Self-filling air tank, new theory

[Lutherman]

Unbalanced pressure equalization between a source vessel which is much larger and higher in pressure, and a target vessel which is smaller and contains only atmosphere.

Compression heating takes place in the pipe, not in the compressor. It generates high pressures in the equalizer so atmosphere is compressed by tank air while the mechanical compressor acts as a supercharger only.

Super simple idea, I've been working on it for a year and finally got the math figured out by consulting my own book Compressed Air Power Secrets. I shoulda looked in there a long time ago.

The math is easy. Here's my new blog:

Canned Thunder

Scott Robertson
air car access dot com

[Peter Lindemann]

Great

Unbalanced pressure equalization between a source vessel which is much larger and higher in pressure, and a target vessel which is smaller and contains only atmosphere.

Compression heating takes place in the pipe, not in the compressor. It generates high pressures in the equalizer so atmosphere is compressed by tank air while the mechanical compressor acts as a supercharger only.

Super simple idea, I've been working on it for a year and finally got the math figured out by consulting my own book Compressed Air Power Secrets. I shoulda looked in there a long time ago.

The math is easy. Here's my new blog:

Canned Thunder

Scott Robertson
air car access dot com

Scott,

As you know, I think solving the "self-filling compressed air tank" is one of the most important technologies humanity can ever develop. I applaud all of your efforts along these line. Thank you for continuing the quest!!

If you keep at it, I'm sure you will succeed!

Keep up the great work.

Peter

[RonL]

Unbalanced pressure equalization between a source vessel which is much larger and higher in pressure, and a target vessel which is smaller and contains only atmosphere.

Compression heating takes place in the pipe, not in the compressor. It generates high pressures in the equalizer so atmosphere is compressed by tank air while the mechanical compressor acts as a supercharger only.

Super simple idea, I've been working on it for a year and finally got the math figured out by consulting my own book Compressed Air Power Secrets. I shoulda looked in there a long time ago.

The math is easy. Here's my new blog:

Canned Thunder

Scott Robertson
air car access dot com

Hi Scott,
I have been a fan of the site for many years the picture of the air tank has been in my mind after obtaining Robert Powers book "Steam Jet Ejectors for the Process Industery" and my thoughts are, the piston compressors might be bottlenecks to the airflow needed.
A piston compressor for precharge and starting, but then jet ejectors in sequence from there on.

Just my thoughts for what they might be worth.

Best wishes and keep up the work

I do plan to get your book soon.

Ron

[PwrTrp]

Scott,
Congratulations, great job.
As usual I am impressed with your effort and knowledge, and humbled by your generosity. Thank you very much for sharing.
Things are starting to come together slowly but surly. I will be sure and post the results. Thanks again for your insperation.
Sincerely, Stewart Griffith

[Allcanadian]

@Lutherman
I remember visiting the air car access website a few years ago and found it very informative. I was concluding research and experiments into pulse jet and pulse detonation engines just prior to finding the website so it was very relevant to what I was doing at the time. I would agree that air does have a tremendous amount of power both in process and as latent energy that is normally hidden from us. There was another person who perfected this technology more so than anyone your site has mentioned, his name was Victor Shauberger. He is often refered to as the "water wizard" but that was only a small portion of his early work. His later devices were turbines which did not utilize liquid water only ambient air was taken in at the inlet and high velocity/supercharged air was exhausted. It is also interesting to note that the internal process was cyclical in nature, that is air was drawn into the machine incrementally between zones of compressed and rarefied air. As well these zones of compression and rarefaction proceeded cyclically as they must, one leads to the other as one is a product of the other with a cyclical motion between them. This was the the same process Bob Neal used only Victor Schaubergers turbines only had only one moving part and the only points of contact were the two bearings supporting the turbine. A good read on this technology is a book called "Energy Evolution" by Callum Coats, the language is a little cryptic but all the information is there.
In the end I can only state we are delusional to think we have an energy crisis as we are literally swimming in all the energy we could ever want, all we have to do is understand "what" it is and how to extract it.
Regards
AC

[Lutherman]

spreadsheet updated

Hi everybody, thanks for your comments and encouragement. I have updated the blog with sketches, a complete description of the math with a worked out example, and I have replaced the spreadsheet with one that is more self-explanatory.
Scott
Canned Thunder

[Vortex]

posted as Food for thought

i had seen a image here and there before, but i do not think i had seen this
patent before. Scott, probably has seen this patent .. i some how missed it.

Eggs are obtainable in many sizes and materials that could be used as molds to
make a stronger egg shape device.

