01-08-2014, 02:46 PM
COMPRESSED AIR CAR
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ABSTRACT
The Compressed Air Car is a car currently being developed, and, eventually, manufactured by Moteur Development International (MDI), founded by French inventor Guy Nègre. The air car is powered by an air engine, specifically tailored for the car. The used air engine is being manufactured by CQFD Air solution, a company closely linked to MDI. The engine is powered by compressed air, stored in a glass or carbon-fibre tank at 4500 psi. The engine has injection similar to normal engines, but uses special crankshafts and pistons, which remain at top dead centre for about 70% of the engine's cycle; this allows more power to be developed in the engine.
Though some consider the car to be pollution-free, it must be taken into account that the tanks are recharged using electric (or gasoline) compressors, resulting in some pollution, if the electricity used to operate the compressors comes from polluting power plants (such as gas-, or coal-power plants). Solar power could possibly be used to power the compressors at fuel station.
Introduction
A compressed-air vehicle (CAV) is powered by an air engine, using compressed air, which is stored in a tank. Instead of mixing fuel with air and burning it in the engine to drive pistons with hot expanding gases, compressed-air vehicles use the expansion of compressed air to drive their pistons. One manufacturer claims to have designed an engine that is 90 percent efficient.
Compressed-air propulsion may also be incorporated in hybrid systems, such as with battery electric propulsion. This kind of system is called a hybrid-pneumatic electric propulsion. Additionally, regenerative braking can also be used in conjunction with this system
Working
It uses the expansion of compressed air to drive the pistons in a modified piston engine.
Efficiency of operation is gained through the use of environmental heat at normal temperature to warm the otherwise cold expanded air from the storage tank.
This non-adiabatic expansion has the potential to greatly increase the efficiency of the machine.
A piston compresses air from the atmosphere, holding it on a small container that feeds the high pressure air tanks with a small amount of air.
Air? At first glance, the idea of running a car on air seems almost too good to be true. If we can use air as fuel, why think about using anything else? Air is all around us. Air never runs out. Air is nonpolluting. Best of all, air is free.
¬¬ Unfortunately, air alone can't be used as a fuel. First, energy has to be stored in it by squeezing the air tightly using a mechanical air compressor. Once the compressed air is released, it expands. This expanding air can be used, for example, to drive the pistons that power an engine. The idea of using compressed air to power a vehicle isn't new: Early prototypes of an air-powered vehicle go back to the middle of the 19th century, even before the invention of the internal combustion engine.
Main Components Of Compressed Air Car
Storage tanks
In contrast to hydrogen's issues of damage and danger involved in high-impact crashes, air, on its own, is non-flammable. It was reported on Seven Network's Beyond Tomorrow that on its own carbon-fiber is brittle and can split under sufficient stress, but creates no shrapnel when it does so. Carbon-fiber tanks safely hold air at a pressure somewhere around 4500 psi, making them comparable to steel tanks. The cars are designed to be filled up at a high-pressure pump.
3.2 Engines
Compressed air cars are powered by motors driven by compressed air, which is stored in a tank at high pressure such as 30 MPa (4500 psi or 310 bar). Rather than driving engine pistons with an ignited fuel-air mixture, compressed air cars use the expansion of compressed air, in a similar manner to the expansion of steam in a steam engine.
There have been prototype cars since the 1920s, with compressed air used in torpedo propulsion.