Engine that runs on air

[KeenGolfer]

Reading the news and came across this:

http://news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,10577206%255E13762,00.html

"AN Australian inventor claims to have made the world's first commercially-viable motor vehicle powered by compressed air.

The vehicle is being tried out by contractors in Melbourne's parks and gardens over the next 12 months as an alternative to conventional diesel or petrol engines.

The engine's designer, Angelo Di Pietro from Melbourne company Engineair, said the engine produced no pollutants and had only two moving parts, increasing its efficiency over conventional designs.

Di Pietro said it used compressed air to drive a rotary engine, abandoning the pistons and cylinders seen in regular designs.

The vehicle being tested in Melbourne has reached 50km/h in the workshop and had proved more efficient than battery-powered golf carts."

[clixanup]

How long before the design is "shelved?" Either that or the guy will just disappear.

This isn't the first engine ever made which runs on air, and neither will it be the last. For some reason technology like this always ends up being suppressed.

IMO, it ain't gonna change the world.....

[XLR8 V8]

And probably goes for about 5km before it runs out of air. It's a great development and all, but I really don't think they'll be able to make one efficient enough to run for any reasonable distance.
It would be funny though to see the local servo with a longer line at the tyre gauge than the petrol pumps :lol:

[clixanup]

And probably goes for about 5km before it runs out of air. It's a great development and all, but I really don't think they'll be able to make one efficient enough to run for any reasonable distance.

Actually, they already have the technology, its just that we have been conditioned to believe that fuel-less motoring is physically impossible. This is blatantly false, and has been proved to be so by many people. A bloke by the name of Nikola Tesla (a.k.a. the guy who invented the AC power generator while he was working for Edison) ran a car with an electric motor at speeds of up to 90mph (in the 1930s) on nothing more than electricity gathered from the atmosphere:

http://www.keelynet.com/energy/teslafe2.htm

It can be done. We just need to change our thinking a little bit.

[rocks-crewman]

This genius figured out how to harness electro-magnetic energy via the atmosphere - and was promptly taken out by the FBI under orders from the American Copper Industry, which obviously stood to loose everything if any tom, dick or harry could power his home and car for free. Apparently there is a town in either Germany or Switzerland that is powered for free via Tesla's discoveries. Don't forget about the yank that drove a water powered VW accross the USA in 1988 (I was over there at the time and saw it on the local news in Las Vegas). The alternatives to fuels dug out of the earth are out there and have been for a long time - but there is a lot of money to be made out of "fossil fuel", which is why we are still using these fuels. Except for computerised engine management, the piston engine has hardly developed in the last 80 years. Supercharging/turbos, fuel injection, OHC etc has been around since before WW2.

[bennoxr8]

I'm pretty sure that that bloke showed off his engine on that new inventors show on ABC a couple of months ago. Seemed quite a viable option for replacing engines on forklifts.

[Bumfluff]

It can be done. We just need to change our thinking a little bit.

It's not a case of changing our thinking, it's a case of the governments and corporations letting us change our thinking. They have the gold, they make the rules....

[LX346]

Seriously, how is the government going to tax oxygen?
There's no money in it for them, so there is no backing it up.

[Bumfluff]

Seriously, how is the government going to tax oxygen?
There's no money in it for them, so there is no backing it up.

as the saying goes, there are 2 definates in life......Death and taxes....or something along those lines anyway. No matter what we use the government will ALWAYS find a way to tax us. It is unfortunately the way of things :mad: . I doubt air-driven machines/motors will be freely availible in our lifetime, Electricity will probably be the next one. Wouldn't be surprised if they charge owners of these vehicles an electricity surcharge/tariff..... Sometimes the song 'What a wonderful world' loses it's meaning when you read into all this business. :(

[clixanup]

This genius figured out how to harness electro-magnetic energy via the atmosphere - and was promptly taken out by the FBI under orders from the American Copper Industry, which obviously stood to loose everything if any tom, dick or harry could power his home and car for free.Actually, he died in 1944 at the ripe old age of 88. Most of his best discoveries were made before 1900 - he had flourescent lights which ran without power in 1895.


