Freezing gas prices

Oklahoma News Channel 4 ^ | May 25, 2005 | ALI MEYER

[johnwayne]

Americans guzzle 65 billion gallons of fuel a year and lately we have been paying a pretty penny at the pump. NewsChannel 4 has done reports in the past on how to get the most out of your gas. Now we introduce you to a new way to save on those gasoline dollars.

There is a man who fills up his tank once every two months. One tank of gas, literally, lasts him two months. He is freezing the price of gas by freezing something else.

People complain about the price of gas and we are all spending dearly to stay on the road these days. The money we spend on gas seems to burn up faster than the fuel.

While there may be little rhyme or reason to why the prices are on a perpetual roller-coaster, there is one man who has found a way to freeze them in their tracks, literally.

David Hutchison is a Cryogenics expert. He built this Cryo-Process himself. He runs a business out of his garage where he cryogenically tempers all kinds of metals. He submerges them in a frozen tank of nitrogen vapor that is 300 degrees below zero.

David says, “During that time, at minus 300 degrees, the molecules slow down. Then they reorganize themselves. That's when the actual chemical change happens.”

Hutchison cryogenically tempers machine parts, tools, golf clubs and even razors. He says it makes them last three to five times longer.

A few years ago he began an experiment on his hybrid Honda, freezing the engine components. The results were a fuel-efficiency dream.

David Hutchison says, “You should expect a “Cryo'd” engine to last anywhere from 600,000 to 1 million miles without wearing out.”

A hybrid Honda typically gets really great gas mileage anyway, around 50 miles to the gallon, but David Hutchison's cryogenically tempered engine has been known to get close to 120 miles a gallon.

“It's just a very efficient vehicle.” Hutchison says,

Racers have picked up on David's trick of cryogenically freezing car parts. It is now widely accepted among NASCAR and Indy-car racers.

.....

[johnwayne]

Thoughts from you scientists on this.

[Kozak]

Proof?

[sinclair]

 I was gonna do that but my damn V-8 don't fit in my freezer.  

[diogenes ghost]

I fail to see why this would affect fuel prices.

[Graybeard58]

I wish that they would give a little more detail as to why it makes an engine more fuel efficent.

[LouD]

I can't imagine how cryo treatments would improve mileage. I can see cryo treated parts remaining "in spec" longer, and therefore maintaining better mileage over time, and I can also believed the improved durability.

[Jeff Chandler]

If they do it while the engine is hot, it cracks the block and the engine no longer consumes gasoline.

[tahotdog]

It'd have to be something you felt good about building an engine for and the ordinary yuppy these days can't even add oil to his own car, much less build engines.

Cryo treating rifle barrels makes them nearly as hard and smooth (and easy to clean) as if they were chrome lined. It would have to eliminate a lot of the friction in a normal sort of internal combustion engine.

[WFTR]

I read an article about this technique about ten years ago, but I don't think the article explained the technical side of the process in any detail. In metallurgy, we've studied the effects of cooling metals from higher temperatures to room temperature extensively. We know about quenching and tempering starting at roughly ambient temperatures and sometimes down to around the freezing temperature of water. I've not heard of studies where they quench metals to crygenic temperatures and then study the microstructure. I think it would be a neat study.

I'm not immediately aware of a microstructural transition that would have a huge effect on a metal's wear characteristics, but if this guy's claims are legitimate, I'm assuming that his technique is affecting the tribological properties of the metals.

The whole subject is interesting, but I don't know whether it's real.

Bill

[Muleteam1]

I can certainly understand how hardening the metal of an engine could reduce wear and therefore extend the life of that engine. However, I fail to understand how "tempering" the metal of a piston engine can produce better gas mileage? This sounds a bit like it fits into those mysterious technologies oil companies are always supposed to buyout then withhold from development.

Muleteam1

[HangnJudge]

Page of links on the subject
http://directory.google.com/Top/Science/Technology/Cryotechnology/Cryogenic_Processing_of_Materials/

Lots of interest from many areas including
brass musical instruments, softball bats, tools, motor sports
gun barrels, etc.

Discussion on use in music
Sounds interesting

"Today we can use a process called Cryogenic Resonance Restoration TM that not only duplicates the aging process but in many ways has improved it. CRR TM is a dry process where instruments are placed in a specially designed and insulated chamber that is computer controlled to hold temperatures below - 325 F. The process itself is very gentle, with changes in temperatures occurring at approximately 1 degree per minute: it will not effect lacquer or plated finishes. By cryogenically processing instruments, residual and compressive stresses from the dislocation of the metal's structure is reduced. The metal itself becomes a better resonator by making its grain spacing smaller. This allows resonance to travel more freely through the metal.

Figure one: metal lattice - atoms of alloy metals such as brass line up imperfect rows stacked densely on top of each other. When the instrument is hammered & bent into shape, the atoms can get pushed apart ( stressed ) or whole planes can get knocked out of alignment ( dislocation ), as shown left. Freezing the instrument reduces the residual stress in the metallic lattice. The metals used in musical instruments are improved by the cryogenic process through improving the homogeneity of the crystal structure, reducing gaps, and dislocations caused by this forming process.

Sound quality improves because the resonance character is not lost by dampening stress. The harmonic structure present before the process is enhanced and musicians often find a better core to their sound with a more even timbre throughout; dynamics and pitch center, as well as the efficiency, can also be improved. What Cryogenic Resonance Restoration TM will not do is transform a poorly made or designed instrument into a good instrument, but it can make a good instrument even better."

[Wally_Kalbacken]

They laughed when I wound up my shaver!

[Wally_Kalbacken]

You too can get 200 MPG!

[paulat]

Does this mean Ted Williams never gets gas?

[mmercier]

Lots of musicians have used this service to treat their horns. My neighbor sent his sax to California to have it chilled to -450F 1 degree per hour, then returned to room temperature @ 1 degree per hour... Took about a month before he got his sax back, and cost more than he was willing to discuss...

Sounded the same to me, but he was happy.

cryotreatment of metals is likely viable, and is available if you have the money.... But IMO, If you have the money to freeze your saxophone to absolute zero, you also have the money to buy a bus loads of saxophones and throw them out before you need to open the spitter.

[ProudVet77]

Quenching and tempering work because the metal is still somewhat viscous (think glass viscosity) and the slower you cool it the structure of the produced material changes.
This stuff is pure silliness. Once the structure of the metal is set, lowering the temperature is certainly not going to change it.

[stylin19a]

Racers have picked up on David's trick of cryogenically freezing car parts. It is now widely accepted among NASCAR and Indy-car racers.

gives new meaning to freezing your nuts off

[freeandfreezing]

Sounds like utter nonsense to me:

Gas mileage depends on lots of things like vehicle weight, air drag, tire rotational drag, rotating friction, viscous friction of oil in bearing surfaces, combustion efficiency, and of course driving technique. It has nothing to do with the properties of the metal in the engine -- except perhaps how light the engine is. From a mileage point of view a really light engine that wore out in a hurry would beat a heavier engine any day.

Even if some heat/cold treatment actually changed the properties of the metal in the engine it would make no difference in the gas mileage of the car. It might have some effect on the longevity of the bearings, or cylinder bores, for example, but it wouldn't change the mileage.

Of course chilling the gasoline itself might be a way to increase the apparent mileage -- the cold gasoline would be denser so you'd get a little more in the tank...