Nitinol Energy Generator design by 3 ATS Members

reply to post by Im a Marty


Explanation: S&F!

OK ... here are the VERY ROUGH scetches I made up under Marty's fone instructions.

[Note: I am putting them up here in order to show the evolution of the concept!]

Ultra basic concept.



1st evolution was to double it up.



2nd evolution was to add the rotating axel.



3rd evolution was to show the basic concept of the 2nd evolutions workings.

Hint: Open a new Browser Window and tab these in the following order and then cycle through the tabs from left to right, over and over. [it acts as a poor mans .gif]

V3.a



V3.b



V3.c



V3.d



At this point in the conceptual designs evolution I mentioned to marty that we could get power out of this basic design by adding a dynamo onto the axel and deriving AC power which then can be converted to DC using a basic inverter circuit.

But not everybody is an electrical wizard and so we moved onto evolving the design so that the axel only rotates in one direction regardless of the rest of the machines workings.

Such an evolution will provide direct DC current and although it may be in pulses, that can be compensated for with a capacitor.

Now as for applying heat as pressure and taking into consideration that the nitinol rods need to also be cooled I have been fanatsizing about using compressed air ...which when compressed creates a lot of heat ... and when it is expanded [suddenly] it creates cooling.

Personal Disclosure: IF I am Online on ATS ... anybody with ideas who doesnt want to post them here [its nice to avoid ridicule and being put on a list etc! ] can u2u me with the info and I will assure their anonymity [i.e. I will delete the u2u immediatelty after copying the data ... note you will also have to delete the u2u that is sent for complete anonymity to be fully assured].

reply to post by OmegaLogos


Use an AC generator(alternator), then rectify it. Much more power from an alternator, about double what you get from a DC dynamo.

Interesting concept, likely to fail from heat in required vs. output. But, who knows until you get there!


My first thoughts are to simplify things a little, its hard to describe what I mean, so stick with me.


1. Lose the wire/pulleys/super dooper screwdriver thingy. A one way normal dynamo (dc) would be easier to make use of the 6000 Watts of input in to watch a green LED glow

2. I'd have 4 rods all on ONE side in a row, like 4 blokes fishing off a pier.
3. At the top of the rods, have a pin which attaches a straight bar (I'll make some pics in a sec, paint style!)
4. That straight bar will drop at approx the same angle as you have, the trick to the bar is ratchet teeth, like this.

O=======NNNNN=

where the O is the rotating end on the Nitinol rod, the N's are one/way teeth, which when the rod bends over, rotate a generator, when the teeth have done there work, the one way teeth allow it to return (might be a tad noisy).

5. The next phase rod would kick in 90 degree's after, given the 1st rod 270 degree's to recover. Oh the dynamo would obviously have an input gear which is long allowing for each "kick/teeth drive" assembly.


Do I really have to draw it in Paint? I think/hope you might get the idea.

Interesting concept none the less, destined to fail I'd wager though!

Apply for a patent ASAP!
Awesome work.

Just got off the crapper, throne upon which one does their best thinking.


Second thought!

Why redesign the wheel?
Why cant you just build it (much simpler to build) from an old 2 stroke motor???
The piston is replaced by a bunch of the Nitinol rods! Attached at the bottom on a flattened piston which becomes the mount base, conrod to crank assembly would be kept. At the top, the rods are attached to the cylinder head!

Would be a very cheap (modify old lawn mower motor) way to try a proof of concept... Oh, obviously plonk a dynamo on the motors output.

Only snag is... Heating those pesky Nitinol rods.
I thought of injecting an aerosoled petroleum mix, and igniting it in there....


Seriously though, the cylinder would NOT have to be sealed as in a traditional engine, so you could cut a hole and direct heat in via whatever means you wish to try. (Which STILL will be more than you will get out btw)

reply to post by Qumulys


Qumulys..... thought about giving it ago yourself? Its a lot different to this particular design, however why not give it a crack yourself

On that note, I added 3 images, revision 5

Could you not have the rods/wire connected directly to the dynamo thing?

For example take 2 long wires of nitinol and a cylindar dynamo. Wrap half of the left hand nitinol wire around the upper half of the cylindar and half of the right hand side nitinol wire around the lower half of the cylindar. Then have the other half of (both left and right hand side) nitinol wires coiled into really tight coils and secured at the loose end.

Then obviously as the left hand nitinol wire
heated back into shape (tight coils) it will rotate the dynamo until the right hand side tenses and the process repeats on the opposite side.

It may or m,ay not work lol , im no engineer. But I cant help thinking that having the wires/rods connected directly to the dynamo itself just gives less chance for energy to be lost through heat, friction or whatever.


