https://www.post-gazette.com/business/powersource/2020/08/09/Making-the-pitch-for-battery-powered-trains-Wabtec-prepares-for-a-major-demonstration/stories/202008090039
Since it is in a consist with diesel-electric units I wonder if they may be part of the special paint news.
As seen in Newswire
https://trn.trains.com/news/news-wire/2020/04/20-as-earth-day-turns-50-wabtec-and-rail-industry-tout-sustainability-improvements
https://wabtec-city.com/FLXDrive-Battery-Locomotive
It will be interesting to see whether Wabtec's claim of a 30% increase in fuel efficiency within a consist is borne out. If that happens, we'll be seeing a lot of these units.
"Flyer" from Wabtech states that only the four (4) of the six (6) axels will be powered.
So, my question becomes: powered axels arranged as A1A or 1B / B1?
Anyone know?
from the Far East of the Sunset Route
(In the shadow of the Huey P Long bridge)
Think of this as a technology demonstrator for WABTEC more than a BNSF set. This is picking up on the promise of MATEs from lo! these many years ago, but now with proper hybrid energy storage.
Sadly the comments from Mr. Hamilton appear to confirm what I'd already suspected: the work GE did a decade ago into robust hybrid batteries has not panned out -- or been developable into a 'mass solution' that is as cost-effective as current market traction-battery components.
I trust some of the lessons of earlier attempts are well understood, including charge-current and rate management, surges, and above all very good thermal management.
What might be fun would be to sandwich a couple of those Progress Rail PR43Cs around a battery MATE and dynamically adjust the fuel burn aggressively. Of course that's NIH, but if the technological approach can be proven it might be interesting, particularly for revived dual-mode-lite, which is where I see the real value of this approach coming.
JC UPTON https://wabtec-city.com/FLXDrive-Battery-Locomotive "Flyer" from Wabtech states that only the four (4) of the six (6) axels will be powered. So, my question becomes: powered axels arranged as A1A or 1B / B1? Anyone know?
Four powered axels? Is this locomotive of Norwegian origin?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axel_jump
If GM "killed the electric car", what am I doing standing next to an EV-1, a half a block from the WSOR tracks?
JC UPTON"Flyer" from WABTEC states that only the four (4) of the six (6) axles will be powered. So, my question becomes: powered axles arranged as A-1-A or 1-B/B-1?
You were wise to spot this. Presumably the locomotive is being treated as a four-motor for good electrical reasons. Looking at the trucks in the illustration I'd think A-1-A, but this would be an ex-GE configuration, so more specific observation or technical description is needed.
This would be a perfect thing for Kalmbach to report on, with all the details and engineering assumptions asked about knowledgeably and then described coherently. Hit it, you guys!
Does anyone have any technical information the Flex-Drive locomotive. Horsepower and tractive effort rates, both starting and continuous?
Caldreamer
Some videos
Psychot It will be interesting to see whether Wabtec's claim of a 30% increase in fuel efficiency within a consist is borne out. If that happens, we'll be seeing a lot of these units.
In the five years before I retired from EMD in 2005, I was tasked with many special projects, one was to evaluate energy recovery and storage not long after the first Prius appeared. We contracted with the then retired programmer of the EMD train simulation program to include the capability to store dynamic brake energy on an SD70MAC for fuel savings. We looked a couple of scenarios, a Metra commuter train making all local stops from Chicago to Aurora and back and a loaded coal train from the Powder River basin to a powerplant in Texas and returning empties. We had realistic efficiences for energy conversion and included a storage capacity of 2 MW-hours, IIRC. The net fuel savings were in the range of 40% for the Metra train and about 16-20% for the coal train. At that time, Ni-MH was the best available battery, Li-Ion weren't yet developed to the scale we needed. Though the fuel savings was substantial, the cost of the batteries and their life made it a loosing proposition. If they claim 30% fuel savings, it's possible depending on a lot of factors, but whether it's cost justified is a whole other matter. There may be reasons cost savings isn't the driver though, perhaps it's emissions in California.
