Energy Recovery.

[pjpj]

Hi,

Thought I would start a topic on energy recovery, in the vein of KERS on F1, which can then be re-used to drive the wheels.

As above, Kinetic Energy Recovery is one such method, energy stored on a battery or flywheel during braking.

Are Turbo Chargers classed as real re-use of energy or do they use more energy to operate?

What about the heat generated during the running of the engine, is there any development to re-use this?

Are there any other methods anyone has heard of.

Hopefully, this could be an interesting topic to ruminate.

This may a better solution than any NEW fuel as such. To significantly reduce the amount of fuel burnt and it may well be in the form of an add-on to existing power plants.

I look forward to reading your input.

Regards

[pjpj]

Well, there does seem to be something being designed that uses the 19th century technology of steam power turbines and it's going to take ten years to develop further for integration into road cars!

It takes heat from the exhaust to heat liquid recycling 80% of the heat energy in the exhaust gases.

BMW's Turbosteamer

The only info. I can find on this is from 2005/6
http://www.gizmag.com/go/4936/

It reduces consumption by about 15% and provides apx. 10kW of extra power.

This has also been designed so that it can be added to existing models.

[pjpj]

Something else I found.

A very interesting invention by the British of course.

It's called TIGERS (Turbo-generator Integrated Gas Energy Recovery System)

Again, about 10% saving on fuel and lowers emissions.

A Switched Reluctance Drive (Generator) is driven by the high energy gases from the exhaust system, enough to run the cars full electrical system.

Of course, this has to rely on enough energy (Pressure) being generated, so how is this going to assist with the increasing congestion?

And can apparently, be fitted to all vehicles.

I have yet to find any information on any manufacturers taking this up but the company expect it to be production ready by 2012.

Here are some links.

http://www.carpages.co.uk/news/tigers-22-09-05.asp

http://www.cpowert.com/products/tigers.htm

A couple of other interesting developments on their homepage too

http://www.cpowert.com/

[stype3]

Well now, if you want the ultimate in energy efficiency from burning fuels, you have to use an external combustion engine. Steam Turbines as used to be used by the big power stations are an excellent example. A more modern but less efficient one is 'Tornado' currently running on railways around the UK. Using water of course tends to involve quite high masses, but there are other lighter liquids and some solids that may also be converted to gas, more efficiently.

[johnkamradt]

Dear all not exactly related but have a look at rover turbine car this is a report on the (1956) rover turbine not good mpg but wonder why no one is trying to make one today with todays tech
jk

[johnkamradt]

Dear all not exactly related but have a look at rover turbine car this is a report on the (1956) rover turbine not good mpg but wonder why no one is trying to make one today with todays tech
jk

well i see jagua has come up with a turbine / electric car 205 mph not bad

[SimonHobson]

Dear all not exactly related but have a look at rover turbine car this is a report on the (1956) rover turbine not good mpg but wonder why no one is trying to make one today with todays tech

It suffered from very poor fuel consumption as turbines are not very efficient under some of the operating conditions common for a car engine. Also, they are notorious for slow spooling up - ie you can't just "hit the pedal" and take off, it's more "hit the pedal and wait" and eventually it will start winding up. The Rover turbine car had very poor acceleration.

Jaguar are working round these problems by building an electric car driven by two turbo-generators. This allows them to get the benefits of electric drive (phenomenal torque at low speed so good acceleration), while running the turbines (which are small and high speed) at a constant speed to eliminate spooling up delays and improve efficiency.