SSS

SSS(Save,Sustain and Succeed)

Introduction:

Idea!

 When we make the wheels of the train to act as a turbine the kinetic energy of the wheels could be eventually be converted to electric energy. This electric energy can be stored in secondary cell batteries or be directly used in powering up fans, lights and cooling systems in the train.If this idea is extended, this power generated can also be used in powering up the engine, which will eventually make all trains electric and even the fans in our homes can be made as a self UPS system. This is applicable to automobiles including cars, autos and lorries designed as per Indian norms. 

Theory:

The mad idea obeys the law of conservation of angular momentum and also the law of conservation of energy. According to the idea, every rotating machine can be made as an energy producer. As every rotatory object has kinetic energy acting on it, this energy can be suitably converted into reusable form of energy by making its rotatory parts act as a turbine which converts into electricity(Like a DC generator). When seeing it in a small scale, every rotatory household appliance like fans can act as a Self Installed UPS (SIUPS).

Why This?

For example, the Railways in India are a large network covering 64,215 km of track and 7083 stations across the country. It’s the fourth largest railway in the world. It carries 30 million passengers daily and the electricity that is needed to providethem comfort and luxury is about 2.5% of the country’s total electricity consumption. When we make the wheels of the train to act as a turbine the kinetic energy of the wheelscould be eventually be converted to electric energy. This electric energy can be stored in secondary cell batteries or be directly used in powering up fans, lights and cooling systems in the train. This idea can be extended to household appliances like fans to act as SIUPS. Consumption of electricity by Traction and Railways in last five decades (Giga Watt hour) - 1970 – 71 1,364 1975 – 76 1,855 1980 – 81 2,266 1985 – 86 3,182 1990 – 91 4,112 1995 – 96 6,2232000 – 01 8,213 2005 – 06 9,944 2006 – 07 10,800 2007 – 08 11,108 2008 – 09 11,425 2009 – 10 12,408 2010 – 11 14,003 According to an estimate, the railway sector’s demand for electricity will grow by seven percent annually and by 2020 it will have a projected energy demand of 37,500 kWh (million kilowatt hour)!!!..which is astonishing.

Implementation:

1)First this idea can be tested on trains which travel a distance of 500km and test the amount of electricity consumption that is reduced.

 2)The generated energy through the wheels of the train will be used to power the lights and fans in the train.

 3)Then after the success stories of the tested trains,the mad idea can be implemented in 100 long distance trains and it will considerably reduce the electricity consumption. 

4)The whole of IRCTC network can be made to generate sustainable amount of electricity to power lights and fans in the trains

EFFECTS:

 1)If implemented the electric power

consumption by the IRCTC can be considerably reduced from 15000 GWh to 5000 GWh.

 2) Indian Railways pays over Rs 5,000 crores every year on account of traction energy charges which constitutes about 20 percent of total revenue budget of Railways.If the mad idea is executed IRCTC will only be paying around 40 %(approx.) 3)When the traditional fans in our houses are made to act as SIUPS as told before, when power cut or failure takes place, these fans can rotate using the energy stored while it was running. 

4) Helps in conserving and sustaining energy in an efficient manner.

 5)Reduces power consumption in houses which is the need of the hour!

Flapping Wing Mechanism or Ornithopter!

Ornithopter

(At "IGNITION" Mechanical Symposium at SVCE Sriperamdur,Chennai)

An Ornithopter model

Introduction:

     This is a futuristic kinematic mechanism made by Balachandar,Ashwin and myself (SVCE,Mech II yr) with the assistance of college faculty.This is called as "Ornithopter" or "The Flapping Wing Mechanism".The basic idea is to find the advantages of an aircraft having flapping wings.The idea starts from the days of Ramayana where it says Raavana used a "Pushpakavimaana" to fly.(flapping wings).We first made an Autocad 3D design and then went for the model in wood and machined it with lathe(serious work!).

The Model

Model made with the ref. of this 2D drawing

The bird wing, the ideal!

Naturally, the great archetype for technical flapping wings is the living bird wing. His great effectiveness due to his manifold possibilities to move purposeful and to change the shape will certainly be unobtainable in aero modelling for a long time. This is also true for his weight distribution and his sensor technology.

In this drawing by K. Herzog the anatomic subdivision of the bird's wing in arm- and hand section is pictured. It can also to be used advantageously when describing technical flapping wings. The longitudinal parts of these wing sections are rather different depending on bird species.

Shearflex principle

Here an aeroelastic twistable profiled flapping wing according to the Shearflex Principle. This system makes a relatively inelastic covering applicable. If the twisting along the wing is constant and not to excessive, the airfoil contour accuracy is therefore very good.

Here, the twist elasticity will mainly be determinate by the spar designed as wing leading edge.
This system was invented by Professor  James D. DeLaurier and Jeremy M. Harris (Canada 1994).

The ornithopter with its tripartition of the flapping wing is interesting, too. Jeremy M. Harris 1977 has applied it for patent.