Dave
bogie_engineerwhether it's cost justified is a whole other matter.
I'd be interested to read Mr. Goding's opinion of the GE hybrid battery technology, which as I recall was one of the elevated-temperature chemistries like the old Ford sodium/sulfur battery. Those have taken on a potential new life with the advent over the past few years of really cheap, really good nanoinsulation. They also possess (in my opinion) an advantage in not requiring strategic materials 'in demand for higher-profit applications' or that are sourced from problem nations.
I'm interested also in seeing how the technology might be applied to wayside energy storage as well as onboard, where the necessary distribution overhead is or could be installed...
I believe this is the battery technology they were using on their hybrid locomotive from around 2008 which they planned to sell in 2010:
https://bioage.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8341c4fbe53ef013481117599970c-popup
The fact that this battery has an operating temperature of 270-350 degrees C is scary to me for a mobile use in the event of an accident although I would hope those working on it took safety very seriously. As I recall, GE made a PR splash as they were good at doing and got some government money to build their plant for these batteries near Schenectady that they eventually abandoned.
The one I was thinking of is this (scroll down to the links) produced as a case study by the multiphysics modeling company (COMSOL) GE used.
https://www.comsol.com/paper/rechargeable-battery-for-hybrid-diesel-electric-locomotive-6438
If you did not like nickel halide at 350 degrees I suspect you will not be any happier with sodium...
There are also the liquid-metal and semiliquid-metal constructions (which I have seen seriously proposed for heavy wayside storage) which use for example a liquid-calcium anode, antimony for the cathode, and molten salt electrolyte ... now that is getting into McDonalds burn-hazard level!
The company I worked for from 1992 -2014 was part of GE at the time of their hybrid locomotive program. Recall that crude oil had gone over $100/bbl for the first time in 2008, so any fuel savings would have had a significant impact. IIRC, the battery had about a 2MW-hr capacity and about a 2MW power limit (i.e. 1C charge/discharge). The battery technology seemed a bit odd, possibly due to GRC's NIH factor. Sodium Sulfur would be my pick for the ideal wayside/utility scale battery as sodium and sulfur are available in enormous quantities.
The 16% energy savings is pretty darn close to what the Milwaukee electrification did with regenerative braking.
A couple of thoughts about marketing hybrid locomotives:
Freight: Being able to run at full dbhp with batteries for a half hour or so could be extremely useful when running through long tunnels (e.g. Cascade). Wonder how much it would be worth to BNSF if they could significantly increase the number of trains through that tunnel.
Commuter: 40% energy saving sounds plausible, but what would be even nicer is adding the power from the batteries to the power from the prime mover in acceleration.
Erik_MagFreight: Being able to run at full dbhp with batteries for a half hour or so could be extremely useful when running through long tunnels (e.g. Cascade). Wonder how much it would be worth to BNSF if they could significantly increase the number of trains through that tunnel.
I'm still wishing, though, that the benefits of wayside storage could be brought to bear on self-propelled commuter equipment. There are some interesting applications of KERS (one, I think, on the ex-Reading near Philadelphia) for regenerative braking and subsequent reacceleration; this replaces much of the need for expensive and fragile chemical storage with fairly robust mechanics, and would greatly reduce the battery requirement for short-term dwell between repeated heavy braking and high acceleration demand. I would not really dare install such a thing on moving equipment, though: it has somewhat more potential than the size used for Formula I assist!
Dave -
Super interesting! I tried a back of the envelope estimate based on duty cycle and a SWAG on avg DB output. Here it is. I got 60,000 gallons out of about 300,000 total for locomotive per year. About 20%. Sorta close....
I still wonder if these batter locomotives aren't a way to back into full electrification.
-Don (Random stuff, mostly about trains - what else? http://blerfblog.blogspot.com/)
Overmod I do not know whether Cascade still supports clearance for catenary at the desired voltage, but it might be relatively inexpensive to install it for the additional speed appropriate for 'faster throughput' of trains.