As Allcanadian said Victor had some ideas,
Schauberger patent
http://www.rexresearch.com/schaub/de1442734.pdf

member: SuperCaviTationIstic originally posted this patent, Source Post:
http://www.energeticforum.com/renewa...html#post88945

[Alana]

First I want so give thanks so Lutherman. He share his thoughts and researches over the years.

The problem I see is: No one knows if it works. It is necesarry to built a prototype. I have no workshop in the backyard I will not be the one who can prove Luthermans claims.

But I am deeply empressed by the maths he did. This is a big argument for Lutherman.

But what makes me thinking. Could it be really a self-filling air tank?
If there is an air engine, this engine would need a quantity of air. It is the question if the surge-driven equalizer can deliver the air the engine needes or could it give back the quantity of air the engine consumes.
If this could be researched by maths this would be a great progress. May be Lutherman can do the maths? :-)))))))))))

[Lutherman]

Canned Thunder: Yes. Surge-Driven Equalizer: No.

I have to make a retraction of what has gone before so I can clear the way for better idealizations of the in-tank equalizer.

The idea that a surge of tank energy will drive the equalizer pressure above tank pressure seems wrong once viewed in the context of this simple law of nature: a lower pressure gas doesn’t spontaneously flow into a higher pressure. I got hooked on the idea that equalization with tank air would cause the equalizer and tank air to arrive at equilibrium, which would then be bypassed in the equalizer because of the heat of compression. It is a superficial idea based on not thinking critically enough.

What really happens is that compression heating in the equalizer does take place when tank air slams into the equalizer, but it contributes to the pressure rise in the equalizer that only reaches the point of equilibrium and stops. My analogy of the pendulum is wrong because the pendulum does not encounter an increasing resistance as it moves toward the equilibrium point.

I could blame senility but it was really just carelessness and wishful thinking, wanting to be the discoverer of a new scientific principle.

That hasn’t changed so I’ll just say that the pressure equalization equations I have been learning are still valuable to the continuation of my work or play. Now that I know that the immediate result of mixing air masses results in equal pressures in both containers—barring other influences—the equations I was working on are now much better as there is no longer any fill-in-the-blank value throwing wishful guesswork into the math. Final tank and equalizer pressure are now equal and easy to solve. The only manually filled-in values are now the initial values of both vessels. The math might still be simplistic from an engineering viewpoint but I think it’s a solid starting place for now. I have to work on the dynamics of flow per time, it is something I’ve never studied.

I have plenty of ideas for new cheaper ways to compress air, aided by the existing pressure in a pre-filled tank and a second much smaller tank or equalizer inside the tank that is fed by a compressor that works against lowered resistance, not against tank pressure. My favorite right now is a movable intake check valve to the equalizer, comprising a piston with a check valve in it. After equalization, an outside energy source pushes the equalized air the rest of the way into the tank. This comprises a compression stroke that is mostly delivery so the PV change work is very small.

I have worked out the math on that so will put it on the blog. I will post the simplified equations for unbalanced pressure equalization too, since it’s still true that thermal effects take longer to even out than pressure equalization which takes place more quickly, or very quickly in an application like this where the two vessels are much different in size and initial pressure.

The most interesting aspect of unbalanced equalization is that if done in the tank as I suggest, the heat of compression is easy to conserve. That has always been the real ideal of what I’m working toward. A cheap way to compress air.

Thanks to everybody for their comments.

Luther

[sykavy]

Great work Luther!!!
I'Ve been a fan of your site for a while now. Very good!

I think air is a hidden element in some other "over unity" inventions.

The Clem engine I think ran on pressurizing the air in the chamber. I don't think Clem figured that out. He needed to get his engine going by pumps pressurizing the oil but I think it worked like a fiction heater and heated the air in the engine and thereby ( by expanding air pressure) forced the oil and became "self sustaining." Richard Clem: Hydraulic Engine

I also think that air compression is part of the key to the Hydrostatic Pump It is basically creating water hammer aka air trapped in pipes. It is just a simplefied version of Karl Schaeffer's Steam Machine Instead of using a compressor piston to pressurize the air these machines are using water. I know they explain it by cavitation but I think that is just another way to explain water hitting air --pressurizing it-- it heats up --transfers heat to water-- water turns to steam.

