Range extender : thoughts

Back to cars and technology which are of my very basic interests.

Last day i was in search for what is the difference between a low rpm engine and a high rpm engine. A big of Google search reveled that low rpm engines are very efficient. The problem with them are when they are used in applications which requires higher rpm output the gear design gets complicated. So there is more chances of transmission failures and more complex transmission control is required.

One solution people used in locomotives was the Diesel-electric transmission. The idea was to power electric motors are electric motors are 70+% efficient and run a diesel generator to power the electric motor. This save a lot on transmission design and was efficient because the diesel generator was designed to run and its peak efficiency all times.

As we are now running for series hybrids like Chevy volt. I think this technology may fit to trucks better than cars.

Reasons :

Trucks need better torque and electric motors provide this.

We have more control over electricity and we have more control.

Trucks doesn't need full power all times. They need power when they work. All other times it runs mostly in a commuter mode.

So if a truck is equipped with a range extender EV technology the advantage are

• Better torque
• We can use the generator at work sites when we are out of power
• Can scale on power out put of generators for power required for a work ( ex: can have profiles like commuter, work - light, medium and heavy etc - The idea on the above is replacing transmissions with generating only the power required for a profile and save the energy by running at sweet spots for max efficiency and power outputs.
• Less complexity in design and less wear and tear.
• More efficiency as we use only required power for a situation.
• Can use the most efficient designs ( ex: use low rpms, high efficiency constant rpm / multiple sweet spot designs and in case of electric motors newer designs with multiple on demand windings to get max efficiency and power on demand )
• As are using electricity as we can make use of the regenerative mechanisms to generate electricity and use them.
• We can use buffer mechanisms like ultra capacitors to store energy as

a) Store regenerated energy
b) As a supplement energy for peak energy needs.
c) As a buffer to keep energy
d) As an abstraction to cover the start stop nature vehicle application and can use technologies which doesn't have the start stop nature support.

So Lets expect new applications which is based on the range extender applications which are energy efficient.

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Taking for Granted

Last day i was browsing through YouTube and a farm scene got my attention.



It was a very familiar scene from my childhood. Then i started thinking of how that pump works.

The motor produces rotary motion and that motion need to converted to a flow and finally move water from one place to another.


It was fun to think like a child. I started thinking i have 2 buckets, one placed down with water and second one placed above me which does not have water. I have straws from both in my hand. Its nice to imagine, I suck from on straw and then spit to second. so in total the actions i need is use my both thumps to close ends of straws to avoid air entering/water coming out and then suck and spit.

The action in a procedural way

1) Close both ends of straws with thumps
2) Open thump1 and suck from the straw which is from the bucket with water.
3) Close thump1 and open the other thump
4) Spit water to that straw and close thump2.
5) Repeat step 2,3,4 again and again till the water finishes.

So we found 2 valves, one chamber, a Piston and rad can covert rotatory motion to water flow. May be one design for a pump ( seems this was invented in late 1800s ) and we never think how things works.


Just taking the comforts for granted. Never thinking ...

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More inspirations on the way

Found a couple more inspirations




1984 Chevrolet Citation IV



Ford probe IV and V







GM Precept


Seems it now time for govt to act. They have to follow/make similar model of japan on defining a class of cars where which gets insurance and tax breaks ( like kei cars ) so that companies can come forward, make business cases and design and sell new products !!

Its not because companies has ideas to innovate but its only because govt is not allowing them to go out of the box solutions and gives opportunity to sell them them.


My ideas on the new class definition is like for a start they should come up with parameters like

Min: 80 mpg ( from regeneration and optimizations - no external alternative energy supply )
4 wheeler ( 2 - 4 seats )
should pass min crash test ratings ( ex: 3 stars for frontal, side, rollover etc )
etc etc.

For plug-in rules should be different and the standards should be moving , like 120mpg on 2015 .. and must plugin-features and safety features.

this makes more people buy commuter cars which are very effective and takes less to maintain + develops new ways to find solutions for problems apart from electrification and allows use of other technologies like aerodynamics,regenerations etc to be in practice.

For GM Precept its nice to have visit on : http://www.electrifyingtimes.com/gmprecept.html
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My- Aero car thoughts and insperations

Seems i am using my time on vacation to draw pics :-) and getting the level of my kid. He seems to be drawing better too.

