**** on my hybrid engine idea

**** on my hybrid engine idea

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aceparts

Original Poster:

3,724 posts

240 months

Wednesday 8th October 2014
quotequote all
On overrun then engine by way of electronic valve timing or simply additional valve in the head, acts as a compressor to charge an air tank

During initial acceleration, engine is run on air.

Just the weight of a tank to add to the car. No batteries, motors of other wizardry!

What am I missing here? Pressures? I'm guessing the engine could produce 150psi, perhaps more if Atkinson cycle is used.

CrutyRammers

13,735 posts

197 months

Wednesday 8th October 2014
quotequote all
Complexity, I should imagine.
Fitting in the extra valve would be pretty hard and no doubt compromise the combustion chamber design, almost certainly meaning smaller inlet/exhaust valves and hence reducing power and probably efficiency too.
Using either the exhausts or inlets...well you'd need another valve or valves in the manifold somewhere to divert the air on the overrun, which will in turn cause compromises for normal use.

annodomini2

6,860 posts

250 months

Wednesday 8th October 2014
quotequote all
The main issues are:

1. Cost.
2. Complexity.
3. Packaging.

Adding all these parts adds cost. You'd need extra valves in the inlet/exhaust system to implement it, which upsets the head design. Plus all the actuators and control systems to manage it.

Complexity, it'd be cheaper and cleaner to package a air pump/motor to the crank than try an modify the head design.

Where is the air tank, valves hoses etc going to go?

There's a couple of other things:

1. It will massively impact engine braking. It will also be non-linear and depends on the existing pressure in the tank.
2. Efficiency, as a pumping engine it will not be very efficient.




trashbat

6,005 posts

152 months

Wednesday 8th October 2014
quotequote all
So you get rid of the battery. What does the electrical system use?

I was under the impression that a few major manufacturer's designs have eliminated the starter motor, but haven't come to mass production. I don't have any details.

Also, your idea has been done, just not in this context:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starter_%28engine%29#...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air-start_system

OldBuoy

26,955 posts

182 months

Wednesday 8th October 2014
quotequote all
I believe Peugeot are working on a compressed air hybrid system. Cheaper and simpler than an electric jobbie.

aceparts

Original Poster:

3,724 posts

240 months

Wednesday 8th October 2014
quotequote all
Cheers guys! I won't set up in competition to Peugeot just yet then!

Ive

211 posts

168 months

Thursday 9th October 2014
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it is called the hybrid air system.

http://www.psa-peugeot-citroen.com/en/automotive-i...

conversion is done via a hydraulic motor that either pumps oil to compress air in a gas cylinder or compressed air pushes hydraulic oil through hydraulic motor into gearbox.

v8250

2,724 posts

210 months

Wednesday 22nd October 2014
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Why, oh why, are the current manufacturers wasting yet more time and energy [yes, pun intended] on yet another overly complex short-lived hybrid system that acts only as a half-way house? What is it with these, you'll need an APP' for that, type engineers today, overly complicating a device that is simply a mode of transport with an internal combustion engine? Every car manufacturer has been led, and is leading the consumer, up the pseudo-golden path of diminishing returns believing that electro-hybrid vehicles are the future. Are people/the manufacturers really so naive? I guess one day these young engineers...and I use the term very loosely...will they wake up and realize with minimal modification we could all be using hydrogen with near zero pollution emissions and for a fraction of the cost.

anonymous-user

53 months

Thursday 23rd October 2014
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v8250 said:
I guess one day these young engineers...and I use the term very loosely...will they wake up and realize with minimal modification we could all be using hydrogen with near zero pollution emissions and for a fraction of the cost.
A few points:

Young? Plenty of engineers in the automotive world have plenty of experience, and are not "young" even if we might wish we still were.....

Minimal mods / cost to run on Hydrogen? Er, yeah, whatever. init. (I think this is how the young un's speak these days!)


annodomini2

6,860 posts

250 months

Thursday 23rd October 2014
quotequote all
v8250 said:
we could all be using hydrogen with near zero pollution emissions and for a fraction of the cost.
ROFLMAO!!!

You do realise it takes roughly 35x as much energy to create, compress and transport the hydrogen, as would be generated by the car for power using a 50% efficient fuel cell. Where is that energy coming from?

An IC engine designed for Petrol would be less efficient running Hydrogen, even with minor modifications. IRO 20-30%

Not to mention the ridiculous fuel tank required.

Dream on fella, dream on! smile

v8250

2,724 posts

210 months

Thursday 23rd October 2014
quotequote all
Max_Torque said:
A few points:

Young? Plenty of engineers in the automotive world have plenty of experience, and are not "young" even if we might wish we still were.....

Minimal mods / cost to run on Hydrogen? Er, yeah, whatever. init. (I think this is how the young un's speak these days!)
Wholeheartedly agree with the extensive experience of the seasoned engineers within the sector, but, the movement/trend of the past 5+ years of over automating the humble motor car has gone too far and is, simply, unecessary. The excess complexity is overkill. Investment of even the past five years would have been far better placed in developing straight forward hydrogen power for the benefit of all. Instead we have a market of disparate powertrains wrapped up in glossed over APP type features. It's an immense disappointment that the technical brains within the industry allow themselves to be dragged down this route.

