Regenerative systems (KERS)

[Belatti]

Ciro, I read the article and there are still things I don´t understand.

- That coal power plants are dirty and with low efficiency I agree.
- The same with gas power plants, but a little more efficient.
- Hydraulic energy is something but depends on the geography and it really disrupts the enviroment (water mirros produce climate changes).
- I´ll accept Nuclear power just if you talk to me of Nuclear plants of 4th generation, that is not currently developed 100% but I´ve heard good things about them

How exactly carbon can transform into a radioactive source?

One fact: infront of PC and TV monitors we absorb more radioactivity than Nuclear powerplants workers.

Another thing
Biofuel Yes: manufactured from disposals, like restaurant used/fried oils, poo, garbage and vegetal rests that remains from crops.

Biofuel No: manufactured by interferring with food production.

I would like to see a different world, a gree powered one.
But please, don´t touch F1. High power/displacement ratio superRPMized engines are the coolest thing that I have ever seen and heard!

[Ciro Pabón]

Ciro, I read the article and there are still things I don´t understand.
...
- The same with gas power plants, but a little more efficient.
...
How exactly carbon can transform into a radioactive source?
...
But please, don´t touch F1. High power/displacement ratio superRPMized engines are the coolest thing that I have ever seen and heard!

Gas plants are not "a little more efficient", or that's what I think: they're a lot more efficient. The heat from the exhaust of the gas turbine can be used more easily: the gas that you get from coal plants is corrosive and thus is harder to use it to create steam: this gives you around 20-30% better efficiency, if you use this heat from the gas turbine to power a steam generator that drives another electric generator. Check with your teachers I might be wrong, I'm a "lowly engineering life form" (civil & systems ) but that's what Siemens explains. They claim to have the "world record" of efficiency with the power plant whose reference I gave in the thread on regenerative systems we had over a year ago.

Siemens SGT-5. World record holder of efficiency (60%!) AND the most powerful electric generator (800 MWatts) simultaneously.


Carbon is NOT transformed into a radioactive material: it has some thorium and other radioactive elements embedded in it, a few parts per million I imagine. When you burn the coal, you concentrate these elements: they are in the ashes. However, a carbon plant produces lots and lots of ashes, dumped normally into a huge pile: ergo radioactivity.

Finally, I assume you agree with me that few engines are so "researched" as F1 engines. You can orient the huge amounts of money they use for research into anything. Why not efficiency? Look at the Siemens example: most powerful AND most efficient. Check the reference I gave a long time ago, if you have the time, in theEnd of oil and F1 thread: http://www.autoindustry.co.uk/docs/eems_study.pdf

I'm sure you will like it.

At Le Mans, the efficiency index (I'm not sure about the name, I'm in a hurry, check Le Mans Wiki) is, according to what I've read, the prize most coveted by mechanical engineers nuts for racing (like some argentinian friends I have... ). I've heard about it as "the true racer cup" since I was seven years old (around the Jurassic era). Or so Mr. Colin Chapman said. May I repeat one of his most lovable phrases? (from memory, mentioned in the pdf I gave earlier): "F1 should have only three rules: the length of the race, the weight of the car and the amount of fuel for the race". Wise man.

[Belatti]

My fault, agree completely with efficiency you say. And also agree in efficiency oriented F1 rules (like in 80´s limited fuel turbo era).

Yep, combined gas Turbnine / steam Turbine cycles reach that efficiency, I have visited a couple of those plants with my University teachers, in Buenos Aires there are mostly Siemens and GE turbines.
But that efficiency pays a price: the gas turbine has to work at such a high temp (for allowing exhaust gases heat to produce steam) that the rotor blades are from an expensive heat resistance ceramic material that has to be replaced every 2-3 years and each blade costs USD 30.000.

But thanks, its good to know that about coal plants!
I imagined that some filter technology was applied there and little carbon was spread therefore. But seems thats always like that.

Chapman and Lotus rules!

[Carlos]

A compact integration of a flywheel and transmission:

http://www.autobloggreen.com/2007/08/17 ... otrak-and/

We have often brought up the fact that the Formula 1 racing series, and their sanctioning body the Federation Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA), would like to showcase improved efficiency and use technology that is more relevant to the cars that are actually driven on the street. Honda has taken the lead when it comes to portraying a green, environmentally friendly image, but it used to be commonplace for technologies derived through the rigors of racing to show up on street driven cars in a few years. This has not been happening lately, as the race cars look and perform less and less like their road-going counterparts. It looks like the tables could turn on the sport, with the race cars instead using technology developed for the road. Specifically we are talking about recapturing braking energy to be reused as motive force. This is a common component of the hybrid car. According to Max Mosely, president of the FIA, "We will make research work in F1 more road-relevant. We will move F1 from the technology of the 20th century to that of the 21st century, to move away from F1 being labeled as a dinosaur."

While I would certainly never label the F1 series a dinosaur when it comes to technology, it is a good sign that the governing body of the sport recognizes that the cars need to have some connection with ordinary cars. We could soon see the day when F1 technology is making another impact on road cars, as the system that is being designed for the race series is totally different than what is currently available in hybrids on the roadways today. The system is being jointly designed by Torotrak and Xtrac. Instead of capturing the braking force as electricity, the force instead will be stored in a rotating flywheel as kinetic energy. Also part of the design is a variator which will transfer the kinetic power of the flywheel to the transmission; the end result will be cars slinging quickly out of corners that they had just slowed down for.

