Comments on: Unfinished Business

By: Carl R. Stannard, Prof. Emeritus

Carl R. Stannard, Prof. Emeritus — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 23:37:18 +0000

Dear Mr. Schweiger, Re: your column in Vol 48, No. 1 issue. I am reassured that you will have a team representing us at Copenhagen. You also invite reader postings in your column. I am Emeritus Prof. of Physics at Binghamton University of SUNY, and am trying to help one of our alumni, Mr. Thomas E. Kasmer to gain wider recognition for his recent invention of an infinitely variable car/truck transmission, the Hydristor, incorporating an energy storage unit which, when the car is braked, can capture the kinetic energy lost and store it in a compressed air tank for re-use. His innovation is to be able to control the shapes and volumes of the chambers in a hydraulic pump based on the Vickers-style aircraft pump, making the pumping speed continuously variable and even reversible, which enables the air storage unit to propel the vehicle by releasing hydraulic fluid, forced by the air behind a rubber bladder through the Hydristor, or alternatively, to accept hydraulic fluid, storing energy in the added compression of the air. Although the exact figures will depend on the vehicle and driving factors, the Hydristor will approximately double fuel efficiency and halve CO2 emissions. I firmly believe that the Hydristor can have an enormous impact on reducing our vehicular CO2 emissions, and fuel usage, and may therefore be able to facilitate some of the negotiations in Copenhagen. It occurs to me that this device might be of interest to some of your readers, so I am taking the liberty to post some information.
Among the Hydristor’s features are:
1. Energy storage capability allows decoupling of direct propulsion from the engine, the car being driven by the air pressure in storage. The engine is used to keep the tank pressure up, thus it can run at optimal parameters near idle, where internal mechanical engine losses are greatly reduced, since engine losses vary as the square of Rpm’s. Later designs for Hydristor cars will have automatic engine shut-off whenever the tank is up to pressure.
2. Braking is achieved by reversing the direction of the hydraulic fluid flow in the Hydristor, so the wheels act as compressor motors, driven by the car’s kinetic energy, storing it in the air tank.
3. These properties will reduce fuel consumption by about ½, so CO2 emissions also are reduced by ½.
4. It is smaller, less expensive than present automatic transmissions, so can be designed to fit any engine block and be retrofitted in nearly any vehicle, with packages to replace transmissions in any shop for approx. $3500. Expected recoup time for fuel savings is about 2-3 years.
5. With the Hydristor, engines will, most of the time, be running in their low-power, near idle mode, which will deliver more power than needed for propelling the car at steady speeds, even on moderate grades, so it can also be adding net energy to the tank to be ready for the next power burst, even as the tank is propelling the car. When needed, that burst of power from the stored air can produce high performance, probably not even depleting the tank (optional storage tank sizes can be chosen for local topography). Thus all of the energy will have been delivered in the low-power, near idle mode. After such a burst, the engine resumes air storage for the next high power demand. If a truly unusual burst is needed, the engine can in addition, provide a driving torque to the wheels itself, assisting the storage tank, using the Hydristor as its transmission, operating in a high-power, mode, at higher Rpm’s, since retrofits will retain their original engines. The retrofit has given the car both low and high power modes of performance, making it a “Hydraulic Hybrid”, but it still has only a single drive train and fuel tank.
6. Since the kinetic energy captured will be about the SAME PERCENTAGE for ALL vehicles (94% of the ke, although road and friction losses remain), and since heavier vehicles with bigger engines and greater kinetic energy also save much more net energy on internal losses, as well as saving more net energy at each braking, the result is that efficiencies of SUV’s, vans, trucks increase closer to the new values for small cars. Thus their efficiencies and CO2 emissions rates become more nearly comparable to small cars , and SUV’s, vans and trucks can rejoin the fleet mix responsibly.
7 The Hydristor can produce a whole new realm of techniques to approach problems in energy production, control, transmission and utilization, bringing a new range of flexibility and versatility to our technology, as the transistor has done for electronics and many other areas. In fact, the Hydristor will challenge many of our fundamental assumptions about automotive design and usage. For instance, as drivers, we all have become intuitively accustomed to the performance characteristics of internal combustion engines such as the fact that high torques and high power outputs occur only at the highest engine speeds – hence our roaring jack-rabbit starts, etc. One of the beauties of the Hydristor is the fact that it puts out its highest torques at low energy, and even zero speed! Putting cars with conventional drive trains into rapid motion are extremely energy wasteful, but the Hydristor is just the opposite; starting out will be highly efficient! As just a couple more automotive examples, four-wheel drive will be much simpler, with no need for transfer cases, differentials, etc, and 2 to 4-WD conversions can be done fairly easily and inexpensively at the time of a Hydristor retrofit; and auxiliary automotive systems such as power steering, or hydraulic systems on trucks, etc. can be run from other ports directly from the main Hydristor rotor.
8. The Hydristor can facilitate the transition to future domestic energy sources, i.e. wind, solar, or Hydrogen fuel cells, since those sources will be able to supply the energy needed to propel the vehicle at the most commonly encountered steady speeds, even on a moderate upgrade, and still have enough reserve to be restoring energy to the air tank, preparing for the next high-power burst that may be needed. This will help to ease the power, range and weight (the latter, especially for battery drives) constraints many electric and fuel cell vehicles have faced when trying to use those sources with direct-drive trains, and still provide the ranges and performances we are accustomed to.
For more information, “Google” “Hydristor” on the net and visit the http://www.Hydristor.com website or http://www.automorrow.com/articles/magone.html. The garden tractor prototype described on the latter website is shown in a video on the Hydristor.com home site – just click on “audio/video” in the heading, and then select “IFPE Convention Footage”. The video is particularly impressive, since it not only shows that the tractor has Hydristor-powered four wheel drive, but it also shows how easily it can be put into the “differential mode” with BOTH wheels on the right turning rearward, and BOTH on the left turning forward, so that if the arena had allowed engine exhaust, the tractor could have been shown sitting on its own footprint, spinning about a vertical axis to its right! And then a twist and a shift will put it in either all-four wheels forward, or all-four reverse! The tractor prototype is more fully described in a letter I am preparing to provide a more comprehensive description of the Hydristor, its operation and the principles behind it, along with some projections of its versatility and potential to have a major impact on our response to Global Warming, and energy usage in general, as well as its promise for a range of much wider applications for the future. If anyone would like an email copy of that more comprehensive letter, please email me at stannard@binghamton.edu.
If you would like more information about the Hydristor, Mr. Kasmer would welcome your contact at Thomas E. Kasmer, P.O. 779, Johnson City, New York, 13790, (607) 206 8960, or email: tkasmer@yahoo.com.
I may be reached at Carl R. Stannard, Prof. Emer., Department of Physics, Applied Physics and Astronomy, Binghamton University, Box 6000, Binghamton, New York, (tel. (607) – 777-2868, office, (607) 729-1010, home), email: stannard@binghamton.edu
Please feel free to email or phone us with any questions or observations.

