Posted on 02/22/2005 3:21:25 PM PST by goldstategop
These are no ordinary cars. Power comes from fresh air stored in reinforced carbon-fiber tanks beneath the chassis. Air is compressed to 4,500 pounds per square inch — about 150 times the pressure of the typical car tire. The air is fed into four cylinders where it expands, driving specially designed pistons. About 25 horsepower is generated.
Though technical problems are being worked out, company officials say the car is capable of 70 mph and a 120-mile range under normal city conditions, performance that is comparable to electric cars.
Critics say the car has had trouble living up to its range projections. But company officials say they are trying to overcome that by warming the stored air.
Recharging the onboard tanks takes about four hours using the car's small compressor, which can be plugged into any wall outlet. Gas stations equipped with special air pumps can replenish the tanks in about three minutes. Company officials say the oil only needs to be changed every 31,000 miles.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
I believe it all, including the welding fire...seen many of them in 30 plus years in maintenance. I'm not familiar with those particular engines, but have read the names before. I am a great believer in steam. By using a 50/50 mix of water and alcohol, Doble lowered the boiling point to where he could start the engine after 30 sec. if the car was garaged overnight with the pilot on. (done in Philadelphia at about 20 deg ambient, I think) at least it wouldn't freeze with that much alcohol in it. He had good acelleration because of the high pressure steam.
What these people dont understand is that a steam engine does not require all that steam once it is running.
They could tune the engines so that the valves only opened enough to maintain the motion of the vehicle. I.E. locomotive engines, the valves could be tuned to open and close allowing only enough steam to keep up speed and power.
A real set of air tanks.
In other words, the performance sucks and nobody will buy them.
And you drive a Renault, right? :-)
Chucked many a slab into that firebox I did.
Dad actually ran two sawmills with that Corliss..one upstairs and one down. The upstairs mill was a bolt mill sawing 4 foot box wood bolts for the government during ww2. The downstairs mill sawed random length up to 20 foot for crating and bridging. It all went to the war effort. 8 foot 10 ton flywheel. 12 inch bore and 36 inche stroke. 65 RPM..unless the gov belt came off-then it was seconds of pure high balling terror till someone got the trottle shut off. That didnt happen but maybe once every 5 years or so.
My Brother ran it till it burned down. I actually cried when I heard it went down. Dam engines actually seem to talk to you when they run. I used to love to run outside of the mill when my brother first started it up in the morning to hear her take a big breath as she started. Anybody that has never been around a steam engine would never understand what I am talking about.
Jay Leno owns a Doble Automobile.
If the price of oil remains high and I do believe it will; then we are going to see near instant innovation. Who knows maybe that new spray on solar cell will be able to help fill compressed air needs? In the meantime habits will change. I know once the snow melts I will be riding both bikes a lot more.
Release of a compressed gas causes refrigeration. You know, the air cans used for dusting become quite cold. It is the principle by which refrigeration takes place.
The first steam engines never used any pressure over atmospheric.
If those two contain pressures of 4,500 psi, then they are slightly more dangerous than they look.
---If you wish to see a Corliss in operation, go to the Sturgis,SD Threshermans Reunion in August--they have a former logging-camp power plant set up and show it off then---
The air heats up when it is compressed, true. However, when you take compressed air and let it decompress, the air is cooled.
Generally, you cool off the compressed air before storing it so you can store more in the tank, but you also have to remember that pressure is dependent on temperature. If you put air out of a compresser discharge at 100 psi and 100 degrees F into a tank that is only 20 degrees F, you will not wind up with 100 psi when all is said and done. So, what is done is the air is cooled in between compression stages, and the discharge is kept higher than where you want it to sit in the tank at.
It is best to view the whole process as a continuous cycle. First, you're going to take air in at atmospheric and compress it to a specified pressure. That will heat the air up, so you put a heat exchanger to dissipate the heat. The compressed air eventually flows to a work device, which returns the air to atmospheric and therefore causes it to cool off.
I believe they do use compressed air for A/C on large Jetliners. It is called ROVAC if my mind serves me. The Jets easily compress the air to the point that this is possible, and there's lots of air to use. The Jet draws in the air and compresses it. Some of the air is diverted off the engine before combustion and alllowed to decompress. It is then run inside a heat exchanger that has cabin air blowing over it, which cools the cabin air.
I'm not familiar with that device, but it's very difficult to see how it would work as described. Are you sure the compressed gas is not heated before it's released into the tube?
I had one of those - sold it for $500 more than I paid for it, when I graduated college.
As the air is compressed it will get hotter. The heat will conduct away through the storage container walls until ambient temperature is reached. When the room temperature compressed air expands (adiabatic expansion) it will get VERY COLD.
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