Reusing Dynamic Braking Power on Dieasals instaed of Dispersing it as heat

[Anonymous]

We all need to step back and cool off a little. I do not want to see any fights on the internet.

A comment or two on flywheels. They work in stationary applications very well, but in a moving situation I question its viability. The flywheel essentially is a gyroscope. We all remember as a kid the small fist sized gyroscopes we would hold and how hard it would be to turn our hand with the gyroscope spinning. Think what the train would do with a large flywheel as it went around a bend. The train would tend to go straight and this is not what the Class 1's want to happen. Of course the track could be designed to follow the precessing of the gyroscope and not have the car leave the track. Unfortunately bending the track in the direction that the gyroscope processes may not lead to where the next station is.

Hydrogen also has several problems. Hydrogen tends to be adsorbes into steel which causes hydrogen embrittlement. No body wants the hydrogen cylinder to shatter like glass especiaaly when it is under pressure. (The worlds largest hand gernade?) Coating the innards with a protective film will eliminate the embrittlement, but what happens if you develop a holiday in the coating? BOOM! Hydrogen, being the smallest atom around can slip through the crystal lattice work of some metals. I have seen a demo of liquid hydrogen weeping through a glass beaker like it was a sieve. Of course we would not be using liquid hydrogen, although it could double as an air conditioner for the train as the temperature that liquid hydrogen exists at is very close to absolute zero.

All of this leads to one thing. The regenerative power available is another reason to electrify the rail lines. Also you certainly eliminate lots of pollution especially if the line has old Alcos that tended to ppuff a black cloud on acceleration.

[Overmod]

Yes, you have considerable heat when you compress air... but when the air sits compressed in a reservoir for any length of time it tends to cool back down again. Then when it's released, it cools down as it expands, losing pressure.

There are better ways to store the heat than trying to keep it in the compressed air, and of course ways to generate or 'pipe in' heat to accompli***he reheating. There is a design tradeoff between the added effectiveness and run time given by hotter 'power air' and the cost of the methods used to provide the heat. Often interesting to see exactly how a device's designers make that tradeoff...

Minor nit-pick: you are not of course "creating heat" when you compress air; you're using at least as much mechanical power to produce the observed temperature increase. (Check the laws of thermodynamics.) The hot compressed air requires much stronger reservoirs/accumulators, piping etc. BUT loses much of its (heat) energy quite quickly, simply in the act of expanding, before doing useful work in a pressure engine. Wherever you see air being used for pressure (as on locomotive brake systems) you'll find radiators an essential part of the design; you want as large a MASS of air in the reservoirs as is cost-effective, and that's best done by having the compressed air at ambient temperature but reasonably dry.

Before we start seeing threads about how to re-use the heat generated by brake compressors to help trains start or climb grades... the rate the heat is released, its magnitude, and its peak temperature are all too small to recover effectively in a form that a heat engine can effectively use (imho yes, even including TACs)

[Anonymous]

Does not compressing air create heat in of itself?
So if you are going to compress air you are going to create heat anyway?

[chad thomas]

It's just that the way you quoted me made it sound like I think all these ideas are absurd. That's not the case. I just think It's absurd to think that most of these ideas have any practical application in a railroad locomotive, for the reasons I mentioned.

I would just appriciate if in the futue you or anyone else would not missquote me this way.[;)][8D]

Thanks.

[BigJim]

"I would appriciate it if you wouldn't butcher my quotes. If your going to quote me quote my entire statement. Don't just clip out a sentance."

I hope csxengineer doesn't mind you consisely saying in one sentence what it took him several to say.

As for "butchering" your post, you have no idea what butchering is. Being as your comments came after the posts mentioning element separation it became fair game. I didn't do it to put your post down, just to bring another element (pun intended) into the thought process.

[Anonymous]

Submarines do just that. However, in the Submarine Force, the system is nicknamed the Bomb. If it fails to vent the hydrogen off the sub.....KABOOM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!-they hydrogen will go off like a grenade. That is what would kill the concept right there, the danger of a hydrogen explosion. I have a friend in the Submarine Force, he was chief engineer on board one of the nuclear subs, and he says that this system is subject to frequent breakdowns and needs a lot of attention. And in applications like a submarine, where attention can be given to it on a daily basis, its not too big a deal. But a locomotive would have to be pulled out of service for this system to be worked on.

[chad thomas]

Bigjim,
I would appriciate it if you wouldn't butcher my quotes. If your going to quote me quote my entire statement. Don't just clip out a sentance.

[BigJim]

"is possible with modern ac locomotives and the Swiss have many of them."

