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

[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

[ajmiller]

QUOTE: Originally posted by HighIron2003ar

QUOTE: Originally posted by ajmiller

Hey, no need to waste all that perfectly good heat. Could use it to make hot water so that tired hoboes could take warm showers, do their laundry, or boil some hotdogs. The possibilities are endless!

A bucket of water on the engine block does the same thing for much less waste

Ok, we'll do it your way....but only if each hobo can have his own bucket.

QUOTE:
If you want to think about heat being wasted, think about the Sun that gives us heat and light on earth. And it will still burn long after we all are dead.

I know! And what is the Bush administration doing about all this solar waste? Absolutely nothing! Why, if we don't act soon, the sun will burn out in 5 billion years and then what will people do?

[csxengineer98]

will you just please shut up.... your posting of lame ideas on ways to get power and filing the forum with worthless crap is getting old.... what is this..like topic number 4 on electicity... enough is enough.... eveything you have said so far is off the wall.... and costs more money then it is worth in the long run.... go back to you tree hugging and notions that GM is a crack dealer....
give it a rest!!!
csx engineer

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by ajmiller

Hey, no need to waste all that perfectly good heat. Could use it to make hot water so that tired hoboes could take warm showers, do their laundry, or boil some hotdogs. The possibilities are endless!

A bucket of water on the engine block does the same thing for much less waste

If you want to think about heat being wasted, think about the Sun that gives us heat and light on earth. And it will still burn long after we all are dead.

[ajmiller]

Hey, no need to waste all that perfectly good heat. Could use it to make hot water so that tired hoboes could take warm showers, do their laundry, or boil some hotdogs. The possibilities are endless!

[BaltACD]

The practicalities of doing this on Diesel-electric locomotives is beyond economic reality.

That being said, it was done with straight electric locomotives that were used in freight service on the Northeast Corridor in the before AMTRAK days. I believe MILW and GN also used the principals on the electrifications in the Pacific Northwest.

The current generated by dynamic brake operation was put back into the catenary electric system for use by other trains drawing power from the system.

[dharmon]

I believe that the Railpower Group, the maker of the Green Goat switchers is supposedly working on a hybrid commuter locomotive. I would presume that since they are working the power cell technology issue they might be exploring this avenue also given the accelerate/brake action required in commuter ops.

Plus it gives another avenue to practice cutting/pasting/plagurizing......

[Overmod]

Oh, no, close your eyes...!

dunkirk, it's extremely poor form to snip something from someone else's reply and post it as a new topic without their permission. Especially when it was intended as an illustration of a general principle... a different principle, I might add, than providing booster power to railroad applications.

Note that the current and future generations of hybrid locomotives would do this directly, since their battery banks can be made quite sufficient to provide traction power to any sane number of slug or MATE traction motors for the time such power is required, and regenerative charging would be an inherent function of any hybrid road unit.

Perhaps needless to say, you would NOT design or engineer a whole separate battery (at traction voltages and capable of sourcing and sinking traction current) just to absorb dynamic power for booster use. Remember there's a bunch of other equipment, aside from the battery, that would be required -- and batteries have to be charged at an optimal rate, preferably not in series, which might easily make charging them from dynamic current an expen$ive sort of exercise if you didn't already have a use for much of the power-distributing switchwork, or have some means (please note how carefully I avoid defining what that would be) to cut over any 'excess' power to the db grids in order to avoid overcharging the cells or exceeding their optimal charge rate...

[Anonymous]

How much extra fuel would be used towing around the battery car when it's either being charged up or used up?

[edblysard]

The amount of energy recovered wouldnt be enough to pull the slug up the grade, much less enough to move a locomotive and a train...besides, you have to waste fuel dragging the batterys around, so there would be no real gain

Ed

[Anonymous]

suppose the diesels' dynamic brakes charged up a large bank of batteries housed in a trailing slug instead of disapating the power as heat . That slug could then be used as an additional booster to maintain the train's speed up the next grade without the expenditure of additional fuel. This is the principal of the hybrid drive that is increasingly being used in automobiles