I do not know whether Cascade still supports clearance for catenary at the desired voltage, but it might be relatively inexpensive to install it for the additional speed appropriate for 'faster throughput' of trains.
I suspect that there isn't sufficient clearance for double stacks and the contact wire. One advantage off hybrid locomotives over electrification is that the capital costs are in mobile assets as opposed to fixed assets.
In fact, I suspect that with AC synthesized power, there would be comparably less 'waste' in rapid vs. regulated acceleration. The concern here would be (as with Tesla Ludicrous++) how much cumulative damage the battery pack takes from fast discharge and, to a lesser extent, rapid charge within the 80:20 limits I think apply to these batteries. As you know, I'm in favor of charge management using intermediate supercaps as 'charge buffers' between motors and chemical storage; that would be highly useful here.
I recall reading that some versions of Lithium batteries (Li-Phosphate?) could hold up to as many charge/discharge cycles as a supercap provided that the state of charge was kept between 40% and 60%. My recollection was that the battery maker was also claiming specific power equivalent to supercaps. The batteries would have to sustain on the order of a hundred thousand cycles to make sense.
I've run through the numbers and supercaps are a bit shy of having the specific energy capacity (i.e. w-hr/kg) to work in commuter rail, but would work nicely for a hybrid switching locomotive. One advantage of batteries is keeping a relatively constant DC link voltage, while supercaps can be completely discharges without damage (safer to work around).
I have wondered about placing banks of supercaps at stations on a light rail line or subway line to abosrb the regenerated braking energy. These would also provide voltage support for when the trains leave the stations and thus smooth out the demand on the local utility.
Yet another though is putting supercaps or high cycle count Li batteries on individual cars on a locomotive hauled commuter train, that way regenerative braking can be applied to all wheels.
Erik_MagI have wondered about placing banks of supercaps at stations on a light rail line or subway line to abosrb the regenerated braking energy. These would also provide voltage support for when the trains leave the stations and thus smooth out the demand on the local utility.
Part of the argument made for the KERS setup is that it is vastly cheaper than the 'equivalent' in either high-capacity batteries or supercap banks, is immensely robust, has so long a lifetime without significant wear or necessary rebuilding as to make most renewable power sources seem short-lived, and for all intents and purposes have almost negligible parasitic loss, as spin down is relatively little in the time a given train dwells at the station concerned. As far as I know there were no showstopping problems with them.
My principal concern with regeneration via the car wheels is that you basically have most of the cost of a whole traction-motor system there, with the cost of what used to be a very expensive control system now almost commodity OTS electronics. You could almost rig one up to be driven from a smartphone with one of those model-railroading control setups...
Running some numbers...
Let's assume that the commuter coach weighs 120,000lb and we want the traction motors on the car to provide 1mphps acceleration/braking effort up to 75mph with an equivalent provided by the hybrid locomotive.
1 mphps is about 0.05g, so we would need 6,000lbf tractive effort, so peak tractive power would be 6,000X(75/375)=1,200hp. With 4 axles, this would be 300hp/axle, which is on the high end for electric car motors. Use one electric car power package (battery, inverter and motor) per axle - assume we use a 75kwhr battery. Peak electric power will be 225kW, so peak charge/discharge rates will be 3C. With a combined locomotive and car acceleration rate of 2mphps, figure 40 seconds to get up to speed, that works out to 4.5MJ (1.25kwhr) per battery (about 2% change in depth of charge). With the "million-mile" battery technology coming real soon now, cycle life shouldn't be an issue... (*cough*)
With specific energy of battery packs of 150w-hr/kg, we'd be looking at 4,500lb of batteries per car. Motors would be maybe another 1,200lb, figure equal amount for gearing and mounts and maybe 800lb for inverters for a total under 8,000lb.
Cost per power unit (battery, inverter and motor) may be $25,000, so we have $100,000/car. These weight and cost estimates are probably a bit optimistic.
