Trip to Va Tech #2

[GasSavers_BEEF]

I want to know more about stage 1. the one that you can retrofit onto an existing car for just the launch.

you said possibly available in 2009. was that a retro fit onto a vehicle? what would be the cost? I really like the idea.

it isn't that I don't like your other ideas but I work in design (electronic design, PAs to be exact) and I know how schedules go. time lines get stretched out and some projects get dropped all together (not that I expect that of yours). I think that if you could increase someones mileage by 40% over what they are doing right now, that would sell like hotcakes (depending on price).

I for one would be interested if the system was relatively inexpensive. keep us posted. hopefully one day, the hydraulic car will be available at our nearest dealer.

this is good stuff. I can't wait to see how this turns out

[R.I.D.E.]

Pics.
gary

[R.I.D.E.]

Here are pictures of the model I built. The outer rim rotates while everything inside the black shaded ring is stationary.

The three photos show 3 postions:

Lowest foreward gear
Neutral
Lowest Reverse (or highest regeneration)gear

Any position between these maximums creates an effectively higher gear. The movements of the adjustable journal are very subtle, but the consequences are dramatic.

If you apply 5000 PSI pressure to each piston as it and its corresponding cylinder pass over the high pressure supply port (in the adjustable journal-not shown in the model). You transfer that force to the outer locating point of each piston. If the cylinder has a surface area of 1 square inch then you would be creating about 800 foot pounds of rotational torque directly on the outermost portion of the rim, on EACH drive wheel.

As the wheel starts to spin and you want to go to a higher gear, you reduce the stroke position and that is all that is necessary to go to a higher gear. Highest gear would be the slightest amount of adjustment from the neutral position.

Sitting still you are in neutral. When you want to accelerate you move the journal to a position that matches the desired rate of acceleration. Regeneration is simply reversing the stroke position. In fact, if you continue to apply that same sroke position the vehicle would actually go backwards after coming to a complete stop.

As you regenerate braking energy and the pressure rises, you simply reduce the stroke position to compensate.

Look at the model and understand it is basically an axle with a hub rotating around that axle. The diameter of the axle is enlarged to about 4 inches to allow an offset hole to be drilled through the axle, which allows the journal and its shaft to pass through the axle for external adjustment as well as providing a rotary valve for supply and return fluid passageways.

Think of it as a "smart" axle, like smart bombs. The smart portion is the 4 rotary cylinders and their pistons and the adjustable journal. The clyinders are highlighted with red paint, while the pistons are silver. Notice the lack of connecting rods, because the pistons and cylinders can each pivot on their respective end locations.

I'll be back later to answer other questions.

Pictures in next post, sorry I chose quick reply.

regards
gary

[theholycow]

Originally Posted by R.I.D.E.

Pictures in next post, sorry I chose quick reply.

You can switch from the "quick reply" box to the full message composition interface by clicking the "Go Advanced" button. It retains everything you've entered and even gives you a preview of your post with what you've already entered.

[jeep45238]

Gary, you may want to try contacting Peraves about use of their superball motor.








http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAE9g_CV-eY

[jeep45238]

The ONLY reason why front braking works better than rear is because the fronts have more traction from the weight transfer and resist locking better.

Rear driven wheels tend to work better in terms of pure acceleration for the same reason.

Ya'll are getting too tied up in which wheels do what - if it spins, it turns the motor, which is all that needs to be done for this.

Also, holycow, he's not talking about the flywheel attached directly to the engine (this would jack up engine RPM's incredibly fast and probably toast your motor) Since the 40's people have been experimenting with putting a massive flywheel horizontal under the floor of a car and using that to store energy. I'm pretty sure that's what he's referring to on the flywheel storage device. Yes, it will have some decent gyroscopic effects, but not on the lateral plane so your steering, acceleration, and braking would all remain relatively unaffected.


The only 2 major issues with implementing hydraulics on the road are these:
1) Maintenance. People are freaking lazy, the system will be contaminated, pumps and motors will fry, all because somebody didn't stick to a maintenance schedule. That's not even counting leaking connections, bad welds or castings, or dry rotting hoses and the chances for a catastrophic failure. When most people can't remember when they changed their antifreeze last, I don't think that's the market to target a mass production hydraulic drive.