Edit: Forgot to add that if it was wires instead of rods maybe it would be easier to heat because of it being thinner and just less mass to heat in general.

Here's a version with a prospective casing design holding all the pieces in place with a bearing race for the bevel gear that will run the motor. While it shows less of the actual device I think it is helpful for envisioning what we are intending to do. I also left off the electric generator and any mounting hardware for that. I will probably add that in at a later date when we've had a chance to merge versions later today and get the team all on the same page.



Hopefully this helps people envision what we are talking about. It's really a pretty simple device based around 4 nitinol wires and a dual drive screwdriver. I'd really like to make it take more than 4 nitinol wires to up the power of the device.

Originally posted by Qumulys
Interesting concept, likely to fail from heat in required vs. output.

You mean you wont get as much output in voltage as you do put in with heat?

If so, it won't matter as long as your using surplus heat that is otherwise wasted by dissipating in the air. Best application for this technology is to rig it up to heat sources that always get wasted from other machines. Seems ashamed to marry this with solar or a boiler or some other heat source that needs to be built and maintained when there is so much wasted surplus heat energy all around us.

That is a really cool idea, and some great engineering getting that out on paper.
The only problem I have is in the statement:

We are hoping that the output of energy is more than needed to power the device.

That is the $6 trillion dollar question, is it not? I would make it an unobtainable goal, rather than a design requirement, because it invokes the perpetual motion no-no, that will turn away an investor. It would be cool to see how far down that asymptotic slide you can go before you hit the inevitable wall. Keep up the good work!

reply to post by charlyv


It was a generalised statement, for example, money invested to make the device is not too much to make it worthwile.

If the lenses can convert more energy than traditional solar power, then it would be a valid statement would it not?? Lets see when we make the prototype

Have you considered using the exhaust of a conventional gas turbine or diesel engine? Pretty close to the required temps.

www.engineeringtoolbox.com...

Little torque would be required to move the Nitinol rods away from the exhaust (and move others into the exhaust) as well as cooling air from the diesel engine radiator directed over the rods in the cooling stage.

I didn't do a heap of Googlizing to get that link, I'm sure I've read gas turbine exhaust gas temps are around 650c from G.T.'s commonly used in power generation. Spot on.

Also, the high pressures exerted by deformation of the rods translate into high torque which can then be geared to higher rpm, more suitable for power generation.

No such thing as free energy but useful power from otherwise waste heat is nearly as good.

Just to be clear we do not think we have an overunity device... What we think we have is a device that could convert heat to electricity in an efficient manner.... we're really not sure what the device is capable of this is why we need to test it.

reply to post by roguetechie

If you want efficiency I'd suggest to go for a Stirling engine instead. Nitinol thermal efficiency is about 5%.
www.tinialloy.com...

well we'd like to see how much energy can be harvested from low grade heat with this it's final application remains to be seen. I like the idea of running it off the exhaust system.

reply to post by Im a Marty


It looks like you have some great help in OmegaLogos and RogueTechie. I've never heard of this material before and it seems very interesting.

I wish you 3 all the best. I really hope you can get a working prototype built and find out how efficient this is/can be.

I really think Marty has something in his idea .... adding in the screwdriver which can turn the 90 degree oscillations into 360 motion makes it much more useable. This is why I'm supporting the idea as much as I possibly can.

To make this plausible it needs to run from completely free energy. Running it from an engine exhaust system or from a man made device that leaks heat will only mean you pay more $$$ for Gas or Electricity (because of the extra load on those devices).

You can't extract energy from a system without expecting to put more in too.

For example, suppose you put this device on one of your radiators in your home to power the Nitinol generator. You'd find that it would lower the temperature of the radiator as it extracts heat energy. To compensate the boiler needs to generate more energy to raise the radiator back to the original temperature = $$$$

So like the OP says, heat from the sun (either directly or indirectly) is really the only source that is plausible.
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You may also find that the electricity leaks from your capacitors (they all leak) faster than it's generated.

reply to post by Im a Marty


I was thinking of a unique way to use this material....

What if you used it liek a fan blade... when it heats up have its design increse or reduce drag. Not quite sure how this could generate electricity but it was really interesting to think about.

reply to post by ziplock9000



That's not entirely true... by taking exhaust waste heat out of a tailpipe and doing it in a way that doesn't increase backpressure you would be able to extract energy without any "cost". The energy is already there it's just a matter of finding a way to extract it.

If thermodynamics actually worked that way the entire cogeneration industry would not exist. Actually if thermodynamics worked that way about half the stuff you use on a weekly basis wouldn't work.