[Gashog]

Originally Posted by dfwheelman

wind turbine on a car...im still chuckling about that idea.

the overall BEST idea is a series hybrid using a biodiesel engine driving a heavy duty alternator... that generator only puts out 21 amps, a heavy duty alternator can put out 300 amps. even a truck alternator puts out a hefty amperage. Then it depends on how much you want to work for your fuel.

the plans i have says "75 mpg hybrid car"

Cheers,
Mark

Did you guys see this?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-8BX7dUk5c

I've been following these guys for about 5 years.

[weelliott]

An alternator might put out 300 amps, but at only 12V. This is still about 3600W, or 3.6KW. This is also way beyond what the alternator is rated for. I wouldn't expect it to last very long like that.

[G4John]

Would it be possible to put a clutch on the alternator so that it can be disengaged on flats and uphill? Then engage the clutch downhill and use gravity as a way to power the alternator. Add an inclinometer so it could activate on or off automatically at a specific slope angle when the pull of gravity overcomes the friction of the alternator. Now this might be a negligible way to extend range but extending range even a tiny amount is a good thing. Could this be feasible?

[weelliott]

This would be feasible, but unnecessary. You don't need to install the alternator. If you want to send juice back to the battery on downhill sections, or during braking, you could just get a controller that enables Regenerative Braking and get the juice from the motor. Less equipment. Easier system. Production hybrids are already doing this.

[Manntis]

Originally Posted by weelliott

This would be feasible, but unnecessary. You don't need to install the alternator. If you want to send juice back to the battery on downhill sections, or during braking, you could just get a controller that enables regenerative braking and get the juice from the motor. Less equipment. Easier system. Production hybrids are already doing this.

^ what he said.

[G4John]

Originally Posted by weelliott

This would be feasible, but unnecessary. You don't need to install the alternator. If you want to send juice back to the battery on downhill sections, or during braking, you could just get a controller that enables regenerative braking and get the juice from the motor. Less equipment. Easier system. Production hybrids are already doing this.

Thanks, saw people writing about a "brake" but didn't know what that was. Thanks for filling me in. Newbie here.

[LeTank]

Yes, there is a way to recycle energy. Without adding in all the technical mathmatics, you can assimulate that fact that a simple wind generator puts out 26 Amps at 7.5 miles per hour. Due to gear ratio, size of generator, and wind speed. Add this to a car, behind it with a wheel or belt driven from your EV motor and you have a low drag power station that will recharge your batteries as you are moving. At 55 miles per hour, you get approx 190 Amps +/- 20 Amps. Depending on the type of motor, since I am refering to a 400 watt/ 26 Amp @ 7.5 miles per hour.

Look at my profile and look at my album for more info. I included an example from a flywheel and pictue two with description gives ideas for using wind generators (alternators) that are basically used for low speeds, but can be converted to run at high speeds and give more Amps for charging as the vehicle is moving.

Hope this helps. I will add mathmatical equations if needed in the future.

[LeTank]

Good idea, if you use an Amperage that meets your requirements and doesn't eat up too much of your energy. Downhill charging is a bonus, even with a 90 Amp Alternator. Need lots of hills.
Check out my profile for more ideas. A wind generator is a low speed generator (26 Amps at 7.5 mph) and has low drag. This would be more feasible. even if it was belt driven from a wheel behind the car if no other room was available in the engine compartment.

[weelliott]

Originally Posted by LeTank

Yes, there is a way to recycle energy. Without adding in all the technical mathmatics, you can assimulate that fact that a simple wind generator puts out 26 Amps at 7.5 miles per hour. Due to gear ratio, size of generator, and wind speed. Add this to a car, behind it with a wheel or belt driven from your EV motor and you have a low drag power station that will recharge your batteries as you are moving. At 55 miles per hour, you get approx 190 Amps +/- 20 Amps. Depending on the type of motor, since I am refering to a 400 watt/ 26 Amp @ 7.5 miles per hour.