There is something about this statement combined with the thought of a Swiss Army Locomotive that stirs humorous thoughts about what could be:):):)

[BigJim]

"Well - I once had the idea to produce hydrogen and oxygen from water by the means of electrolisis"
"You could inject the oxygen into the crew compartment as a booster for the engineer"

I may be very much mistaken, but I think the U.S. Navy and the Silent Service has been doing this since the late 1950's in order to keep the crew members alive in their Hunters and Boomers!

"Most of this discussion is absurd in my opinion"

Tell that to the men of the Silent Service!

[daveklepper]

Diesel: Motive Power's Green Goat is a commercial switcher and they are going to the next step to branch line and commuter power.

Electric: Regnerative instead of dynamic braking is possible with modern ac locomotives and the Swiss have many of them.

[Overmod]

One of the more promising manufacturers of flywheel UPS is Active Power.

At the risk of seeing information from this particular link appearing 'mysteriously' in its own new thread, go here (and use the links on the left to read more about flywheel stuff):

http://www.activepower.com/index.asp?pg=technology_tacas_basics

Note the references here to what chad was talking about regarding startup and ride-through -- the heated-air solution uses flywheel power rather than batteries for this.

Of course, for a more vivid example, you'd have to go to the energy-storage system we used to use at PPL. This used a rotor about 20' across and quite a few feet long, spun up to fairly high speed, in order to generate the high electrical energy needed for plasma-containment experiments. What was striking about this was that, when someone fired a shot, you'd actually see the wheel slow down!

CSX, anything involving water dissociation is by definition an 'energy carrier' solution much like using hydrogen fuel in the first place (it takes more overall energy to make the hydrogen available as an engine fuel than you get back by using it). The principal problem I have with the idea is that there's almost certainly too much involved with the physical separation of the dissociated hydrogen and oxygen to make it safely workable on a locomotive. Much better to keep the energy in the form of electron flows -- in supercapacitors/battery-banks, or in electromechanical storage, for example -- if it's going to be used as an electron flow in traction motors. If you were using hydraulic drive, it would probably be best to use the energy in Karman-type accumulators, although you have to use some care in designing the systems that achieve the necessary high psi from the "traction" motors while avoiding even short-duration locked-wheel slips...

[chad thomas]

That could be very usefull for keeping power up while the backup generators fire up too.

[broncoman]

QUOTE: Originally posted by M636C

A realistic alternative to batteries in a locomotive might be a flywheel connected to a motor and generator. This could absorb the energy faster than batteries and feed it back to motors when needed. It would still be costly and heavy. A flywheel driven switcher was built for use around a power station in England in the 1950s. It plugged into mains power when idling and could switch a rake of coal wagons and return simply on the energy in the flywheel. It was better than steam but not as useful as diesel power.

Peter

They actually have a standyby power system that uses this theory. It is pretty popular in Silcon Valley. They use power to keep the flywheel turning (requires very little to keep it spinning) then if they lose power the flywheel starts to spin down, but gives them enough time to shut down computers before the flywheel stops spinning.
Tried to find a link to a page but couldn't.

[CSXrules4eva]

Ok I have to say something here.
uzurpator I agree with you on this statement "anything is daangerous if not used properely. So is diesel engine." My ex Asst Principal always told me this saying anythin could be used as a weapon. A pencial, a plastic bag, areosal cans, any types of chemicals, even your hands can be used as weapons.

chad I also agree with ya here "just because something can be used on the scale of a 2500-3500 lb. car does not mean it can be applied to a locomotive working with 20,000,000 lb trains." many people (who don't know that much about trains) always ask me this question well if a car or a truck has it why doesn't a train?/

But asides from this experamenting with good old O2 and H seems very interesting to me. I don't see why experamentation with alternarte fuels in terms of railway applications should be a bad thing, give it a chance and see what happens. It seems to me like RailPower has had sucess so far with their late model Green Goat.

[chad thomas]

Most of this discussion is absurd in my opinion.
All of these devices and ideas would require lots of expensive equiptment that would cost tons of money to maintain and would need lots of real estate inside the locomotive that's just not available to begin with. And for what to recover a few percentage points of overall efficiency. Come on guys, think about it. And just because something can be used on the scale of a 2500-3500 lb. car does not mean it can be applied to a locomotive working with 20,000,000 lb trains.

