Nitinol project by 3 Ats Members part deux

I go away for a week and what do i come back to? New innovative concepts that will perhaps change the world.... lol

Good going guys, it seems my basic idea has given a spark of creativity in all your minds, and thats bliss enough for me, never thought it would strike a creative chord in others, and thats rewarding enough, well done.

Techie, seems like you have good help here, to all the new posters, thanks for your input. Lets make this an ATS project that will be out of this world!

Marty

reply to post by roguetechie


In an earlier post you made in a different thread on the Nitinol subject, I believe you noted about a twenty degree range that Nitinol can have an effective TTR within. We developed working alloys in ranges between -10 deg C all the way up to 130 deg C.

This is one of the powerful tools of Nitinol:
You can have an engine taking advantage of waste heat at say 100 deg C, and the temp of your waste heat source you are tapping into will drop around 20 degrees. You then have a second identical Nitinol engine with alloy TTR of say 80 deg C. Then you drop the waste heat source down another 20 degrees as it passes through that engine. Then you have a third identical engine with alloy TTR of say 60 deg C, and the waste heat drops down another 20 degrees as it passes through your engine, and so on, and so on. You can stagger your engines with dropping TTR alloys until you have exhausted the remaining waste heat almost completely.

73

Yeah my only issue is i've never come up with a really awesome way to harvest waste heat. While that idea seems simple on the surface it's fiendishly hard to do in practice. That's why on this design we're going with the more conventional applied current method of bringing it up to TTR. Originally we thought this actuator was a waste heat recovery device but the more we looked at it the more it looked like a compact actuator/ motor to us.

I'd love to figure out a way to harvest waste heat efficiently with nitinol though. It would be a world changing device for sure.

reply to post by roguetechie


Keep me up to date on your progress. It is an interesting project you guys are working on, and I hope you have success. I emailed you also.

Thank you very much for the kind wishes we appreciate this greatly. I will try to make as much progress as I can after my coursework is done each week. And I'll defo keep people here in the loop.

hi guys im a new guy but today i saw a video from the 70's that shows a nitinol engine, that reminded me of this post. have ya'll saw this it looks very interesting. i don't know how to embed video but here is the link i looked around and didn't see it mentioned. enjoy! www.youtube.com...

reply to post by baddw0lf


Badwolf, thanks for stopping by...

You can embed youtube videos by adding these tags, MINUS the spaces

[ yvid ] YOUTUBE ID HERE [ /yvid ]

Here is the video you posted

reply to post by baddw0lf


Thank you Bad Wolf for that post. It shows that people are looking at this materials potential. That is a very old video, but shows that somebody out there is searching for possibilities with this allloy.

And this post provides me with an opening to make the following statement......

It is a shame that the best internet searches only provide readers with information this old. This technology has existed for decades now. Nitinol now needs to be released to the public as a possible potential mechanism to be formulated into future mechanical designs. This mechanical technology has been withheld from designers for too many years now. It is too simple for designers to not use in their visions today. The alloying process is too simple, and the cost of production is too cheap. It is time for this world to take advantage of the capabilities of springs that are only springs when you want them to be springs, and the power of Nitinol in its linear contraction effect. The only reason Nitinol is not designed into mechanical designs today is simply that it is not available to designers. We must now, after decades of Nitinol knowledge being withheld by corporations, expand the same knowledge to the very designers that read these posts. I have only lightly scanned the ATS site after joining here. The only reason I joined is because a very good friend told me of people speaking of Nitinol technology being considered in some designs on this website.. After I read what was available to a non-member, I joined ATS simply to assist designers, because I am a believer in this technology, and have a great deal of knowledge in this alloy to provide to futuristic thinkers. Frankly, I have not even searched other forums or conspiracy links on ATS until joining. Some of them have foundation in my opinion, and many dont. But I am only a member for the expansion of Nitinol thinking. And we need to be thinking of the possible potentials of this alloy. If there ever was a forum for extra-natural thinking, this place has the brain potential for such vision. I was a research assistant to one of the two discoverers of Nitinol. It was NOT invented....it was discovered. I am not any more than that. But I saw, and recorded in my memory amazing possibilities.

I can provide thinkers with the capabilities of the material. You must envision the future designs incorporating this material. I have my own designs I am working on. But I would be a tiny aspect in this universe if I were to think that a million others thinking on the same plane could not develop incredible technology if they only knew what the parameters of this alloy were.

Please put your thinking caps on Ladies, and Gentlemen. Think. Think. Think.
There are millions to be made by people that degrade themselves by thinking they are too "simple" to envision the next great idea.

