Air-Electric Drive System

We heat the air as much as possible, just below the temps where chemical reactions create toxic or polluting gases; in a real-time operational circumstances I would reckon this temperature to be around 800°C.

Given the short distance between heater and expansion chamber, and the improving qualities of insulating materials, the loss should not be all that important.
But I agree that we will have a loss in temperature, therefore in air volume, therefore in effiency and range.
With the low cost of the air-fuel however this loss should not be dramatized
With average cost of KW in Europe we reckon to fill a 100L @ 300 bars tank for less than 2 USD, ergo 6-7 times cheaper than diesel-fuel (approx).

The remaining heat after a "serious expansion" will be quite a low temperature "air" which will be returned unpolluted into the environment via a classical exhaust system with valves, etc.

The mechanical set-up of the engine is quite conventional, except for a few touches of genius, to improve the energetic output of a very "poor" fuel (air).

Reply to innomare

Goede morgen Nederland!
Ik zal verder in het Engels antwoorden zodat iedereen kan volgen.

Many thanks for your reply, to any reply and all of the followers of this thread!
Thanks.

You're right all the way through:
- city tour boats, river boats, lake boats are a prime potential market. We have received the visit of representatives of the Vaporetti from Venice already.
The use of the "compressed air" engine is not limited to this application however.
- the fuel is "compressed air" as you rightly mention, produced by another source of energy (electricity most of the time) which may or may not be produced ecologically.
Therefore it is correct to state that the engine is zero-pollution while and where in use; not completely zero-pollution if one takes into account the production of the basic energy used to fill the tanks.

The main use will NOT be transatlantic boats or yachts. We may just want to try it as a stunt, to prove a point.

For a use in small to medium boats the compressed air engine may come as an extension to alternative power-trains (diesel-electric, hybrid, etc).

The marine application is a further development of the overall engine applications, not a prime or sole objective.

Nice to see you here, Lars!

Tell me what power would be required, what sort of range you look at, etc.
I will work out this project as an example.
CU soon, I hope
Luc

After some number-crunching.....

I would say that a 25kw engine would be sufficient since we have a better torque than an electric engine.
Weigth and size would be some 25% of a diesel engine (since we have NO ancillary equipment hanging around the engine), tanks can be place anywhere, according to required autonomy.

Noise will be almost zero if you allow for a decent cocoon (no heat is developed).
As long as the engine runs you get free cooling from the exhaust.

Cost will be less than half of a diesel propulsion (engine, ancillary, tanks, all included that is).

You will fill up in any mooring or marina with a standard shore power socket.

Scoop to come

Many thanks again to all followers of this quite technical thread!

When we hit 500 I was surprised, at 1000 I was excited, at 1500 I don't know what to say.

One thing's clear: alternative and workable solutions are of interest to the yachting community, and to all engine-users.

Till now a lot of big-shot engineers from major corporations have been looking on with a certain interest and this little smile that tells all and nothing.

Well this is going to change in the next days!

Stay tuned for our press release .............

We know!

A fair number of small, medium-size and multi-national companies have research going on about alternatives to the petrol/diesel internal combustion engine (motor?) in their R&D departments, or as a main activity.

We follow up on that, mate!

Not only compressed-air but mainly bio-diesel, hydrogen or fuel-cell technologies are hot topics in today's short-of and afraid-of shortage world.

Competition is always stimulating, always pushing in your back to get better performance at a lower unit cost, no?

We are aware of that, mate!

Marine applications are only a (small) part of the overall potential we aim at!
But it is the main topic of this discussion forum, and therefore I focus on this particular aspect of our compressed-air engine's (motor's) potential.

As a definition of our ongoing research one could say: to develop an economical, justifiable, scalable, multi-use alternative to the internal combustion engine.
On top of that it happens to be zero-pollution in use; cherry on the cake, mate!


I have left out to answer a certain number of rather technical remarks and questions in this thread.
I will reply to those on monday (that's tomorrow) OK?

About energy values and efficiency

Questions have been put forward on this forum or in private messages about the comparison of specific energy values for different “fuels” (in MJ per litre):

Petrol 30
Diesel 34
LPG 25
Natural gas 3.4
Methane (200 bars) 7.2
Compressed air (300 bars) 0.16

However the efficiency of engines using “conventional fuels” is .5 on average, whereas our compressed-air engine (or motor) has an efficiency of
.85
This is a fair and objective calculation and will not be further discussed or justified.

The overall efficiency of various fuels, from generation of its energy until consumption in use by the respective engines gives following results:

Petrol engine driven vehicles 9.4%
Diesel powered 13.0%
Electric powered 13.2%
Compressed air powered 20.0%

These calculations and tests were done with identical “vehicles” and should therefore apply to any form of “vehicle”.

It is only fair to mention that the electric power has an advantage over compressed air until installed in the “vehicle”, where the important weight of its batteries changes the final result.

Further advantages of the compressed-air engine as developed by our company (www.mdi.lu) are:
- very low weight 25KW = 28 kgs
- very low volume (no ancillary equipment)
- very low cost (weigth = cost in mechanical construction)
- very high torque as from zero revs (comparable to electric motor)
- zero pollution in use (generation of energy may cause pollution)
- enhanced application spectrum (inside use, low weight, low volume)

That's it for today, more tomorrow .............