Application range

Profiled flapping wings or double-sided covered wings may work with a very high efficiency. With their mostly relatively low flapping frequency and the small operating range of lift coefficient of a simple airfoil not much thrust can be produced. Not, at least, if the full lift must be generated concurrently (flying with lift). Therefore, profiled flapping wings are suited especially for a level flight, the gently inclined climbing flight and of course for changing to gliding flight.

External links to other flapping wing designs

1. Alphonse Pénaud, (1850 - 1880):
   http://www.ctie.monash.edu.au/hargrave/penaud.html
2. Video about a flapping wing model by Cenek Chalupsky:
   http://ovirc.free.fr/Clips_video.php
3. Construction method of the flying wing model by Jean-Louis Solignac:
   http://ovirc1.free.fr/solignac-ornitho.htm
4. Thrust-Wing model ENTOID by Velko T. Velkov:
   http://velkovelkov.blogspot.com/2009/09/entoid.html
5. The Double flapping wing airplane by Karl-Heinz Helling is flying:
   http://www.modellbau-thiele.de/schlagfluegel.htm
   http://www.mfc-rossendorf.de/fileadmin/Projekte/SchlagfluegelProjekt/SchlagfluegelProjekt.htm
6. Report about Percival H. Spencer:
   http://www.seabee.info/spencer.htm
7. The Schwan 1 by Walther Filter in the Aviation Museum Hannover-Laatzen,
   point of view at Scale Soaring UK and Air-Britain:
   http://www.scalesoaring.co.uk/VINTAGE/Documentation/Schwan/Schwan.html
   http://www.abpic.co.uk/results.php?q=Filter+Schwan&fields=all&sort=latest&limit=10
8. Fanning-out wings of the Birdman Georges Fraisé:
   http://ovirc.free.fr/GFraise.php
9. Fanning-out wing tips at the Ornithopter Project by Ryszard Szczepañski:
   http://www.ornithopter.com.pl
10. Close-up view of an orange colored Dragonfly:
    http://www.grahamowengallery.com/photography/dragonfly_photography.html

We enjoyed doing this project for our Mechanical Symposium and learnt the difficulties of designing and manufacturing a working model!

My Class seminar on Air Cars!

                                                         AIR CARS

Gasoline is already the fuel of the past. It might not seem that way as you fill up on your way to work, but the petroleum used to make it is gradually running out. It also pollutes air that's becoming increasingly unhealthy to breathe, and people no longer want to pay the high prices that oil companies are charging for it. Automobile manufacturers know all of this and have spent lots of time and money to find and develop the fuel of the future.

The search is on, but what will this fuel of the future be? Ready-made fuels like petroleum are becoming more difficult to find and automobile manufacturers are turning to greener energy sources like batteries. These batteries can be charged with energy and placed in a car where that energy can be released. As good as that idea might seem, some manufacturers think air could become an even better energy source.

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 19^th century, even before the invention of the internal combustion engine.

At least one manufacturer thinks that it's ready to sell air cars to the American public. If all goes well, these cars could be available in the United States relatively soon [source: Sullivan]. Over the next few pages, we'll look at this technology, the reasons you may want to use it -- and a few reasons you might not.

How Compressed Air Can Fuel a Car

The laws of physics dictate that uncont­ained gases will­ fill any given space. The easiest way to see this in action is to inflate a balloon. The elastic skin of the balloon holds the air tightly inside, but the moment you use a pin to create a hole in the balloon's surface, the air expands outward with so much energy that the balloon explodes. Compressing a gas into a small space is a way to store energy. When the gas expands again, that energy is released to do work. That's the basic principle behind what makes an air car go.­ ­

The first air cars will have air compressors built into them. After a brisk drive, you'll be able to take the car home, put it into the garage and plug in the compressor. The compressor will use air from around the car to refill the compressed air tank. Unfortunately, this is a rather slow method of refueling and will probably take up to two hours for a complete refill. If the idea of an air car catches on, air refueling stations will become available at ordinary gas stations, where the tank can be refilled much more rapidly with air that's already been compressed. Filling your tank at the pump will probably take about three minutes [source: Cornell].

The first air cars will almost certainly use the Compressed Air Engine (CAE) developed by the French company, Motor Development International (MDI). Air cars using this engine will have tanks that will probably hold about 3,200 cubic feet (90.6 kiloliters) of compressed air. The vehicle's accelerator operates a valve on its tank that allows air to be released into a pipe and then into the engine, where the pressure of the air's expansion will push against the pistons and turn the crankshaft. This will produce enough power for speeds of about 35 miles (56 kilometers) per hour. When the air car surpasses that speed, a motor will kick in to operate the in-car air compressor so it can compress more air on the fly and provide extra power to the engine. The air is also heated as it hits the engine, increasing its volume to allow the car to move faster [source: Cornell].

Air Car Advantages

One major advan­tage of using compressed air to power a car's engine is that a pure compressed air vehicle produces no pollution at the tailpipe. More specifically, the compressed air cars we're likely to see in the near future won't pollute at all until they reach speeds exceeding 35 miles per hour. That's when the car's internal air compressor will kick in to achieve extra speed. The motor that runs this air compressor will require fuel that'll produce a small amount of air pollution. Some fuel (you can use eco-friendly biofuels or fossil fuels) will also be used to heat the air as it emerges from the tank. The newest compressed air engines also offer drivers the option of using fossil fuels or biofuels to heat the air as it enters the engine. Nonetheless, this technology represents a marked improvement over cars powered by internal combustion engines that produce significant amounts of pollution at any speed.