If any of you have any ideas of your ideas being possible, I will gladly provide the potential capabilities of this alloy, but please keep as much of your design discreet as possible. If you wish to file for invention rights, do not post too much of your ideas to the public. And I am not trying to keep the rest of us out here in the forum from reading of great inventions. I am only trying to encourage the many reading this to realize that when you understand the parameters of this material, ANY OF YOU CAN FILE INVENTIONS. The possibilities are that vast. As far as the mind can see. If you cannot think of a usage of this alloy, you have not given yourself the time that you need in life to be by yourself, and simply clear your mind of all else......and Dream.

73

And that's what this thread is really about dreaming.

Life is too short to just stay on the beaten path all the time. SOmetimes one has to take off into the thickets and forests of life to find what one is looking for. In my case that means searching for new and innovative devices and designs because that, along with making the world a better place through those designs and devices, are my life's mission.

I'm truly hopeful that our nitinol motor will bring about a fundamental revolution in product design by getting people to think about materials like nitiol and it's sister material terfenol-d.

I wanted to check with you Rogue to see if you are in need of any new Nitinol material for your project. I am going to place another order for my own projects, and can add your requirements, if any. The larger the order we place, the less the cost. Or if you just need a small amount, let me know what size you are considering, and if I carry that diameter/TTR range I can cut you some.

73

Also, if you would like some linear trained muscle wire, I can train you a few pieces to experiment with and send it with the order. I can provide 5% contraction, maybe a bit more with my bench setup.

73

Sotaxme, can nitinol be soldered to? Also, how much would 16 2.5" X 1/8" rods cost. I know I wouldn't pay much if I didn't know if it would work well but I do like the off center drum/spoke design (like the inner workings of an air tool).

I just have to wonder what real wattage could be gained from 40deg C in temp change. Though if its not much wattage it would be fun to make a sun powered over ballanced wheel that robotically tracks the sun/shade.

reply to post by sotaxme


Sotaxme I greatly appreciate the offer as it is the project was stalled mostly due to me being a broke college student who couldn't afford to buy and setup a nitinol training rig. I'll contact you by U2U to hash out the specifics but I think we can work something out for sure.

reply to post by XL5


1) Soldering: I have not personally soldered Nitinol, but do have a great deal of experience soldering simple wiring. Having said that, I can tell you that in the process of getting the material you are soldering (Nitinol in this case) up to a satisfactory temperature for the solder to adhere, you have likely damaged the Nitinol's trained effects. In essence, you would re-anneal the material while attempting to solder it. You could clamp a heat dissipation device just past the solder point, but some damage will still occur. And as I said, I have not soldered to it, but could run a test here on some in my lab, and let you know how well it works out.

2) Without knowing the specifics of your design it is difficult to envision how you are going to employ 2.5" x 1/8" diameter rods. But I can tell you this: Any application you are planning with wire diameter that large will require a very long cool-down period to get below TTR without some form of active cooling system in place. For designing, I would recommend at least starting with a smaller diameter wire to build a working proof-of-concept model. If it works on a small scale, you can then scale-up from there. And you would save considerable cost in the testing.

3) It is impossible for me to estimate the wattage output of your design without knowledge of the design. But keep in mind that any solar design will require cooling to have any hope of speed. The more cycles of TTR you can get per period of time, the more overall output power you will achieve. Air-cooling will be slow, but in certain applications this may be sufficient.

73

I was thinking about using a 7" iron cylinder with the center shaft off center to it and 8 nitinol spokes with 2 nitinol rods for each spoke. The nitinol would be soldered to holes in the shaft and also to a shaft at the ends of the nitinol with bushings rollers on the side. I would power it with propane to about 70-80 deg C (heated water) and air cool the other side.

The problem is, I would only expect 100watts and not the 1KW that I really want sadly. I know that with enough nitinol and a big enough area, you could power a house but the problem comes when you want 1-2KW in a 1 foot cube I would imagine.

Hi All,

I had a dream about a nitinol powered bike last night, did a quick search on it this morning and found this forum. Cool stuff! Any progress updates - it seems like things quickly died off here....

Also, any possibility I could get in on any future nitinol bulk buys - especially the linear trained muscle wire Sotaxme referred to? I'd love to play around with this stuff!

Cheers,

PL

reply to post by pl400


Initial experiments very quickly proved to me that without getting way more technical than I have the ability to do currently the basic idea was going to fall well short of providing steady enough power to do what we wished to do. At least in a form factor and at an energy budget that would make economic sense for this application. However I will say that other applications are being looked at and once the basic research and validation is done to my satisfaction it will possibly culminate in a proof of concept then a kickstarter campaign to build full size versions of the real deal.

However like everyone else these days finances and lack of free time are making this process take longer than I'd like. (Who knew that getting an engineering degree would be this much work? heh)