Except for computerised engine management, the piston engine has hardly developed in the last 80 years. Supercharging/turbos, fuel injection, OHC etc has been around since before WW2.Exactly the point. Several inventors have made fuel-less engines, but where are all their designs?

[GM350]

I agree with most here, they could find ways in making an engine run on waste,but they'll always find ways in taxing us, it's the rule of the our wonderful world.

[Mat]

Be interesting to see how a turbo would go on a compressed air engine :)

[seldo]

And probably goes for about 5km before it runs out of air...
It would be funny though to see the local servo with a longer line at the tyre gauge than the petrol pumps :lol:
:lol: Good one! :lol:

[Fury]

Saw this in the paper a while ago....
Can go about 10-20km before it needs a recharge...
Is perfect for factories where gasses can be hazardous...
Run it for 2 hours, go fill up, makes some monster torque too iirc.

[V82xist]

You could have an air compressor running on batteries only when it needed to fill the tank. :D

[Thunder]

A Corolla came in the other day running on steam. He had a 4agze supercharged motor with steam coming out the exhaust.

Somehow I think it may have had something to do with his head gasket!!! :bash:


He tried to drive it around the corner to the mechanics, but only made 100 feet before he ran out of STEAM. :lol: LOL

Back to the drawing board!

[my_Berlina]

Ahh, arn't conspiricy theories fun?

Rest assured, there would be a way to tax it, and if the gov can't tax on actual usage (per litre of fuel...) they will tax simply based on ownership (eg rego, rates ...). Struth, in the UK you have to pay for a TV license (ownership tax).

Just because something seems great (and news worthy) at first glance, doesn't mean that it won't turn out to have other aspects that make it impracticle or undesireable (often the failure and it's reasons are far less news worthy).

To dramatically change the fuel requires dramatic changes to the fuel infrastructure. We started phasing out leaded petrol in the mid 80's, we still aren't finished. And that only facilitated catylitic converters and O2 sensors. But could still use the same bowsers and fuel tanks. LPG is even older, but with it's greater differences in handling it still is not available everywhere. It's not a conspiricy, it's just the way it it.

Cars that run on sea water sounds like a great idea, but I seem to recall that sea water and metal often don't get on too well, also sea water is not quite as readily available in Alice Springs. What about all the impurities in sea water, you may get all this cheap power (ignoring all the infrastructure costs for now), but if you have to tear down the engine every 20,000k to de-scale it - go look at the inside of your kettle do that maths as to how many litres have been through it, then compare that to how many litres of fuel you use in a year. (and that is what I have just thought up in the last few minutes)

Petrol has some real advantages, lots of easily extracted power per kilogram (and per volume). The internal combustion engine can run for well over 300,000km. They work reasonably efficently over a reasonable rev-range. Refueling is quick and easy (I can re-fuel for 600km faster than my family can complete their toilet stop). The engine is reasonably robust, and can often continue to run in the face of a variety of failures (even if in a degraded manner). To replace it you need to beat or equal it in all these areas - or accept a smaller market and all the issues that go with that.


Tesla was undoubtly a genius. But if I recall correctly, his power from the air stuff was based on that power being radiated from a high frequency transformer. Obviously some other source of power was required to drive this transformer. This method of power transmission gave some amazing advantages. Just stick a metal rod in the gound and pickup up some power. However what of the disadvantages, possible ones off the top of my head might be : No ability to meter and therefore charge the end user, what effect would it have on computers ?(not invented then), once you got a network of these set up, what happens at the interference points where the fields of 2 transformers colide? given recent links between cancer and various electro-magnetic radiation maybe it is good it didn't take off.

[clixanup]

LPG is even older, but with it's greater differences in handling it still is not available everywhere. It's not a conspiricy, it's just the way it it. OK, I accept your point that changing things at such a fundamental level takes time. However, if someone mass produced a car which runs on a free fuel, I reckon people would take to it like ducks to the proverbial.

