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Air Car Introduction to How the Air Car Works How Air Fuel a Car Air Car Advantages Air Car Disadvantages

Gasoline is already the fuel of the past. It might not seem that way as you fill up on your way to work, but the petroleum used to make it is gradually running out. It also pollutes air that's becoming increasingly unhealthy to breathe, and people no longer want to pay the high prices that oil companies are charging for it. Automobile manufacturers know all of this and have spent lots of time and money to find and develop the fuel of the future. The search is on, but what will this fuel of the future be? Ready-made fuels like petroleum are becoming more difficult to find and automobile manufacturers are turning to greener energy sources like batteries. These batteries can be charged with energy and placed in a car where that energy can be released. As good as that idea might seem, some manufacturers think air could become an even better energy source. Air? At first glance, the idea of running a car on air seems almost too good to be true. If we can use air as fuel, why think about using anything else? Air is all around us. Air never runs out. Air is nonpolluting. Best of all, air is free. Unfortunately, air alone can't be used as a fuel. First, energy has to be stored in it by squeezing the air tightly using a mechanical air compressor. Once the compressed air is released, it expands. This expanding air can be used, for example, to drive the pistons that power an engine. The idea of using compressed air to power a vehicle isn't new: Early prototypes of an air-powered vehicle go back to the middle of the 19th century, even before the invention of the internal combustion engine. At least one manufacturer thinks that it's ready to sell air cars to the American public. If all goes well, these cars could be available in the United States relatively soon [source: Over the next few pages, we'll look at this technology, the reasons you may want to use it -- and a few reasons you might not. Air Fuel a Car

The laws of physics dictate that uncont ained gases will fill any given space. The easiest way to see this in action is to inflate a balloon. The elastic skin of the balloon holds the air tightly inside, but the moment you use a pin to create a hole in the balloon's surface, the air expands outward with so much energy that the balloon explodes. Compressing a gas into a small space is a way to store energy. When the gas expands again, that energy is released to do work. That's the basic principle behind what makes an air car go. The first air cars will have air compressors built into them. After a brisk drive, you'll be able to take the car home, put it into the garage and plug in the compressor. The compressor will use air from around the car to refill the compressed air tank. Unfortunately, this is a rather slow method of refueling and will probably take up to two hours for a complete refill. If the idea of an air car catches on, air refueling stations will become available at ordinary gas stations, where the tank can be refilled much more rapidly with air that's already been compressed. Filling your tank at the pump will probably take about three minutes One major advan tage of using compressed air to power a car's engine is that a pure compressed air vehicle produces no pollution at the tailpipe. More specifically, the compressed air cars we're likely to see in the near future won't pollute at all until they reach speeds exceeding 35 miles per hour. That's when the car's internal air compressor will kick in to achieve extra speed. The motor that runs this air compressor will require fuel that'll produce a small amount of air pollution. Some fuel (you can use eco-friendly biofuels or fossil fuels) will also be used to heat the air as it emerges from the tank. The newest compressed air engines also offer drivers the option of using fossil fuels or biofuels to heat the air as it enters the engine. Nonetheless, this technology represents a marked improvement over cars powered by internal combustion engines that produce significant amounts of pollution at any speed. Air cars are also designed to be lighter than conventional cars. The aluminum construction of these vehicles will keep their weight under 2,000 pounds (907 kilograms), which is essential to making these vehicles fuel efficient and will help them go faster for longer periods of time. Another advantage of air cars is that the fuel should be remarkably cheap, an important consideration in this era of volatile gas prices. Some estimates say that the cars will get the equivalent of 106 miles

(171 kilometers) per gallon, although compressed air will probably not be Clive Streeter/Getty Images a rocket-like effect and propel the car on a jet of air. The valve on the cars' fuel tanks has been placed on the side to minimize this effect. Despite these precautions, there is some concern that the air cars' lightweight construction might make it difficult for them to pass stringent American safety requirements and that this could hold up the arrival of air cars in the U.S. marketplace. Other factors have come to the forefront as well, and we'll learn about those next.

A air car is a car that uses a motor powered by compressed air. The car can be powered solely by air, or combined (as in a hybrid electric vehicle) with gasoline, diesel, ethanol, or an electric plant with regenerative braking. Engines Compressed air cars are powered by engines fueled by compressed air, which is stored in a tank at high pressure such as 30 MPa Rather than driving engine pistons with an ignited fuel-air mixture, compressed air cars use the expansion of compressed air, in a similar manner to the expansion of steam in a steam engine. Storage tanks are often made of carbon-fiber for weight reduction while maintaining strength; if penetrated carbon fiber will crack but not produce shrapnel. There have been prototype cars since the 1920s and compressed air has been used in torpedo propulsion as well. Storage tanks The major manufacturers that are developing air cars have designed safety features into their containers.[citation needed] In contrast to hydrogen's issues of damage and danger involved in high-impact crashes, air, on its own, is non-flammable. It was reported on Seven Network's Beyond Tomorrow that on its own,[clarification needed] carbonfiber is brittle and can split under sufficient stress, but creates no shrapnel when it does so. Carbon-fiber tanks safely hold air at a

pressure somewhere around 4500 psi, making them comparable to steel tanks. Compressed air cars are emission-free at the exhaust. Since a compressed air car's source of energy is usually electricity, its total environmental impact depends on how clean the source of this electricity is. Different regions can have very different sources of power, ranging from high-emission power sources such as coal to zero-emission power sources such as wind. A given region can also update its electrical power sources over time, thereby improving or worsening total emissions. However a study showed that even with very optimistic assumptions, air storage of energy is less efficient that chemical (battery) storage.[2] Advantages The principal advantages of an air powered vehicle are:

Refueling can be done at home using an air compressor

[3]

or at

service stations. The energy required for compressing air is produced at large centralized plants, making it less costly and more effective to manage carbon emissions than from individual vehicles.

Compressed air engines reduce the cost of vehicle production, because there is no need to build a cooling system, spark plugs, starter motor, or mufflers.[4] The rate of self-discharge is very low opposed to batteries that deplete their charge slowly over time. Therefore, the vehicle may be left unused for longer periods of time than electric cars. Expansion of the compressed air lowers its temperature; this may be exploited for use as air conditioning. Air turbines, closely related to steam turbines, are a technology over 50 years old. Reduction or elimination of hazardous chemicals such as gasoline or battery acids/metals Some mechanical configurations may allow energy recovery during braking by compressing and storing air.

[Disadvantages The principal disadvantage is the indirect use of energy. Energy is used to compress air, which - in turn - provides the energy to run the motor. Any conversion of energy between forms results in loss. For conventional combustion motor cars, the energy is lost when chemical energy in fossil fuels is converted to heat energy, most of which goes to waste. For compressed-air cars, energy is lost when chemical energy is converted to electrical energy, and then when electrical energy is converted to compressed air.

When air expands in the engine it cools dramatically (Charles law) and must be heated to ambient temperature using a heat exchanger. The heating is necessary in order to obtain a significant fraction of the theoretical energy output. The heat exchanger can be problematic: while it performs a similar task to an intercooler for an internal combustion engine, the temperature difference between the incoming air and the working gas is smaller. In heating the stored air, the device gets very cold and may ice up in cool, moist climates.

Conversely, when air is compressed to fill the tank it heats up: as the stored air cools, its pressure decreases and available energy decreases. It is difficult to cool the tank efficiently while charging and thus it would either take a long time to fill the tank, or less energy is stored.