http://groups.google.com/group/soc.culture.europe/msg/d0b3ba2d3bf43996On Jan 29, 4:10 pm, DirtRoadie <DirtRoa...@aol.com> wrote:
> gabydewilde wrote:
> > The wall like cycling up the wind phenomenon is something every
> > cyclist should be familiar with.
> > This wind power exceeds the power
> > needed to move the vehicle forwards.
>
> Then the vehicle is no longer moving forward, is it?
>
Any amount of energy is always sufficient to move a load. The wind power always exceeds the power needed to move a vehicle forwards. Force is not work. It's just a matter of leverage. If you can translate 1 percent of the drag back onto the wheels it suffers 1 percent less drag. Standing still the turbine is already spinning. It means the energy available is always above zero.
> OK, how much power does it take to move the vehicle? And how much
> MORE power does it take when you add the drag of a turbine sticking up
> in the windstream?
I see you are not comfortable with the huge frontal surface area. hehe
The wind pushing against the sail of a sailboat is making it move forwards. A sailboat sails on watter just like the turbine blade sails around it's axle. The wind is increasing their speed rather then decreasing it. More sail area is good. A sail boat goes faster that way.
> (Note that if the turbine is generating power it is
> NOT freewheeling
>
> or, conversely, if the turbine is freewheeling it is NOT generating power)
>
I know what you mean but I think you are forgetting about the cabin and assuming a wind speed of zero. You know that almost all of the energy used by a vehicle is used to push air aside.
You know that by driving up the wind we only need to invest a little bit of energy to get a lot of drag in return. This is more then sufficient to supply the original seed power.
Look at the sailboat, the fast it goes the more the apparent wind appears from straight ahead. This is what allows sailing faster as the wind.
But we didn't just have wind at our disposal, we also had human power and electrics.
So we start with say a wind of 5 mph and we accelerate bionically to say 5 mph then we have wind of 10 mph which holds 4 times as much energy.
Let us imagine the wind is made of little sand grains. If we can engineer their impact into the plus then going faster will also increase the number of particles striking the rotor.
Thus, the more you pedal the more you increase the wind power. At 60 we still suffer drag as if we are going 65 mph. The difference between 0 and 5 mph wind is much smaller as that between 60 and 65.
Like
normal ecar:
battery -> motor -> motion -> drag
wind car:
battery+wind -> motor+turbine+pedals -> motion -> drag+wind+battery -> motor+turbine+pedals -> motion -> drag+drag+wind+battery
seems obvious enough to me?
> Type 1
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perpetual_motion#ClassificationAll energy is accounted for. The device limits losses it doesn't create perpetual motion. The Rotoverter modification does something just like that.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhB9rdpnyBI It's free energy though shifting the efficiency goalposts a bit. Not a perpetual motion device.
Even if I knew how to build something like that I wouldn't want it on this vehicle. The wind car is suppose to be a means of transportation. It's more then weird enough the way it is already. If it would also be a perpetual motion device you would have to pay for transportation in ridicule. I would consider that a serious design flaw. Of course I knew eventually some one would try to call a windmill a perpetual motion device. That is exactly the way I like to design things. ha-ha
I guess you are right. The ambient flux of zeropoint energy is just about the same thing as the ambient wind. A car is made for the road, and on the road there is wind. Making unrealistic changes to the road would render any vehicle useless. Even if it was powered by gravity, cosmic radio, permanent magnets, noble gas, hydrogen soup etc etc
If the road was vertical an SUV would be useless on it. If there isn't any wind where you live then a sail car is an awful idea.
Perhaps solar is great where you live.
If you have 250 watt worth of electrical assist and you want to drive an hour per day vs 12 hours of charging then a 20 watt panel can do the trick already.
http://www.google.com/products?q=20+watt+solarIf half an hour of full throttle is enough for you a 10 watt panel may prove sufficient.
http://www.google.com/products?q=10+watt+solarSay you do everything wrong and it ends up generating enough for just 10 min per day if you match that with batteries you can still cycle perfectly and buy more solar later.
Take this beauty.
http://www.reuk.co.uk/Envirotek-V20-VAWT-Generator.htm"The rotor sweeps an area of 26cm wide by 60cm high (= 0.156 square meters). Therefore (according to the calculation of wind power) there is around 8 Watts of wind energy available in a 10mph wind, and around 60 Watts in a 20mph wind. However VAWT type wind turbines are inherently quite inefficient and so no more then 20-30% of this wind energy can be exploited and sent to the batteries."
Lets make it a bit bigger.
say 3 X 26 cm = 78
and 2 X 60 cm = 120
then we get 0.156 X 6 = 0.936 square meters
Then 6 X 8 watt = 48 watt
And 6 X 60 watt = 360 watt
Assuming 20% efficiency we would have 10 to 72 watt left to charge the batteries with. all day long! Just looking at the energy cost it would take a hundred years to earn back the investment.
But if we use only 1/4 kwh per day it can be made to self charge.
The profit is in the fun of building and driving it.
If you pedal hard enough people will think it really works.
hehehe