Today i was able to get a clear picture of an aero design from existing size requirements from a normal car.

Picture follows :-)




Even its easy to swap the engine space and boot space so that a RR (Rear-engine, rear-wheel drive) layout can be made from the above design. On other thoughts , Putting a hybrid power train may increase the fuel economy and EV ranges.

The basic idea is the reduce the frontal area - for CdA (mostly airfoiled frontal area and reduced the back area ) and increase/optimize the curves over top,down and sides to that they can contribute forward pull using aerodynamics. The top,sides and bottom curves seems much important as they can give resulting forward moving forces. The bottom (down part ) curve may help more to push to front and same time balance the extra down (vertical component ) of the force made by the top curve. Its also very important to optimize curves for max advantage of those parts without affecting the passenger comfort and utility space.

I took the base height, width and other ratios from a Volvo S70 (my current car which i like the space inside ) for the above model so that it can seat 5 comfortably and have enough space ( its not a small car now - its a 5 seat modern hatchback bigger than Toyota Prius).



To my wonder, Its really great to see some old models , Let me upload them also to get a pic of how people were thinking in old days.



1937 Pillsbug : CD of 0.13 6 -7 Passenger






1937 Maybach





Don't know the model info but looks EV1 was taken from this one.




1984 Chevrolet Citation IV concept





GM EV1






Mercedes-Benz bionic car

Links :

Ecomodder : 65+ tips : http://ecomodder.com/forum/fuel-economy-mpg-modifications.php


Cars to Emulate and Study: http://neilblanchard.vox.com/library/post/cars-to-emulate-and-study.html

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Regenerative breaking

Regenerative breaking is used on hybrid gas/electric automobiles to recoup some of the energy lost during stopping. This energy is saved in a storage battery and used later to power the motor whenever the car is in electric mode.

Understanding how regenerative braking works may require a brief look at the system it replaces. Conventional braking systems use friction to counteract the forward momentum of a moving car. As the brake pads rub against the wheels (or a disc connected to the axle), excessive heat energy is also created. This heat energy dissipates into the air, wasting up to 30% of the car's generated power. Over time, this cycle of friction and wasted heat energy reduces the car's fuel efficiency. More energy from the engine is required to replace the energy lost by braking.

Regenerative braking utilizes the fact that an electric motor can also act as a generator. The vehicle's electric traction motor is operated as a generator during braking and its output is supplied to an electrical load. It is the transfer of energy to the load which provides the braking effect.

As the driver applies the brakes through a conventional pedal, the electric motors reverse direction. The torque created by this reversal counteracts the forward momentum and eventually stops the car.

At the most basic level, regenerative braking means re-capturing the kinetic energy of the vehicle's motion and turning it into another type of energy. Commonly, this is done by converting kinetic energy into electricity and recharging the car's battery with it.The energy captured in the battery is used moving the car later and due to the energy capture and reutilization the mpg for the car improves drastically.

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What is cD and why does it matter?

Aerodynamics. When discussing overall efficiency, sometimes it's easy to overlook just how important the shape of an automobile is in determining how fuel efficient it is

First, let's discuss what the term aerodynamics means. According to Merriam-Webster, aerodynamics is "a branch of dynamics that deals with the motion of air and other gaseous fluids and with the forces acting on bodies in motion relative to such fluids." Clear as mud? In this case, the fluid we're talking about is indeed air, and the easier it is for an object to cut through the air, the less energy is required to keep that body in motion.

For the purpose of comparing different automotive designs, engineers measure the resistance of a body to flow through the air using computational fluid dynamics simulations and wind tunnel testing. A flat board held perpendicular to the air flow may have a coefficient of 1 or more, depending on the shape of the edges and the surface texture. The drag coefficient is a unitless number and is based on the shape and surface properties of the object. Two identical objects that are different sizes will have the same cD. However, that doesn't mean they have the same overall drag. 

This, of course, is further complicated by the vagaries of the real world. The addition of items like outside mirrors, windshield wipers and radio antennas can cause a lot of disruption to air-flow. There is also the fact that cars often don't travel perpendicular to air-flow. Vehicles often encounter cross-winds when driving down the road so the airflow must be measured at various angles to ensure resistance is kept to a minimum. 