One advantage of a power unit per axle is that a failure of the power unit leads to a 25% reduction in accelerating/braking power. The components, inlcuding the motors, are light enough to make swap-out relatively easy to do.
rdamon's post; 1st video, Wabtech shows the three axle truck in the A1A configuration ...
(It also incorrectly uses the term "kW/Hr" when ther is no such thing... ypu have only kW or kWH...)
JC UPTON(It also incorrectly uses the term "kW/Hr" when there is no such thing... you have only kW or kWH...)
Well, there is the semantic possibility of using SI 'by the book' to say "kW/h" by analogy with units of distance...
The problem with using 'watt-hour' abbreviation is that it is carried over from the electric-power industry and is not remotely a 'metric' measurement quantity... in addition to which it is not perzackley equivalent to a metric conversion of 'hp/hr' as expected by locomotive people. The elephant-in-the-room problem, of course, is that the whole discussion should have begun with correct metric PREFIXES. Any practical discussion of locomotive output -- as with comparable electric output -- is in MW/h or MWh or whatever. To keep the single-horsepower conversion prefix in there is much like correcting to "raring" in the expression rarin' to go without appreciating there is further context involved in the terminology...
[quote user="oltmannd"]
I still wonder if these battery locomotives aren't a way to back into full electrification.
Don = right on.
blue streak 1oltmanndI still wonder if these battery locomotives aren't a way to back into full electrification.Don = right on.
oltmanndI still wonder if these battery locomotives aren't a way to back into full electrification.
Still more a justification for a version of dual-mode lite that can use the battery to augment wayside storage, or work with partial cat whether or not hooked up to heavy traction grid resources 'yet' -- or that can use partial cat or cables to do 'plug-in charging' when there is excess power or insufficient spot demand.
I'll bet that the cost of 25 to 50kV transversion to DC-link voltage at 'sufficient amperage capacity' is really rather... lite. While there is more involved in 'safe' charging of restricted-voltage devices like super caps or many cell technologies, I suspect much of it is now well-developed and characterized, and probably costed-down in other contexts. We might have to get Don to revisit what his vision of the Middle or Pittsburgh Division in 2040 would look like with these...
Trip down Cajon Pass could fully charge several of these units for the trip to Long Beach ..
oltmannd I still wonder if these batter locomotives aren't a way to back into full electrification.
I doubt they are. This is more to please California with a demonstration project. Since the state funded this project through a CARB grant. This is just to push another future government mandate without the market determining if this product is cost effective. While I'm a fan of electrification. We don't need it for freight. GE's first Hybrid Demo had it right by capturing DB energy, and storing it for additional power, or boosting the motors for acceleration.. Battery powered switchers make more sense.
SD60MAC9500GE's first Hybrid Demo had it right by capturing DB energy, and storing it for additional power, or boosting the motors for acceleration.. Battery powered switchers make more sense.
Reading between the lines, this is the logical follow-on to the GE hybrid, just with better packaging and control over the hybrid modes. It is only being touted as a 'battery locomotive' ... when all its real advantages come as a combination MATE and electron-storage tender. (Prediction: Look for the other two TMs to be quietly refitted after the Californicatology is over... it will use them in either single or double unit consist pairing, and of course in dual-mode-lite. And the possibilities just in improving transient freight handling with distributed battery power are well worth the doing...
The problem with battery switchers is that no one seems to understand that they have to run in Ludicrous+ mode most of the time they accelerate, immediately followed by deep optimized dynamic braking with substantial inertial load. The active cooling requirements alone for this are on a scale I have not even seen suggested for switch engines; the necessary cell architecture for high peak currents are also dramatically more than 'expected'.
I am frankly surprised Elon hasn't gotten into this field; he 'got' it in the automotive context when no one else did...
I wonder how they would do in long haul serviece. For instance on the BNSF's southern transcon from LA to Chicago which is over 2000 miles.
caldreamerI wonder how they would do in long haul service. For instance on the BNSF's southern transcon from LA to Chicago which is over 2000 miles.
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