The new ENGINE is here and it RUNS on AIR!

Sorry if this has been posted before...but I tried searching air and engine and nothing came up.

The air engine is an emission-free piston engine using compressed air. The engines are similar to steam engines as they use the expansion of externally supplied pressurised gas to perform work against a piston.

The most recent development uses pressurized air as fuel in an engine invented by Guy Nègre, a French engineer. A similar concept is currently being developed by the Uruguayan engineer Armando Regusci, an Australian Angelo Di Pietro and a South Korea Chul-Seung Cho. Despite interest in the technology, no company has yet put a vehicle using this technology into mass production. A successful vehicle would offer many of the advantages of a battery electric vehicle with the additional ability to quickly restore the stored energy - in a few minutes rather than the hours required to recharge batteries.

from: en.wikipedia.org...

Also:

www.engineair.com.au...


So what is everyone's thoughts? Any idea why no company has had any balls to start this investment up?!?!

The only source of fuel we'd need, would be an air compressor....and since Di Pietro's only needs ONE PSI, we can pretty much blow into it if need be! Has anyone else heard of this?!

Never heard of it before. Do love the idea, no need for fuels just that sweet sweet air...I wonder what the cost to manufacter one of those engines would be. The real process begins when the engine is processed with gears, pipes, etc.

Not until the oil company's die out. This sort of technology could effectively wipe out any need for oil based fuel in the city's not to mention petrol stations could go out of business because you can refuel at home.

Its a shame really, there are so many alternative out there but most are simply suppressed by the people profiting from the oil business.

I must say though they don't have very good designers for there cars

oooh interesting. I hope this would make plane tickets cheaper

I know about the Australian guy's motor as its been on TV here and he has sold units to the Melbourne Markets. His rotary Air motor is in Buggies and are in fact in service right now, the major advantage he has in the markets is pollution as they used to use LPG powered buggies but their emmissions were an issue.

When they can get 500+ BHP out of them I will be interested but until then we still have our fuel companies to support

Any idea why no company has had any balls to start this investment up?!?!

Because its not a good idea.

You've still go to use energy to compress the air. You're going to spend more energy infact to compress it that you can physically get out of it. It would mean that we'd have cars that don't emit pollution, but instead we'd have thousands more factories compressing air spitting out even more pollution.

Originally posted by Nygdan

Any idea why no company has had any balls to start this investment up?!?!

Because its not a good idea.

You've still go to use energy to compress the air. You're going to spend more energy infact to compress it that you can physically get out of it. It would mean that we'd have cars that don't emit pollution, but instead we'd have thousands more factories compressing air spitting out even more pollution.

Very true. I also must admit that the idea doesn't seem too practical in any sense. A- for effort.

AAC

AAC

Originally posted by Nygdan

Any idea why no company has had any balls to start this investment up?!?!

Because its not a good idea.

You've still go to use energy to compress the air. You're going to spend more energy infact to compress it that you can physically get out of it. It would mean that we'd have cars that don't emit pollution, but instead we'd have thousands more factories compressing air spitting out even more pollution.

Although filtration and catalyzing of large facilities waste output is easyer and more economical then applying the same filtering systems to the car itself, but I agree fully that adding another step in the energy conversion process is a bad idea.

The biggest block to alternative fuel sources is that oil and gasoline are just damned good fuel sources. Water CAN work, Air CAN work, and solar power CAN work, but oil is simply awesome. Thats why its everywhere. TRue enough, the oil companies take advantage of this fact, and make money off it, but it still remains that oil is a boon to the industrial era, we probably wouldn't've even had an industrial era without it, or at least one radically and bizzarely different. Oil is an incredibly effective and cheap fuel source.

Originally posted by Nygdan
You've still go to use energy to compress the air. You're going to spend more energy infact to compress it that you can physically get out of it. It would mean that we'd have cars that don't emit pollution, but instead we'd have thousands more factories compressing air spitting out even more pollution.

You don't need a factory to compress air

www.aircompressorsdirect.com...

this one is $130 - www.aircompressorsdirect.com...
That means a ONE TIME FEE for your fuel (well, plus electricity)

I'm not sure how much energy is needed to compress air, nor how much is need to get these engines to go, but I still don't see why you guys think it's a step in the wrong direction.

Also, here: www.wapa.gov...

That's how free renewable energy CAN compress air.