[Anonymous]

Well - my calculations showed about 5-10% reclamation considering 25% of energy being sent to on the resistor grids. There actually are working "hydrogen" engines, and I'm not talking about fuel cells - just plain old heat based motors. Explosion from hydrogen is similar in effect to explosion from burned diesel fuel. Besides - the oxygen alone would be enough to use it - simply to ditch turbo and use pure oxygen injected to the cylinder.

kevarc - anything is daangerous if not used properely. So is diesel engine.

csxengineer98 - it is about 76% efficient - or you need 1,3 Joules to get 1 Joule worth of hydrogen.

76% efficiency hydrogen/oxygen production -> 35% efficency in burning -> 85% efficency in motors motors. Total: 22% efficency.

So each 400 gals of fuel, of which 25% ends of the resistor grids, would mean 22 gallons saved. Or about 5,5% increase in fuel efficency. With 40% reclamation it is 10% increase in fuel efficency.

Overall - I deemed it "not worth the trouble"

[csxengineer98]

QUOTE: Originally posted by ajmiller

QUOTE: Originally posted by kevarc

QUOTE: Originally posted by uzurpator

Well - I once had the idea to produce hydrogen and oxygen from water by the means of electrolisis (sp?, proper term?) with power fed through traction motors.

Then the hydrogen could be injected to the engine as a booster...

ANyone who want to do this has to be clinically insane. hydrogen is extremely dangerous. And jsut the thought of this may cause nightmares. And then you have the oxygen to deal with. Another dangerous gas.

You could inject the oxygen into the crew compartment as a booster for the engineer.[;)

takes alot of electicity to seperat water atoms...and the net yeild you would get back in the way of oxygen and hydrogen would be nomanl at best....
csx engineer

[ajmiller]

QUOTE: Originally posted by kevarc

QUOTE: Originally posted by uzurpator

Well - I once had the idea to produce hydrogen and oxygen from water by the means of electrolisis (sp?, proper term?) with power fed through traction motors.

Then the hydrogen could be injected to the engine as a booster...

ANyone who want to do this has to be clinically insane. hydrogen is extremely dangerous. And jsut the thought of this may cause nightmares. And then you have the oxygen to deal with. Another dangerous gas.

You could inject the oxygen into the crew compartment as a booster for the engineer.[;)]

[kevarc]

QUOTE: Originally posted by uzurpator

Well - I once had the idea to produce hydrogen and oxygen from water by the means of electrolisis (sp?, proper term?) with power fed through traction motors.

Then the hydrogen could be injected to the engine as a booster...

ANyone who want to do this has to be clinically insane. hydrogen is extremely dangerous. And jsut the thought of this may cause nightmares. And then you have the oxygen to deal with. Another dangerous gas.

[Hugh Jampton]

QUOTE: Originally posted by uzurpator

Then the hydrogen could be injected to the engine as a booster...

STAND WELL BACK!!!

[Anonymous]

Well - I once had the idea to produce hydrogen and oxygen from water by the means of electrolisis (sp?, proper term?) with power fed through traction motors.

Then the hydrogen could be injected to the engine as a booster...

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Dunkirkeriestation

Do they use Flywheels in Power plants?

I think Hydroelectric Dams have those on top of the Turbines, they are called "Generators"[:D]

[carnej1]

Actually Railpower's website mentions a "Hybrid Roadswitcher" as one product they are trying to develop from the Green Goat. There aren't any details but it seems to be related to their "Hybrid Branchline" locomotive project.....

[Anonymous]

Do they use Flywheels in Power plants?

[Anonymous]

Well if we all used solar and wind there would no more coal trains now would there mr railfan?

[chad thomas]

Railway age had a article on Flywheel energy storeage in locomotives sometime around 1992. The application they were focusing on was commuter trains with a lot of stop & go. The flywheel would be too big to fit on the locomotive platform, so it would require another unit to put the flywheel on.

[Anonymous]

Remind me not to read techincal papers so early in the morning.

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Overmod

Peter et al.

Regarding flywheel generation: Hard to find it any more in this age of railroad-research budget cuts, but...

http://www.utexas.edu/research/cem/technoloty_prospectus.html

Yes, the misspelling is necessary <:o)

You might also note that an adjunct version of the technology is being developed as 'flywheel batteries' for space applications.

Not only did the UT folks misspell "technoloty", in the illustration they show the rail wheel being flu***o the flatheaded railhead!

[Overmod]

Peter et al.

Regarding flywheel generation: Hard to find it any more in this age of railroad-research budget cuts, but...

http://www.utexas.edu/research/cem/technoloty_prospectus.html

Yes, the misspelling is necessary <:o)

You might also note that an adjunct version of the technology is being developed as 'flywheel batteries' for space applications.