B)Potentially injuring someone if a resivior tank blows and sends shrapnel through the interior.

[theholycow]

Originally Posted by jeep45238

people have been experimenting with putting a massive flywheel horizontal under the floor of a car and using that to store energy. I'm pretty sure that's what he's referring to on the flywheel storage device.

He's talking about using the engine block as the flywheel. This is a design he's discussed before, where it's not an engine like is used now, but rather one where the whole engine spins.

Edit: Well, he did talk about a separate flywheel for stage 1, but that wasn't what I was responding to when I was concerned with gyroscopic effects.

[R.I.D.E.]

Torque was compensated for in the P38 with counterotating props. A flywheel storage system could have a low speed pump-motor with geared planetary high speed flywheels, half rotating in opposing directions of the other half. Spin a top on the surface of a plate. Wallk around with the plate. Throw the spinning top in the air and catch it in the plate. It keeps spinning.

No maintanance necessary. When is the last time you lost traction in a puddle of hydraulic fluid leaking from any one of hundreds of vehicles that already have hydraulic systems and travel the highways daily?

Torque can also be controlled easily with long torque rods that distribute the force over a larger radius.

Flywheels are one method of storage, accumulators are the other. Each has its advantages and disadvantages. Both are nearly three times as efficient as battery electric hybrids.

Read the EPA hydraulic hybrids documents, look at their vehicle prototypes. Designed by Ford, Eaton, Parker Hannifin, and many other companies. They do not share your concerns.

The points about dangerous situations seem rather rediculous to me anyway.

No brakes to wear out or fail. I have seen people drive cars into my shop that were soo stupid they drove the car with bad rear brakes intil the caliper piston was rubbing on the rotor, until it ground itself down and fell out on the road. This is your "better system".

Try 500,000 miles and not a single set of brake pads.

No 30 gallon gas tanks, or CNG cylinders like Pickens is advocating. You are already riding around in a bomb, if you want to take that kind of negative prespective. Hydraulics are used in construction extensively, heard about anyone getting sliced in half by a leak.

We can strap a man to a multi million pound pile of rocket fuel and blast him to the moon, but he wont survive a storage container of less than ten gallons at 5000 PSI under two layers of protective materials!

Seen any exploding accumulators in aircraft?

This design is not being criticized by engineers as a rolling bomb.

HolyCow, you can put the design anywhere you want. The problem with retrofitting anything, is you are throwing away what you already paid for, buying new components, and paying labor to install them. You need to integrate any retrofit with existing anitlock brakes and traction control which requires new computers and programming.

I used my car as an example because it is available, and has no issues with integration with ABS or TC.

A means of demonstrating stage 1, to proove the design advantages.

Think like a manufacturer for a minute, then you can understand the three stages. Go directly to stage 3 and make every car on the road obsolete in 3 years. The used car market collapses. Road tax revenues plunge. Oil companies are left with billions of dollars of unused machinery.

The whole automotive sales and repair infrastructure will be affected dramatically.

You don't find friends when you start rocking their boat, and threatening thier economic security.

I worked on cars for 60,000 hours and I know a better mousetrap when I am looking at it.

I also realize that 100,000 other "dreamers" with better mousetraps have tried before me.

I have studied and worked on cars for over 40 years, and I know how far the development has progressed. The key missing component is exactly what we are talking about.

The objective is clear, make the vehicle hypermile itself, while leaving no evidence of that visible to any outside observer.

Look at Basjoos' aero mods. As he reduces the aero drag on his car, his engine needs to do less work and becomes less efficient. My system does the exact opposite. Keeps the engine running at only its best efficiency regardless of the lower power demands. It simply runs less and the stored energy drives the car further.

regards
gary

[jeep45238]

Gary - most of the hydraulics you see on America's roadways are for PTO's, and run at relatively low pressures and volumes. They are not used for primary drivetrains on the road at this point in time en masse.

There are plenty of obsticals to overcome - I was NOT claiming that hydraulics are touchy feely things that explode if they're looked at wrong, just that they need proper maintenance. You RARELY see massive failure of construction and airliner fleet vehicles because they're properly maintained - the average American is a flipping idiot who doesn't understand why overheating brake rotors is a bad thing to do. Those are the people that it should NOT be marketed as.

You're reading too much into something that's not there bud.