[edit on 1/26/2007 by Arcane Demesne]

OK. So a few questions:

a) How much power do they make?
b) How heavy are they? (with and without a suitable compressor)
c) Do they output power as electricity, or as power to the wheels?


If they provide power to the wheels, of a suitable amount... what about an alternator to charge the battery and having the compressor automatically running? Not sure if a compressor could run fast enough to account for the amount of air being used, but if not - why not have two smaller compressors and have the engine alternate between the two. While one is charging, use air from the other...?

Originally posted by Nygdan

Any idea why no company has had any balls to start this investment up?!?!

Because its not a good idea.

You've still go to use energy to compress the air. You're going to spend more energy infact to compress it that you can physically get out of it. It would mean that we'd have cars that don't emit pollution, but instead we'd have thousands more factories compressing air spitting out even more pollution.

Obviously if it was not a more technically feasible solution than a gasoline engine, then they would not be making it. I'll try to figure out the actual numbers to the effeciency of the engine before I pass judgement.

One word: retarded

IC engines are air pumps, or "air compression engines", which happen to use gasoline or diesel. No big surprise. Intake, compression, ignition, and exhaust. Didn't you people at least learn this back in junior high?

It is a rotary enginer. No big deal. Mazda makes rotary engines, RX-6 I believe.

Retarded? Thats the kind of thinking I would expect to see in the comments of a You Tube clip. Nothing better to say that do it down, for the sake of it, without doing any actual thinking about the concept.

Lots of stats and more info here

The MDI Air Car

My name is down for one of these when they become commercially available in the UK.

Originally posted by Soitenly
One word: retarded

IC engines are air pumps, or "air compression engines", which happen to use gasoline or diesel. No big surprise. Intake, compression, ignition, and exhaust. Didn't you people at least learn this back in junior high?

It is a rotary enginer. No big deal. Mazda makes rotary engines, RX-6 I believe.

Retarded ? mate with that comment you have shown you are practically brain dead and you should probably not comment on your mental health here on this forum.

Originally posted by Nygdan

Any idea why no company has had any balls to start this investment up?!?!

Because its not a good idea.

You've still go to use energy to compress the air.

As far as I could see from those articles they were proposing hybrids. Same principle as an electrical hybrid car, minus the batteries which have to be changed every 4 years and the manufacture and disposal of which is not very good for the environment.

Gasoline powered cars which while the engine is running charge the compressed air tank. Then you switch to air power in the built up areas.

It would be a good idea if it did actually work. I would be dubious about the energy output of the compressed air technology and also the fact that the compression of air like that would also need some form of cooling as that tank would get hot.

A step in the right direction if it works.....

Ok maybe im missing the point of this engine, but if it runs on compressed air, then it need a compressed air cylinder, right? and what fills compressed air cylinders? dirty great big diesel compressors! in essence your just shifting where the fuel is consumed, not reducing the fuel required.

Originally posted by Cs_Exile
Ok maybe im missing the point of this engine, but if it runs on compressed air, then it need a compressed air cylinder, right? and what fills compressed air cylinders? dirty great big diesel compressors! in essence your just shifting where the fuel is consumed, not reducing the fuel required.

Think out of the box mate here, what if you used a compressor driven by the natural gas you consumed for water heating to fill a resivoir that you use to pressurize your storage tank in a vehicle ?.

Cs_Exile, do not listen to this monkeys. Eventually one of them will get the idea. But an internal combustion engine is literally and pump of sorts. Air goes into intake, travels to cylinder, mixed with fuel (gas or diesel), and ignition by compression or spark.

I'm sorry, but I have got a family, and I would not be caught in this lifetime or any other lifetime in this death trap:




Does everyone have water on the brain, or am I the only person that does not need a golf cart?

Originally posted by Soitenly
Cs_Exile, do not listen to this monkeys. Eventually one of them will get the idea. But an internal combustion engine is literally and pump of sorts. Air goes into intake, travels to cylinder, mixed with fuel (gas or diesel), and ignition by compression or spark.

I'm sorry, but I have got a family, and I would not be caught in this lifetime or any other lifetime in this death trap




Does everyone have water on the brain, or am I the only person that does not need a golf cart?

One thing for certain you need to read and understand is the TC rules because insulting people with remarks like monkey and retarded is not welcomed here.

Of course the internal combustion uses air to pump it in and out of the engine
that's not what is being argued here, we are talking about the invention of an engine that uses a significant reduction in the use of gasoline to operate by im guessing remaking the engine to use air significantly more effeciently.