Cars that run on sea water sounds like a great idea, but I seem to recall that sea water and metal often don't get on too wellYou're not actually running the thing on seawater though. You're actually burning the hydrogen component of water, with the resultant emissions being nothing more than oxygen and carbon monoxide. Scale will not form in the combustion chamber as a result, because hydrogen actually burns 'cleaner' than petrol. In fact if you took two engines and ran one on hydrogen and one on petrol, my money is on the hydrogen powered unit having less carbon build up upon removing the cylinder heads.


Petrol has some real advantages, lots of easily extracted power per kilogram (and per volume). The internal combustion engine can run for well over 300,000km..... To replace it you need to beat or equal it in all these areas... And people have. Run a Google search on these names: Edwin V. Gray, Keith E. Kenyon, Bob Teal, Howard Johnson. They all developed electro-magnetic engines which require no fuel to start, generate their own power and could run for free until the magnets lose their magnetism (which can take hundreds of years). What has happened to their designs?


Tesla was undoubtly a genius. But if I recall correctly, his power from the air stuff was based on that power being radiated from a high frequency transformer. Yes, it was. Just like our radio/TV/mobile phone towers perhaps?

[sloone]

Actually, he died in 1944 at the ripe old age of 88. Most of his best discoveries were made before 1900 - he had flourescent lights which ran without power in 1895.

Exactly the point. Several inventors have made fuel-less engines, but where are all their designs?

Don't the fuel companies buy these things up so that they can keep on selling their current items?

[Phido]

None of these ideas are new, and they haven't failed due to oil companies and governments. They are just inefficent and generally require way more energy to put into the system than you will get out.

As for transmitting free energy, we do it everyday. Radio waves. You can make a crystal radio set that has no battery or conventional power source, only a good earth and a antenna. But they work poorly, and the amount of power collected is barely enough to run a ear peice. To power something like a car, you would have to pump out gigawatts and only get a few watts in return when very close to the transmitter, a complete waste. However, this kind of power source, may be the perfect way to power nanotechnology devices and processes where distance and power output are very small to be highly functional.

Magnets don't "lose" magnetisim, if you make a magnet and leave it on a desk, you can come back 10, 100, 1000, 10000, 1000000 years and the magnet will still be as "magnetic" as it was the day you made it. There is no decay of magnetisim as such.

No energy is "free" no energy is "limitless" you cannot make energy out of nothing. Perpetual motion is not possible by defintion. But thats not to say that theres no energy everywhere we can take advantage of.

Solar power provides "free, endless, untaxable fuel source" but why aren't we using it, because solar panels cost a fortune (to make, involving many simular processes as making a CPU), are fairly fragile, and make only a small amount of power (but are slowly becoming more efficent and cheaper).

Nuclear power too can provide massive amounts of clean, emissionless power, for almost nothing. But people don't want to have anything to do with them these days.

The governments and oil companies did push steam power off the market. Steam was cheap, clean, extremely reliable, powerful, efficent and essentially untaxable. Steam engines can run on almost anything, coal, wood, farming waste, liquid fuels, gas fuels, solid fuels, even the sun etc. Steam and petrol engines of the same period, steam engines were generally less complicated, safer and lasted much much much longer and performed simularly. There are many examples of steam engines functioning for over a hundred years with out anything except simple servicing (lubricants). So eventually the petrolum industry funded, lobbied, pushed steam out of favour at least in western countries, for powering transport.

How bout this, a engine that works on a simular idea as a steam engine the sterling cycle engine, runs on nothing but warm air! They are powerful enough to perform work like a water pump. People have shown a sterling cycle engine powered by the sun turning small generators as a replacement for solar panels. Being cheaper, easier to service, more durable than monocrystal solar panels.

Almost all the electricity in the world is produced by steam, almost no train system in the world has ever remained profitable after converting from steam to diesel or electric. China and India cannot afford to run electric or Diesel trains so still run to this day steam trains. Diesel ships do not offer any real advantage over steam engined ships in terms of running cost or efficency. The XPT is no faster than any high speed steam train of the 1930's. Infact because of its lack of torque, it cannot pull simular loads to the old steam trains.

Go to a tractor pull day and see a 50Hp steam tractor verse a 50Hp diesel tractor, or 50hp steam verse 100hp diesel. Steam wins.