Safety is also a concern.The air-flow over a vehicle's body can trigger either lift or down-force just as it does with an aircraft wing. If a vehicle's shape causes too much lift, it can make the vehicle unstable and difficult to control. All of these factors must be balanced in the final design.

The designers of all of the most fuel efficient vehicles ever offered for sale have taken aerodynamics very seriously and as such, they all have a very favorable cD. For instance, the GM EV1 scored a cD of 0.195, which is quite good. For comparison, the 2010 Toyota Prius manages a fine 0.25 and the Aptera 2e (above) blows them both out of the water air with an amazingly low 0.15. When multiplied by the car's frontal area, the Aptera design scores even better due to its narrow, bullet-like shape with narrow out-rigger front wheels that are completely shrouded . For what it's worth, the brick-shaped HUMMER H2 scores a dismal 0.57 – further proof that its designers were in no way concerned with its fuel efficiency.

Besides the actual bodywork of an automobile, there are other factors contributing to the overall coefficient of drag any given car is able to register, including the car's tires and its ride height. Wide tires move more air and therefore take more power to move, and the air pressure of a given tire can have drastic consequences on its ability to roll. 

Why is all of this so important? Calculations reveal that about 60 percent of the energy used to move the average car goes towards overcoming its aerodynamic drag. That's huge, and means that even small improvements in a car's cD can pay big dividends in overall fuel efficiency. 

The Resoures Era 2.0

We had Resources era where people were looking for resources, then it came Industrial era and the came computer era( yes it was only 30+ years and ended with bill gates and official end 2010 ) and now we back to resources era.

Whatz special about this era this time ?

In first era 1.0 people traveled for more trade routes, discovery of countries, invasions and extraction of resources etc. Now we are almost run out of resources

Oil we have but we cant afford, we need cheap and its not clean air technology.so we need clear alternatives ( we need renewable energy and all our out next gen utilities should be using the electricity ). So we need more ways to produce, store electricity and should be affordable.

Second, we cant eat electricity as of now. We need more food. We have more people and less land, so we need to make more food from less. Another potential area for next gen.


Health, Last day i was watching a movie on clones. The theme was like, when you take insurance policy, they will take a sample and make a clone of you. Once you need any organ or something else, they use the clones one ( saying you won a lottery move them to an island and kill them ). To be true i fear this movie is going to be true in this era.


Lets see what all this era offers but as first ones, yes battery technologies are hot now, now computer is a normal thing and its no longer the high pay job.Its a skill every one need to make your work better.


Lets be back to manufacturing and research. Make more resources.

As i was reading the land is mars is good for asparagus, We can expect an era where asparagus is made in mars and space shuttles running back and forth for transportation.


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GM Volt and Next killing time of Electric car

I am big fan of GM VOLT. I love it than Prius or other ones. Reason : Its all electric ( new generation begins here )

Now every body want to say they are in EV business. But back to numbers :

Gas price back to $2 Gallon, GM almost near bankrupt - Do you think they will try to sell the Hybrids and the same old mantras ? or really they deliver Volt ?

Another : Do volt going to be another North American car - yes i mean on Quality which suffer very heavily with the Asian ones. Built Quality, Durability ...

I know a lot who already had American cars and now they don't want to be part of this bandwagon. They all shifted to the other side. Now its GM duty to get those back and it cant be done saying we have quality.

Lets see how volt can bring them back ) I hear 2008 Malibu is lot better than old still they are miles away from Prius and Civics. Lest see How GM will close this gap.I am sure its not only price point

GM VOLT : http://gm-volt.com/
: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevrolet_Volt
: http://www.gm.ca/gm/english/corporate/green-by-design/vehicles/electric


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Wifi vs WiMax ??

Wifi or Wimax ??

Australian wireless carrier Buzz Broadband has shuttered its WiMAX network, describing the technology as a "disaster" that has "failed miserably".

Other side ??

Intel Wi-Fi Provides 6 Mbps Over 100 km

read more :

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/03/26/wimax_failure/

http://www.technologyreview.com/Infotech/20432/

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Is the chip war back on?

2 cores, 4 cores ? 3 cores next 6 cores

Happens, Thatz how chips works. AMD came up with a 3 core chip at a lower price than quad core.

read : http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=207000251


and Intel planning for a 6 core chip.

parallelism in OS may be a very great stuff for some time.

