How Chrysler's Battery-Less Hybrid Minivan Works 347
thecarchik writes "Chrysler announced Wednesday that it would partner with the US Environmental Protection Agency to build and test prototypes of a different kind of hybrid vehicle, one that accumulates energy not in a battery pack but by compressing a gas hydraulically. The system in question, originally developed at the EPA labs, uses engine overrun torque to capture otherwise wasted energy, as do conventional hybrid-electric vehicles. The engine is Chrysler's standard 2.4-liter four-cylinder, the base engine in its minivan line. But rather than turning a generator, that torque powers a pump that uses hydraulic fluid to increase the pressure inside a 14.4-gallon tank of nitrogen gas, known as a high-pressure accumulator."
Which is a more dangerous battery? (Score:2, Interesting)
FTFA:
That compressed gas, stored at pressure as high as 5,000 pounds per square inch, represents energy waiting to be released.
Not sure I'd want to be an a 1.0 version consumer vehicle with that much pressure without some serious discussion about the safety precautions to prevent or mitigate "unexpected pressure drops".
Can someone who's got more experience with the fluid mechanics add to this?
If you thought a high-voltage hybrid was dangerous (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Boom! (Score:5, Interesting)
In an accident, it will remain intact. If not, then the car won't pass standard safety tests, and the manufacturer knows it won't sell. In the event that some freak crushing blow strikes the tank (like, for example, getting caught between a freight train and a reinforced bunker, or perhaps dropped from an airplane) It'll most likely burst open at the one spot that the engineers intentionally design to be slightly weaker than the rest of the case, which conveniently releases the contained gas in a harmless direction.
5000 PSI is like having an average American car, including all passengers, with all its weight sitting on a single square inch. That's the maximum operating pressure, implying that the tank itself will actually hold significantly more pressure before having any problems. I feel pretty confident that the engineers involved know what they're doing, and can prevent catastrophic failure during a collision.
Re:Scuba tank's burst disc ... (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, SCUBA tanks (in the U.S.) are supposed to undergo annual visual inspection (basically an interior/exterior idiot check for bad rust, chips, cracks, beat up valves, etc) as well as hydrostatic testing every 5 years*. The cylinders most likely to have a catastrophic failure (typically the neck) were a bunch of aluminum 80's manufactured something like 30 years ago. Back when I worked in a dive shop we would do an eddy-current test on the necks of ALL aluminum cylinders during the annual visual inspection even though it was only really necessary for the one batch. If you take halfway decent care of a tank and don't let moisture get in (by draining the tank too low), they'll last for ages. We had decades old steel cylinders in our rental fleet that had probably outlived many a valve!
The concern is probably warranted but I would imagine the auto industry's safety measures will be far greater than those of the average diver. If the vehicles only go in for maintenance once every few years, the tanks ought to be fine. I would worry more about them being punctured during a collision. Frankly though, assuming they've done at least a minor amount of planning with collisions in mind, the severity of a collision strong enough to puncture the tank would make a sudden release of pressure the least of your concerns.
* Disclaimer: I've been out of the dive industry a while, my numbers might be off.
Re:Sounds inefficent (Score:4, Interesting)
As a scientist who lives off the grid on solar PV (for decades now), I've pretty much investigated every way there is to store energy, and it's not so simple a problem. Vanadium redox batteries (utterly impractical for autos and that membrane ain't cheap) look about the best so far in terms of simple and good while being efficient. Most things that do heat storage are only efficient if huge enough that the surface area to volume ratio can be really small.
The above approach might work out fine for small amounts of energy and for short times, however, and having some is better than nothing -- it probably is pretty reliable unlike most batteries which tend to have much shorter cycle life than is claimed. I think we're going to see a big backlash against battery cars at some point because of that one.
... and they are already behind. (Score:2, Interesting)
http://www.scuderigroup.com/our-engines/
This engine is a split-cycle four stroke air hybrid that fires After Top Dead Center (ATDC) effeciently. The engine already holds far more pressure than standard combustion engines and reduces NOx by up to 80% and CO2 emissions by ~30% over similar hybrids and standard combustion engines - without the need of an ancillary system for power management (an electrical system for example). The engine presses out nearly 100% of the gas from the exhaust piston which leads to far much better optimization.
Side effect (Score:5, Interesting)
Adiabatic heating on compression would be pretty serious. A diesel engine only has 15:1 to 20:1 compression ratio, and develops enough heat thereby to ignite diesel fuel. In this system we are looking at upwards of 300:1. The temperature would be absolutely fierce.
If on the other hand you design the system to dissipate the adiabatic heat, you are rejecting a good proportion of the compression energy, which then you will not get back on expansion. So either you must withstand incredible heat in the system, or you sacrifice efficiency.
The mirror image is adiabatic cooling on expansion. If you do reject the adiabatic compression heat, then on expansion you will have problems with supercooling and moisture freezing.
Re:Compressed gases aren't *too* bad (Score:5, Interesting)
avoid allowing ANY oil and high pressure air to com into contact (to avoid the accumulator turning into a very short lived one cycle/stroke diesel ...)
Oh that brings back memories. We used to have an power station in the Melbourne CBD. Back in the day it run steam powered elevators all over the city. It had a big steam boiler which was shut down at the end of the day. They would let it cool then pump diesel into it to clean the gunk out. One day a bit of gunk was still hot and the diesel blew up. The tank was measured as being about a foot bigger in all three dimensions. They got an engineer out who scratched his head and suggested they fire it up to see how it went. It worked fine.
No citation sorry. Its an old old story.