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

[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.

[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!

[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:):):)

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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?

[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]

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.