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100-year-old model for electric car coming back

To promote itself, Detroit Electric--a new joint venture between Zap and China's Youngman Automotive Group--plan to release a limited number of cars based around the Detroit Electric, an electric car produced by the Anderson Electric Car Co. in the early part of the 20th century.

details : http://www.news.com/8301-11128_3-9894597-54.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-5

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Child like intelligence created in Second Life

Do you really think we are in a second life ?

Hindu philosophy says all around you is maya. The news is man is able to create intelligence in the virtual world called second like. so the creature in second life thinks like a 4 yr old person.

read details at :

http://itnews.com.au/News/72057,childlike-intelligence-created-in-second-life.aspx

I think we too are. there are 4-5 virtual worlds created initially and somebody was doing experiments. Then they tested the server to server communication and that how we have whites, Blacks, Asians , South Asians etc etc happened.


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DID NASA FIND LIFE ON MARS?

A Photos by NASA's Spirit Rover in late 2007 shows a human-like figure is visible sitting on the rocks.

Wondering why they look like a human and not any other animal :-). But lot of debates going on. Lets finally prove its an illusion or a rock.

According to Hindu mythology, there are 14 worlds. We may find life at least in one of them.



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Tata writes its name in History

$2500 car - is that the only reason for Tata name to be written in History.

read more :

Tata top bidder for Jaguar, Land Rover .

So Jaguar and Land Rover going to in Tata stable.

Is that enough ? nooo, tata makes smart moves on next gen technology. MDI web says "The agreement between Tata Motors and MDI envisages Tata’s supporting further development and refinement of the technology, and its application and licensing for India. "

- About MDI ( the air car company )
MDI is a small, family-controlled company located at Carros, near Nice (Southern France) where Mr. Guy Negre and Mr. Cyril Nègre, together with their technical team, have developed a new engine technology with the purpose of economising energy and respect severe ecological requirements – at competitive costs.

What this means - Tata is all set to be future GM or Toyota



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dual core, Quad core .... whatz next ?

Nooo not a 8 or 32 core, its time for microprocessers for the next big jump.

Researchers at Intel this week are showing off an silicon modulator that can pass 40 gigabits of data in a second, a new record that indicates that fiber-inside-computers is really coming.Intel, among others, has projected that optical components may start getting integrated into computers toward the end of the decade

after ? Bio computers made to work for man.

tailpiece :I found the reson why Hindu doctine says there are 330 million gods.

Once these Biocomputers are up ,they 'll ask the invernter "many masters we have ?". The Inventer 'll go to
http://www.census.gov/ipc/www/popclockworld.html

and say the current no: of masters for them is the total no: of mankind as no: of gods.
The Hindu docrine was set up when gods made their bio robots and the total god population was 330 million

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global warming or global cooling !

"The ice age is coming, the sun is zooming in

Meltdown expected and the wheat is growing thin

Engines stop running, but I have no fear

London is drowning, and I live by the river"

-Strummer/Jones.


Buzzzword nowadays is global warming...... Its the new marketing mantra.
Billions are spent, many have high profiles jobs... scientists are honoured who predicts iminent destruction of earth and human lives.

Heard from a friend , that india wont be livable in few decades due to warming....

For all these blah blah.... aint there an other side ...!!

So i did some googling .. and voila.. there is this ice age theory too........

May be by another decade india could be the best place to live... due to global cooling.....
who knows.....

Kochu ...

We have 10 years, folks. And then it's man the lifeboats, or head for the hills

That's the conclusion of James Hansen and five other scientists. They've just published a paper with the Royal Society in England. It says melting ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctic could soon reach a point of no return. The team even says the recent reports from the United Nations' global warming conferences are too conservative in their projections of what could happen.


The paper urges quick and decisive action, including attempts to scrub greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. Hansen is outspoken and a favorite target of global warming disbelievers. In all fairness, Hansen's been at this climate change thing a long time. Back in 1999 he co-wrote an article on changing temperature patterns around the world. At that time his map showed the U.S. seemed to be cooling temporarily. He didn't try to jiggle the data.

Believe Hansen and his cohort, or diss them, we will soon see who's right. Scientists are actively tracking the ice sheets in Antarctic and those on Greenland where changes will be closely measured.

Details at :http://environment.independent.co.uk/climate_change/article2675747.ece


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