Anyway nice blog I'll be following it. I really think our future energy is in the air

[Lutherman]

friction heater

Thanks for you kind words, and I will check out those links. I read that Schaeffer's water heater was tested by Battelle to put out more power than it used. Same with Eugene Frenette's air heater. I wonder what happened to him?
Luther

[Alana]

Clem, Schauberger & Co

@ sykavy
It might be well-intentioned from you when you want to put our intention to the Clem engine, the hydrostatic pump and so on.
But this engines are all myths.
No one really knows how it works, there isn't one really existing working engine. I know that from the Clem engine are many photos out there. But should we do with this fotos. They can't talk to us how his engine worked. It is not helpful to claim that the uncle of you neighbor have seen one working prototype.
It seems to be an iteration loop in the free energy field that this engines always appear periodically.
But be certain: There is no really existing chance to get such an engine in the next future! But you can convince me: Tell me, show me and let me know where I can buy them

I think it would be better to focus our energies to the work Lutherman published here!!

[sykavy]

Thanks for you kind words, and I will check out those links. I read that Schaeffer's water heater was tested by Battelle to put out more power than it used. Same with Eugene Frenette's air heater. I wonder what happened to him?
Luther

I saw Frenett's heater working as a kid on a local Tv station in New Hampshire. I remembered it because he made it out of an old washing machine. Very interesting. Like your air motor Shaeffer's machine was using the energy stored in the air. I spoke to his wife years ago but she was very angry. He wasted all his money on his invention. One thing his invention had over the Hydrostatic Pump was that his only needed water pressure to run, while the Hydrostatic needs an electric motor.

There are a number of ways to tap that energy in the air. Here is another such attempt that isn't exotic but basic by cleverly combining several principles: Solar updraft tower - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[Lutherman]

check valve pump, heat only

I have run up against piston balancing forces in my design, see the blog for details. I want to switch over to the simple check valve pump. Nothing to it, you add heat between two check valves in a water line, and the water is pumped by heat only. When it reaches a certain temperature depending on the check valve etc., it bursts out of the check valve and draws in more water in its wake.

I'd like to hear what people think about this--will it work with air?

Summary:
A double check valve equalizer or "tank inside a tank" is supercharged full of atmosphere. Tank air is added, bringing the pressure up almost to tank pressure, assuming the storage tank is much larger than the equalizer inside it. The space between the two check valves is heated intensively by electric resistance heaters. When the pressure is maybe 100 psi or so higher than tank pressure, because of the added heat, the discharge check valve opens and the air all bursts into the tank.

It will work better if the discharge valve is not a check valve but a large unobstructed valve with a big port that opens very quickly. Also the tailpipe as shown in Bob Neal's patent should be tunable by size and shape, like the tailpipe of a 2-stroke motorcycle engine.

Let me know what you think. Plans for the water pump version can be obtained from Roy Phillips of ABCO.

Luther
Canned Thunder

[ozmatic]

Hi Scott,
Some years ago I bought a couple of books from you , and wrote to you for advice on converting a 4 wheel drive vehicle to a diesel/ compressed air hybrid. It seems we have both found this excellent site!
Well I failed in my attempt to do this - though I still consider the concept to be valid - using the 75% energy wasted as heat by the radiator, to compress air and contribute to the drive chain of the vehicle. However, it will take more resources than I can muster to do it - the high pressure components [especially the heat exchangers and the tank] proved to be beyond me.
What I did learn from this, is that trying to do anything at over 200psi is VERY expensive. The price of components seems to increase exponentially with pressure!
I am delighted to see that you are still seeking the holy grail-I cannot applaud you enough. I remember discussing the "vortex in a tank" with you, and the concept of creating a cyclone with a low pressure eye inside a tank and then injecting low pressure air into that eye - well, it still appeals to me. Pressure difference could easily be created with a hot and cold end to the tank [Stirling engine style]. The problem is monitoring the air movement in the tank. If I could figure a way to do this , I would definitely try it.

Well, yet again you have come up with a brilliant concept for efficiently getting air into a tank. I like both ideas. I see that you are losing interest in the piston version because you think that it wont push the equalised air into the main tank when the piston is driven by main tank air - the holy grail again! However, do you not think that if the piston was driven by a low power external source, [like a windmill] that a machine of very high COP [ like a heatpump] would be the result?
If you think this would work with no part of the system at >200psi , I am prepared to make a machine along these lines. I have a 2000 litre gas tank that I have converted to a 120psi air resevoir, and efficient ways to fill it are never far from my mind.That is my ONLY motivation. I have no commercial interest in this, and ALL rights would belong to you and the open source community. I will only start with your permission, as I know I will need your help in maximising perfomance. Of course, the machine would be available for any experimental verifications [ that wont kill me!] of your theories that you wish carried out. I would document the construction and results here.It would not be a quick process, as my time is limited, but I am very determined when I can smell a result, and I have the tools to have a go at this.
Chris