http://www.innas.com/Assets/files/Hydrid%20brochure.pdf
This is going to be a long post, so I will separate into a few sections.
The first will cover the basics.
Please do not hesitate to ask for clarifications.
I posted this link before but felt it was relevant to this thread
Same vehicle, engine, weight and performance. One conventional power train, the second a Hydraulic Hybrid.
Fuel consumption reduced by 50% with engine on time of 11.9% of the total time the vehicle was in operation on the test cycle.
I have been working on this design for almost 10 years, when the first spark of inspiration struck me. I was at Old Rhinebeck aerodrome, near Kingston New York at a gathering of on line flight sim players who loved the old Red Baron 3D combat flight sim from the late 1990s.
It was the first time I ever really looked at a WW1 rotary aircraft engine. It was a revelation in its era, with power to weight ratios that were far superior to any design of the era. In 1913 at the Reims air race a Deperdussin Monoplane flew a closed course at an average speed of 121 MPH. That was 3 times the speeds achieved just 3 years before.
The deperdussin used a 160 HP Gnome rotary engine, a design which used a fixed crankshaft with the rest of the engine rotating around the crankshaft.
What a had never realized before after close examination of a cutaway of an original engine, was that it did not require reciprocation to accomplish up and down motion of a piston in a cylinder.
Animated Engines, Gnome Rotary
This link is a moving illustration by Matt Keveney of an original rotary engine, that demonstrates the design basics.
The spark of inspiration was when I realized that if you could move the central axis of the connection point of the connecting rods to a position that was exactly the same as the central axis of rotation of the spinning engine block, you could transform the "engine" into a flywheel, that would be capable of storing its own generated power for a short period of time.
This point in the conceptual pathway was achieved in 2003. I immediately wrote a 43 page document explaining the concept and had it signed by 13 witnesses, most of them relatives. Combined with a Continuously Variable Transmission you could produce a vehicle that was capable of "pulse and glide" without changing the vehicles speed.
In other words, a vehicle that was "self hypermiling". To be able to pulse and glide a vehicle without speed variations was a problem that I never could resolve for almost 30 years, when I read about an Opel Kadett getting 124 MPH using the P&G tactic, while averaging 26 MPH overall, very close to the same speed average of the EPA city driving cycle.
I filed for a patent for the engine design in 2004. No reciprocating parts, no valve train, variable displacement and compression. My preferred configuration was a 2 cycle diesel with supercharging for cylinder scavenging, similar to a Detroit Diesel. but capable of running on many different fuels.
Absurdly simple, with out a head gasket, or any valve train, or connecting rods. One fuel injector, one glow plug for starting, a single induction and exhaust ports that were very close together to allow preheating of the intake charge with the exhaust residual heat. At 250 pounds the engine could recover (in flywheel mode) all of the available energy in a 60-0 MPH deceleration event by increasing its rotational speed by 1600 RPM in a 2500 pound car.
I tried to present the design to many different govt and private institutions and corporations, with no success. The Department of Energy wrote me a letter through Senator George Allen's office, stating they did not see any potential in the design. I offered the military free licensing rights in lieu of commercial application rights that development would produce. After 6 trips to the Senators office, I was told it was not the Senators job to make me wealthy, in spite of the fact that in doing so it would cure the necessity for imported oil in the US.
I wrote letters to every major auto manufacturer in the US, not a single response except GM who sent me a form letter basically saying they would look at my design, but pay me nothing for my unsolicited ideas.
It soon became apparent that I was going to get nowhere with any radical engine configuration, due to emissions issues especially with a 2 cycle Diesel configuration, in spite of the fact that it could have easily been configured as 4 cycle and incorporate any modern emission component.
After beating my hands bloody on the doors that had to open to succeed. I built a simple model that demonstrated the principles of operation. I took it to Detroit to a meeting with Next Energy and Ricardo, in Ricardo's offices in that city. This was in the spring of 2006.
Ryan Waddington, the Next Energy representative told me that my demonstration was the best he had ever seen. Ricardo commented that they were prepared for the engine concept demonstration but not the power train demo. Many days I had carried the small model around with me fiddling with it at traffic lights. Since the pistons and cylinders had identical connection points at each end (a wire eye for a porch type screen door spring!) they were reversible. Reversing the cylinders and pistons resolved all the issues with distribution of intake and exhaust fluids that existed when the pistons were connected to the central hub, instead of the cylinders themselves.
See photo at bottom for pictures of the model.
After two more years of efforts to get my foot in the door of those who could see this thing actually become a reality, Al Kornhauser at the Virginia Tech School of Engineering agreed to assign the design as a Senior project for 8 hand picked students.
A correspondent for the American Society of Mechanical Engineers contacted me about writing an article in the Capstone section of their August 2008 edition of their magazine. (Available of the web of I can provide a photo of the article)
In the meantime the concept had evolved into a Infinitely Variable-In wheel drive. Combined with a hydraulic accumulator the potential was better than 80% recovery of all braking energy in a vehicle. Acceleration with hydraulic energy alone would eliminate the huge losses in getting your car moving to the desired speed. Another advantage would be the fact that you could maintain reasonable speeds while cycling the cars engine to replenish the accumulator pressure, while applying the exact same amount of power to the wheels, regardless of the pressure level in the accumulator, by increasing the stroke position as accumulator pressures dropped.
All this is demonstrated in the first link to the INNAS design of a similar system, but mine has some advantages.
In other words, the car would hypermile itself, without driver input other than normal operation.
Now we are talking about a revolutionary change in the way vehicles operate. The additional benefit is a dramatic reduction in the number of parts necessary to build a car. I calculate the difference as a 25-30% reduction in the total number of parts that would be necessary to manufacture to build a complete vehicle. The in wheel drives require no more parts or weight than a conventional disc brake system.
All other power train components, torque converters, transmissions, prop shafts, differentials, half shafts, clutches, torque converters, etc, etc, simple are no longer necessary.
The engine itself no longer needs and throttle control or engine speed control. It basically runs at wot (without enrichment) and drives a 95% efficient hydraulic pump to charge a 96-99% accumulator. Power is applied directly to the wheel rims themselves, then to the tires and the pavement. Regeneration is tire to pump, to accumulator, and back to the tire. No simpler pathway of energy storage and conversion can exist to my knowledge. Engines can be downsized for even better mileage
Compared to the 80+% energy recovery of this system, gas electric hybrids are barely over 30%.
The vehicle could accelerate through several cycles of acceleration and braking-regeneration with no engine operation or fuel consumption.
0-80 on a fully charged accumulator
0-64 on the second cycle
0-51.2 on the third
No system can even come close to that level of intertial energy recovery.
When I first read about the OPEL that got 124 MPG, I was intrigued by the fact that it did not require the engine to be three times as efficient to make the vehicle 3 times more efficient. The negative was you could not expect traffic to tolerate your pulse and gliding on public roads, especially from 54 down to 15 MPH. Only WW2 type gas rationing would make that feasible.
I'll be back, the wife just got home, and my fingers need a rest.
Thanks for taking the time to read my novel
.
regards
Mech