The modifications/cost/investment required to run hydrogen are considerably less than the levels of investment/R&D expenditure that most companies will admit. The issue is government endorsement/industrial and policy approval. Simply, governments know they can not 100% control/guarantee to maintain the exorbitant revenues they receive from petroleum and electrical hybrid systems. We should understand that without government approval, nothing happens, and western governments receive the majority of their revenues from both the oil/petroleum Co's and electrical utility Co's. They would struggle to regulate the hydrogen market resulting in the arse end falling out of their revenues. Hydrogen will happen but it's going to take a major sea-change in perceptive policy before it becomes mainstream.

v8250

2,724 posts

210 months

Thursday 23rd October 2014
quotequote all
annodomini2 said:
ROFLMAO!!! You do realise it takes roughly 35x as much energy to create, compress and transport the hydrogen, as would be generated by the car for power using a 50% efficient fuel cell. Where is that energy coming from?
An IC engine designed for Petrol would be less efficient running Hydrogen, even with minor modifications. IRO 20-30%
Not to mention the ridiculous fuel tank required. Dream on fella, dream on! smile
This is precisely the misconception held by the majority regarding hydrogen as a readily available fuel source. Your statement, as it is not proven data, of 35x as much to create. 35x as much energy from where/what to produce what volume of hydrogen and compared to what? A 50% fuel cell efficiency of what? What capacity and relating to what...how many kW o/p, what's the efficiency ratio to produce a stated 50% efficient fuel cell? Explain your statement of an IC engine being less efficient when running hydrogen. And which engines would see a 20-30% efficiency reduction? And for all here, please explain yourself and the statement of a "ridiculous fuel tank required".

Unfortunately, you come across as the type of fellow who'd have disapproved of/black balled Edison and the light bulb, Sir Frank Whittle and the jet engine, Sir Isaac Newton and gravity, Peter Higgs and the Higgs Boson...all of whom understood their subject, were visionaries and whose ideas/inventions were black balled by the illiterate/blinkered and yet whose theories and inventions became part of everyday life. Even the likes of Sir Chris Gent at Vodafone had the 'vision' that one day we'd all be using mobile phones...look at a mobile phone's usage rate per capita', and, a phone's processing capability compared to 10 years ago.

Energy - you fail, like many others, in understanding the positive effect of solar power technology to generate hydrogen. Why? Because you are clearly unaware of the available efficiencies from certain types of solar power technologies and some of the specialist companies. These are not the types one associates with general domestic type solar collectors.

Transportation - why would one possibly want to mass transport a fuel in the way we do today? It's a Dickensian distribution model. If you can't grasp the nettle as to the logical alternative...I'm not going tell you.

Cost - I'll drop this one in for you as you forgot to mention, cost. As with all early adopter markets, equipment cost is always higher in the early stages of deployment. It will only take a few petro-chem' Co's, a few major vehicle manufacturers and governments/EU to further endorse hydrogen development and we will see both equipment/production cost reduce resulting in hydrogen powered vehicles becoming mainstream.

Ridiculous Tanks - how can a fuel tank be ridiculous? Your current mode of transport has one, possibly two. A motorcycle has one, most public transport has one, most commercial vehicles have one...in fact, most duel fuel vehicles will have two. So, do tell us why a hydrogen tank would be ridiculous? Any more ridiculous than a petrol tank? A diesel tank? Or even an LPG tank?

AD2, I'm not wanting embarrass you on a public forum. Simply, you do not come from an energy engineering background otherwise you would not have made the statements you have made. I see from your profile you are a software engineer...you don't state which discipline/industry but as an engineer you should have suitable aptitude and future thinking to know that hydrogen is a very special element just waiting to be developed correctly. One day this will happen. When it does I sincerely hope we all mutually benefit from its development...even those non-believers.

Lastly, Dreams - clearly you are not a dreamer, yet without dreams, ideas, applications, usages...those eureka moments...technologies do not progress, develop and improve for the betterment of all. A trusty word of recommendation, "start dreaming, you'll be amazed at what can be achieved..."

Bennachie

1,090 posts

150 months

Friday 24th October 2014
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Hydrogen IS the future...............








EVERYTHING else is a (very expensive) blind alley..........








UNLESS or until battery technology improves significantly (by a factor of at least 20) - unlikely.

thatdude

2,654 posts

126 months

Friday 24th October 2014
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v8250 said:
we could all be using hydrogen
I'm not sold on hydrogen as a fuel. How can it be stored? In metal-rich sponges perhaps ("hydride" sources) which are expensive to produce in terms of both money and energy, else a tank of compressed hydrogen (boiling point of hydrogen is -253 deg.C so good luck liquifying it) which introduces massive safety risks.

You could generate it from in-situ electrolysis...but this requires an energy input, but from where? (maybe a catalyst of some sort, but probably requires rare-earth metals in the material plus sufficient light of a particular wavelength).

Perhaps we can have hydrogen generators in our homes, providing the hydrogen we need as a fuel (such little generators are used in the chemistry industry). Can we have on-board generators? this will require some means of generating the fuel as it is required. Perhaps flow-chemistry can be used here, passing a hydrogen source through a catalytic column and fuel coming out. Why does the hydrogen source need to be water? Why not something else?

Hydrogen as a fuel for the masses is, as far as I can see at the current time, not a feasible idea.

Edited by thatdude on Friday 24th October 12:39

blitzracing

6,387 posts

219 months

Sunday 2nd November 2014
quotequote all
Bennachie said:
UNLESS or until battery technology improves significantly (by a factor of at least 20) - unlikely.
Ummm- have a read of this, thats taking less time than it does to fill a tank of petrol!


http://www.extremetech.com/computing/191924-your-n...