While the thought of a flywheel spinning at super high speed sounds a little scary, at least they are not trying rubber bands!

Toroidal traction drive specialist Torotrak plc and vehicle transmission design and manufacturing company Xtrac Ltd are pleased to announce that on 4 June 2007 they entered into a licence agreement to enable Xtrac to develop highly efficient and compact continuously variable transmissions (CVTs) for use in the new kinetic energy recovery systems (KERS) proposed for Formula One ("F1") motor racing.

[IMG:325:308]http://img443.imageshack.us/img443/4726 ... racor9.jpg[/img][/url]

[ss_collins]

We have had a chance to study one of the very first complete F1 KER systems - its pretty interesting guess what - Dec issue (its bloody good, which I'd written a lot of it but it more of a Charles Issue

[checkered]

Are there any

projected numbers available as to the weight that thing will add to the transmission and the effect of that weight on the height of CoG? Where will the device have to fit and at what cost to aerodynamics (more drag as there's an added bulge towards the rear)? What about mechanical losses that can be attributed to affixing something like that on the power train in solely engine powered accelerations? Or will it automatically detach itself once all the momentum is spent on propelling the car forward?

I take it that at least with other general design specs remaining roughly the same in F1 there's no sense in trying to retrieve braking energy from the front wheels (complexity, weight, less room to play with ballast)? This would of course force a rethink of brakes (operating temps, material, size, calliper) and especially the rules concerning brake hydraulics simply can't stay unaltered, perhaps opening the way for a more "managed" or "controlled" system of reducing speed.

This raises quite many questions. I hope the teams can be relatively open about how their systems work. It'd be in their "green PR" interest anyway.

[joseff]

With today's (relatively) front-heavy cars, wouldn't it be better to harvest braking energy from the front wheels? Wasn't there another thread where we speculated that weight distribution under breaking was 70F/30R or thereabouts?

And does anybody remember the Chrysler Patriot racer from the early 90s? It was a flywheel hybrid thingie, and the flywheel failed catastrophically several times on the bench, even killing an engineer.

[Carlos]

Flywheel Containment Saftey Developments:
http://www.testdevices.com/flywheel_article.htm
Earlier in the thread there is more information.

[joseff]

Thanks Carlos.

Another silly question: seeing as that flywheel has a horizontal axis, and likely to spin at up to 100krpm, would there be, uh... gyroscopic effects? I'd always assumed they all had vertical axes so as not to interfere with the car's handling.

[Carlos]

Your right joseff - it would have gyrospcopic rotation, I remember film of old radial engine ( which rotate clockwise) biplanes that pulled to the right when they took off, maybe its the picture, maybe it should be rotated 90 degrees, would a gimbal work?

[Ciro Pabón]

From the 2009 tech regs (brought to my attention by Gugs, at another forum):

5.2 Other means of propulsion:
5.2.1 The use of any device, other than the 2.4 litre, four stroke engine described in 5.1 above and one KERS, to power the car, is not permitted.
5.2.2 With the exception of one fully charged KERS, the total amount of recoverable energy stored on the car must not exceed 300kJ. Any which may be recovered at a rate greater than 2kW must not exceed 20kJ.
5.2.3 The maximum power, in or out, of any KERS must not exceed 60kW. Energy released from the KERS may not exceed 400kJ in any one lap. Measurements will be taken at the connection to the rear wheel drive train.
5.2.4 Any KERS may only be capable of increasing the stored energy whilst the car is moving on the track. Release of power from any such system must remain under the complete control of the driver at all times the car is on the track.
5.2.5 Cars must be fitted with homologated sensors which provide all necessary signals to the SDR in order to verify the requirements above are being respected.

The connection diagram:



The specifications for ECU, marshalling, lap completion digital sensor and KERS ports and sensors in the request for proposals for ECUS, by FIA:

http://argent.fia.com/web/appeloffre.ns ... penelement

Interesting bits:

7.4 FIA Communications
A CAN 2.0B bus is provided to allow the ECU to exchange information with other units that are fitted to the car due to regulatory requirements. This includes the Accident Data Recorder/Secondary Data Recorder, FIA Marshal System and the FOM TV unit.
The FIA Marshal system is currently under development and will allow various conditions, under the control of the marshals and race director, to be flagged to the driver via his cockpit/steering wheel display such as yellow, red and blue flag conditions. In the future, it could be used to impose restrictions on the cars control systems such as by setting a particular speed limit for safety reasons.

Maximum start-up time (initially un-powered): 0.5 seconds

That's the kind of performance I expected from Windows Vista...

[ss_collins]

I hate vista - I really do.

[astsmtl]

I hate vista - I really do.

And i hate Windows! And any proprietary software!

[Ogami musashi]

A speed limiter?

well it means to me that FIA doesn't plans on limiting innovation simply performance and i think that's a good way to go.

Of course...if they limit speed to 250Km/h i may just hack the ECU.

[persovik]

I believe that the speed-limiter option is purely for allowing the implementation of a system for controlling speeds in caution periods etc.