Look at my profile and look at my album for more info. I included an example from a flywheel and pictue two with description gives ideas for using wind generators (alternators) that are basically used for low speeds, but can be converted to run at high speeds and give more Amps for charging as the vehicle is moving.

Hope this helps. I will add mathmatical equations if needed in the future.

There is so much wrong with this math.

First of all the energy out of this will never equal the enrgy put in. I could stop there since that pretty much kills this idea. However, if one were to ever try land based wind turbines, it might be good to not be misled by the other math in this. It is suggested that since 7.5 mph creates 26 amps( I'll get back to this later...) that if one were to do 55 mph, it would yield 190 amps. This is a linear calculation. However, it is not a linear function. It is a cubed function. So if one were able to get 26 amps at 7.5 mph, since the new speed is about 7 times faster, the power produced at 55 should be 343 times the power produced at 7.5 assuming the same voltage system in both scenarios. This would be 343 times 26, or about 8500 amps. That is some hefty amperage. So you say something sounds wonderful about this. But I say the opposite... I say this sounds too good to be true. And it is.

You see, I don't know what voltage this is in the previously mentioned system that this turbine putting out 26 amps is working on, but if it is any more than 12 volts, this would have to have a huge sweep area. Huge like more than a 10 foot diameter. Actually lets see how big that would have to be...

A handy equation for wind turbines is

0.5 X air density X swept area X velocity^3

If you work in metric units you can use 1.23 for density and combine it with the 0.5 to get a new constant of .615. So this makes...

power = 0.615 X swept area X velocity^3

So for this 26 amp turbine if we assume it is running on a 12 volt system, (which would not be enough to run a car.) that would be 312 watts. To get 312 watts at 7.5 mph (which is about 3.35 m/s) we would need a swept area of 13.5 square meters. That is a lot of area. So how long would the blades need to be? Well Pi X R^2 would tell us that this would have to have a radius of 2.07 meters. This is a diameter of 4.14 meters. That's over 13.5 feet. Anyone driving down the road with a wind turbine with a 13.5 foot diameter mounted to their car will be stopped by the authorities. And it wouldn't be because of a conspiracy against free enrgy. It would barely clear under bridges if the blades also barely cleared the ground. It would not fit in one lane, and it would be dangerous to anyone that might get in it's way. This would not be a trivial weight. This is not a little house fan.

Now that we see the size necessary, it might be easier to see how this would create significant drag. In fact the math will tell you that the drag created will be more than the power created. And that drag has to be overcome by the motors, which get their juice from the battery.

Just for fun we could go back and do the calculations for a more realistic 120 or 144 volt system that makes 26 amps at 7.5 mph. I won't waste space on that though since it will undoubtedly yield a wind turbine that none of us could build and could never be mounted to any vehicle other than that huge thing that mooves the space shuttle.

The really bad thing about it is that this assumes high efficiencies. We haven't looked at the energy lost in transferring the wind energy into rotational motion into electrical energy into chemical energy back into electrical energy back into rotational motion back into linear motion. Every step has inefficencies.

You can call me a party pooper if you'd like. You can even go tell people that I am probably some disguised horrible government official or disguised big oil cronie that is trying to keep down the free energy movement. Unfortunately the sad truth is that I am an engineer that is trying to show you the pertinent math so that you won't waste money on a system that will not work. Sorry.

Keep brainstorming though. There are still more ways to skin a cat. I can gaurantee that you will be more successful in your inventing if you pick up some physics though.

And remember energy in equals energy out. This is always always true. Unfortunately some of that energy will get out in unuseable forms like heat or creating sound, or friction, or other inefficiencies. These are your enemies. You can never beat them. You can only decrease their take.

Good luck.

[SuperChuck_A11]

One thing about patents, a Patent doesn't mean it is a good idea, or a technicaly feasible one.