xcel
10-27-2009, 11:48 AM
http://www.cleanmpg.com/photos/data/2/AmericanFlag.jpg Initial small steps including new ideas are moving GM into a hopefully new direction. (cleanmpg.com/forums/showthread.php?p=238963)
http://www.cleanmpg.com/photos/data/501/Schneider_-_Freightliner_on_the_road.jpgWayne Gerdes - CleanMPG (cleanmpg.com) - Oct. 27, 2009
Any ICE equipped vehicles including Big rigs could “possibly” have their accessory power supplemented by Shape Memory Alloy?
Captured heat energy could charge a hybrid battery or replace a standard alternator.
GM today released a few details on a new method of converting exhaust heat to mechanical energy to power your vehicle’s accessories. Unlike BMW’s exhaust heat to steam system, this technology uses a specialized metal whose dimensional changes during heating and cooling are the driving force for power generation.
“When you heat up a stretched SMA wire, it shrinks back to its pre-stretched length, and when it cools back down it becomes less stiff and can revert to the original shape” said Jan Aase, director of GM’s Vehicle Development Research Laboratory. “A loop of this wire could be used to drive an electric generator to charge a battery.”
Although this is “pie-in-the-sky” technology, a future hybrid or conventionally powered vehicles could have their power consumption supplemented with some future implementation.
“No one else anywhere in the world is doing this work as far as we know,” Aase said. “In a hybrid system, the electrical energy could be used to charge the battery. In a conventional engine, this could perhaps even replace the alternator without any load on the engine.”
The award from the Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Program Agency – Energy, or ARPA-E, was the only grant to an automaker among $151 million in distributed by the DOE. GM will work with HRL Laboratories; Dynalloy, Inc., a Tustin, CA manufacturer of shape memory alloys specially made to be used as actuators, and the Smart Materials Collaborative Research Lab at the University of Michigan.
"This award is significant for the gains in energy efficiency it could bring, and because it signifies how GM is doing business though collaboration and partnership,” said Alan Taub, GM vice president of global R&D.
“The days are gone when we would do this kind of groundbreaking work on our own. We need to continue to find ways to combine our deep technical knowledge with others who can help take our ideas from concept to commercialization,” he said.
The idea of an SMA heat engine “has been around for 30 years,” Aase said, but the few devices that have been built were too large and too inefficient to make it worthwhile.”
Even now, the technology is in the very early stages. Over the next two years, GM and its partners will work to create a working prototype.
“We’re taking advantage of a network of people that we’ve been working with for a number of years on shape memory alloys,” Aase said. “And we have some novel approaches to make this high-risk, high return project successful.”
Not understood is how an actual SMA is thermally cycled within the exhaust stream and how a small electric motor would be attached and accept such a small movement? Additionally, as vehicles move towards electrification, far less exhaust will be available... BEVs and PHEVs come to mind ;)
http://www.cleanmpg.com/photos/data/501/Schneider_-_Freightliner_on_the_road.jpgWayne Gerdes - CleanMPG (cleanmpg.com) - Oct. 27, 2009
Any ICE equipped vehicles including Big rigs could “possibly” have their accessory power supplemented by Shape Memory Alloy?
Captured heat energy could charge a hybrid battery or replace a standard alternator.
GM today released a few details on a new method of converting exhaust heat to mechanical energy to power your vehicle’s accessories. Unlike BMW’s exhaust heat to steam system, this technology uses a specialized metal whose dimensional changes during heating and cooling are the driving force for power generation.
“When you heat up a stretched SMA wire, it shrinks back to its pre-stretched length, and when it cools back down it becomes less stiff and can revert to the original shape” said Jan Aase, director of GM’s Vehicle Development Research Laboratory. “A loop of this wire could be used to drive an electric generator to charge a battery.”
Although this is “pie-in-the-sky” technology, a future hybrid or conventionally powered vehicles could have their power consumption supplemented with some future implementation.
“No one else anywhere in the world is doing this work as far as we know,” Aase said. “In a hybrid system, the electrical energy could be used to charge the battery. In a conventional engine, this could perhaps even replace the alternator without any load on the engine.”
The award from the Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Program Agency – Energy, or ARPA-E, was the only grant to an automaker among $151 million in distributed by the DOE. GM will work with HRL Laboratories; Dynalloy, Inc., a Tustin, CA manufacturer of shape memory alloys specially made to be used as actuators, and the Smart Materials Collaborative Research Lab at the University of Michigan.
"This award is significant for the gains in energy efficiency it could bring, and because it signifies how GM is doing business though collaboration and partnership,” said Alan Taub, GM vice president of global R&D.
“The days are gone when we would do this kind of groundbreaking work on our own. We need to continue to find ways to combine our deep technical knowledge with others who can help take our ideas from concept to commercialization,” he said.
The idea of an SMA heat engine “has been around for 30 years,” Aase said, but the few devices that have been built were too large and too inefficient to make it worthwhile.”
Even now, the technology is in the very early stages. Over the next two years, GM and its partners will work to create a working prototype.
“We’re taking advantage of a network of people that we’ve been working with for a number of years on shape memory alloys,” Aase said. “And we have some novel approaches to make this high-risk, high return project successful.”
Not understood is how an actual SMA is thermally cycled within the exhaust stream and how a small electric motor would be attached and accept such a small movement? Additionally, as vehicles move towards electrification, far less exhaust will be available... BEVs and PHEVs come to mind ;)