Air cars are also designed to be lighter than conventional cars. The aluminum construction of these vehicles will keep their weight under 2,000 pounds (907 kilograms), which is essential to making these vehicles fuel efficient and will help them go faster for longer periods of time.

Another advantage of air cars is that the fuel should be remarkably cheap, an important consideration in this era of volatile gas prices. Some estimates say that the cars will get the equivalent of 106 miles (171 kilometers) per gallon, although compressed air will probably not be sold by the gallon. A more meaningful estimate is that it may take as little as $2 worth of electricity to fill the compressed air tank, though you'll also need gasoline to power the electric motor that compresses air while driving [source: Cornell].

The vehicles themselves also will be relatively cheap. Zero Pollution Motors, which plans to release the first air cars in the United States and estimates a sticker price of about $17,800, which would make these cars affordable to budget-conscious American buyers [source: Max].

Air Car Disadvantages

While an air car produces no pollution running on already compressed air in its tank, pollution is nonetheless produced when the air is compressed, both while the car is moving and while it's being refueled. As we mentioned earlier, the vehicle's air compressor will probably run ongasoline, and this gas will produce pollution when burned.

The air compressor at the gas station will probably be powered byelectricity. The production of that electricity may or may not pollute, depending on how that electricity is generated. For example, coal-powered electricity could produce substantial amounts of pollution. Cleaner sources of electricity, such as nuclear power or hydropower, will result in far less pollution. According to the Web site Gas 2.0, an air car in the United States would create about .176 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions per mile based on the average mix of electric power sources during refueling. By comparison, a Toyota Prius Hybrid, which combines a battery-powered electric motor with an internal combustion engine, generates about 0.34 pounds of carbon dioxide per mile. So, while the air car is not quite pollution free, it still represents an improvement over one of the most popular hybrid cars on the market [source: Nuccitelli].

Distance could also become a disadvantage, depending on your travel habits. The distance that an air car can cover without refueling is crucial because very few filling stations will have compressed air pumps available at first. If you only plan to use your air car for short commutes -- distances less than 100 miles --will be fine. However, the one-to-two hour wait for the car's built-in air compressor to compress a tank full of air could become a problem on cross-country trips. Zero Pollution Motors -- the American arm of MDI and the company likeliest to produce the first air car for the U.S. market -- aims to have a car available soon able to travel between 800 and 1,000 miles on one tank of air plus 8 gallons of gas [source: Cornell]. Early prototypes, however, have traveled distances closer to 120 miles -- good enough for your daily commute, but not quite adequate for longer trips [source: Motavalli].

What will happen if an air car suffers damage in an accident? After all, compressed air tanks can be dangerous. To reduce this danger, the air tanks are made of carbon fiber and are designed to crack, rather than shatter, in a crash. This crack would allow the "fuel" to escape harmlessly into the surrounding air. Manufacturers feared that air escaping from one end of the tank could produce a rocket-like effect and propel the car on a jet of air. The valve on the cars' fuel tanks has been placed on the side to minimize this effect.

Despite these precautions, there is some concern that the air cars' lightweight construction might make it difficult for them to pass stringent American safety requirements and that this could hold up the arrival of air cars in the U.S. marketplace. Other factors have come to the forefront as well, and we'll learn about those next.

Air Cars in the Marketplace

India­'s Tata Mo­tors will likely p­rodu­ce the first air car in the marketplace in the next few years. Tata Motors' air car will also use the CAE engine. Although Tata announced in August 2008 that they aren't quite ready to roll out their air cars for mass production, Zero Pollution Motors still plans to produce a similar vehicle in the United States. Known collectively as the FlowAIR, these cars will cost about $17,800. The company, based in New Paltz, N.Y., says that it will start taking reservations in mid-2009 for vehicle deliveries in 2010. The company plans to roll out 10,000 air cars in the first year of production [source: Max]. MDI also recently unveiled the joystick-driven AirPod, the newest addition to its air car arsenal. Although the AirPod generates a top speed of only 43 mph, it's also extremely light and generates zero emissions.

Major automobile makers are watching the air car market with interest. If the first models catch on with consumers, they'll likely develop their own air car models. At present, a few smaller companies are planning to bring air cars to the market in the wake of the MDI-based vehicles. These include: 

·         K'Airmobiles -- French company K'Air Energy has built prototypes of an air-fueled bicycle and light road vehicle based on the K'air air compression engine [source: ­K'air]

·         Air Car Factories SA -- This Spanish company has an air car engine currently in development. The company's owner is currently involved in a dispute with former employer MDI over the rights to the technology [source: MDI].

Initially, the MDI cars will be the only air vehicles on the market. However, MDI has reportedly licensed the technology to manufacturers in a dozen different countries, so air cars should be available around the world soon.