By: Carl R. Stannard, Prof. Emerit

Carl R. Stannard, Prof. Emerit — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 23:37:00 +0000

By: Miles

Miles — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 18:33:46 +0000

John, this is what global warming looks like: http://michigantoday.umich.edu/2009/03/tempgraph-lrg.gif If you don't like that because of your political beliefs, that's fine. But it's no reason for the rest of us not to act.

By: Miles

Miles — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 18:33:00 +0000

By: John Shepard

John Shepard — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 21:30:08 +0000

“The Road to Copenhagen” is yet another foray into the “climate change” blame game about carbon dioxide.
Global scientists are FAR from united in their view that the climate is warming cataclysmically. The climate data do not fit the presupposed notion that carbon dioxide is responsible for every ill know to man. IT ISN’T!
For instance, the climate models you use for the purpose of hysteria predict continual global warming, yet the climate data clearly show that the planet has been cooling down for the past decade.
Al Gore’s book “An Inconvenient Truth” has shown Gore to be an environmental hypocrite. His home uses 1000 times more energy than the typical American home. If he wants to be taken seriously anymore, he needs to reduce his OWN carbon footprint first!
And, there are more Polar Bears in the Arctic today that when Bore wrote his hostile treatise.
Carbon credits? Bold and verifiable goals? Skipping 20th Century mistakes? Typical left-wing groupthink.
Your piece is nothing more than fear-mongering as though it is a foregone conclusion that the oceans will rise and kill everyone within 70 miles of the shore.
No one, including you, knows this to be true. So stop the fear-mongering, already.
Give me a break!
John Shepard
Winchester, VA 22601

By: John Shepard

John Shepard — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 21:30:00 +0000