absolutely sure your pressure vessel is up to the task and then some.

I would definitely build a wind generator. There are several sites on the net devoted to wind power. You can get more than enough magnet wire from discarded motors, tv sets, generators etc. The magnets are the biggest expense, but are still less than $100.00. Good luck.

As we say in my country, You are trying to reach your pocket around your backside :-))

You have it all made (unlimited tidal and wind energy), but You would >>gild the lily<<? I would say you have also lot of Sun energy as well?

Simplest solutions work best, so instead of running compressor by wind energy, run electricity generator instead. Then to avoid problems with electricity storage, simply sell surplus to Grid company, if such thing exist there, else You have to find way to store electricity.

Other use for wind energy would be in tandem with tidal energy, where wind would pump sea water into reservoir from which it can be used. But, two way tidal system would be more useful, as it can use energy of sea water nearly constantly to produce electricity. Beware that you don't step on toes of some law enforcing person in charge of Nature conservation, tough. So if You build a dam, it should be disguised using same type of rocks as nearby seashore, so it would not poke anybody eyes.

Only, for use of water stored energy another reservoir above sea tide level should be used, so use of natural harbours cannot help like in using tidal energy.

Since your resources are >>unlimited<< while funds for realisation of ideas probably is not, how about making your neighbours interested in projects for common good? I am sure that with just little more money much more electricity can be produced, considering basic costs of building a dam and installing whole system, connecting them to house(s) and so on.

So produce electricity first, and with enough of it you can make even liquid air and store it, and then run that engine for fun in your car, as someone already suggested. With lot of cheap electricity, perhaps You would better think of electromobile, huh? Or at least demand for fossil fuels would drop so much that their price would drop also, and then You can drive car usual way. Or, with money from sold electricity you can buy electromobile, or at least hybrid vehicle :-))

If You would come to my country and live there some time (just enough to pay few electricity bills for 60-80 US cents per KWh), perhaps then You would realize how good you >>have it made<<!!!

Sitting atop of gold mine and complaining!

Pea brain, indeed! (sorry, I could not resist that!)

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The more steps and processes between the power in and the power or work out the higher the losses. Compressed air is very expensive and ineficient way to power things. It is flexable which is why it is often used - but the cost is still high.

This is why I am amused at the notion of the non poluting, eco friendly compressed air car. What a farce. If you only look at the vehicle as the total system I'm sure it looks like a dream - and only puts fresh air (with a bit of lube oil mixed in perhaps?) out the tail pipe. Now - now much power does it take to compress that air in the first place? What drives the compressor? A gas or diesel engine? An electric motor with a coal plant at the other end of the extension cord? Wouldn't you be better off to skip the intermediate step of making compressed air and just drive the bubble car with a small engine or electric motor?

People have to come to terms with the fact that there is no free lunch getting from point A to point B and that power (when looking at the whole system) will have some emissions that the greenies and the eco-lefties finde objectionable (while Algore lights up his house like a mega church 24/7 AND flys in a jet to go preach about the eeeeVils of having a large "carbon footprint (yet another farce!)).

Travis

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