Steam engines fitted to modernish cars, steam engine is lighter, smaller, more economical, provides better drivability and performance.

Back to the origional topic, compressed air engines (basically a steam engine with no boiler) would provide decent power for things working inside or amoung crowds where long range and power are not needed. Rotory air engines I belive have been done before, often suffering rotor/turbine major problem, consumption..

[clixanup]

Magnets don't "lose" magnetisim, if you make a magnet and leave it on a desk, you can come back 10, 100, 1000, 10000, 1000000 years and the magnet will still be as "magnetic" as it was the day you made it. There is no decay of magnetisim as such.

No energy is "free" no energy is "limitless" you cannot make energy out of nothing. Perpetual motion is not possible by defintion. But thats not to say that theres no energy everywhere we can take advantage of.Aren't you contradicting yourself here? In one breath you say that magnets never lose power and in the next you say that no energy is limitless. Which is it?

Search Google for the names I've mentioned above and you will see that at least one bloke has made magnetic engines which start turning as soon as the stator is installed, with no external power source.

Call me a dreamer, but I think that perpetual motion is possible and from a bit of research on the internet I've seen that it has already been achieved.

[Phido]

Aren't you contradicting yourself here? In one breath you say that magnets never lose power and in the next you say that no energy is limitless. Which is it?

Both. Confused? Yeh, everyone is, even many (non physicist) scientists. Magnetisim is not power or energy. Its a force, like gravity, gravity doesn't wear out, dropping a brick onto your foot a billion times won't make gravity of the earth wear out, your only moving energy. Magnetisim is actually a fairly complicated subject, there are many diffrent types of magnetisim. Ferro, para, dia, ferri and antiferro.

Ferromagnetisim and Ferrimagnetisim (they are very closely related) is stuff we all see every day, nickel, iron, cobalt and alloys. Fridge magnets etc. This type of magnetisim is created by aliging the each of the atoms magnetic moments (actually more complicated than that, there are these things called domains). The energy you put into making a magnet goes into aligning these moments, and to make them change (in ferro or ferrimagnetisim) involves energy to make them unalign.

This is why your alternator can can make a billion trillion watts of electricy from its simple magnets. Making that electricity doesn't expend the magnet. All that electricity is produced by the energy required to turn the shaft not by some storage of energy in the magnet itself. If that was the case, magnets would be very expensive stuff..

Just because something is on the internet doesn't mean its true.

As a physicist I am highly sceptical of claims of perpetual motion. And there are many claims. While I generally regard perpetual motion as impossible, theres nothing stopping a extremely efficent device being built that uses energy that is freely avalible.

[clixanup]

As a physicist I am highly sceptical of claims of perpetual motion. And there are many claims. While I generally regard perpetual motion as impossible, theres nothing stopping a extremely efficent device being built that uses energy that is freely avalible.

How about the guy who was granted a patent on a perpetual motion motor?

http://www.newebmasters.com/freeenergy/sm-text.html

BTW - I hope you aren't getting offended with my pig-headedness here Phido, I'm just presenting my point of view. :)

[Phido]

Your fine and free to express your point of view.. I'm not going to contact OPEC and have you removed from the general population. ;)

Theres alot more free energy machines than that..

Click here (http://www.phact.org/e/dennis4.html)

Cold fusion has to be the most recent credable announcement. Backed by scientists, carefully measured, published in detail in respected journals, even early reports of confirmation by other independant scientists. But it all fell apart under closer inspection.

Patents don't mean it works, it means you get some form of protection on your idea.

[clixanup]

Click here (http://www.phact.org/e/dennis4.html)Now there's a balanced, fair and unbiased website... :rolleyes:

[BossV8]

I bet it would be a hit with the builders- rock up to the worksite and plug in the nail gun to the donk

But you could do good tricks to them, go let out the pressure release valve and watch him let it build up for 5 mins before he takes off :lol:

[seldo]

I bet it would be a hit with the builders- rock up to the worksite and plug in the nail gun to the donk...
:lol:
That puts a whole new slant on "nailing it off the line".. :lol: ..Sorry...;)