In fact in the limit, 'all' the wasted braking energy could be coupled back because there is no limit on how hot you can make the interface plate.
Imagine the car is braking pretty hard for a few seconds then power output would be say 100kW and the disks would glow red hot (say 600C). If you chose to get this power electronically and coupled through a very small volume, it would get say white hot, plasma hot. Fundamentally 'all' the wasted braking power can be coupled back. On the other hand if you used a heat engine between red heat and air temp to run a compressor then by Carnot you'd waste some of this energy. (This is towards the latter half of my thesis. There is nothing 'fundamental' about a Carnot cycle apart from the fact that it has two reservoirs and so always rejects heat to the lower. You can form one reservoir heat engines.... One thinks outside the box) -----Original Message----- From: Remi Cornwall [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: 28 October 2008 21:12 To: vortex-l@eskimo.com Subject: RE: [Vo]:Tata Motors - full of compressed air! It's obvious. The air is a storage medium which has been compressed adiabatically then allowed to cool. As it cools the pressure goes down and the available work decreases. In operation it will cool below ambient (and get caked in ice) reducing the pressure still further and the useful work. Couple the hot disc brakes to the cylinders (some kind of circulation system or do it electronically) and recoup that energy which just gets wasted anyway. Very good on stop start urban cycles. You know they give out patents for that type of thing. "Improvements relating to compressed air engines". Piece of piss to do. -----Original Message----- From: Remi Cornwall [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: 28 October 2008 20:51 To: vortex-l@eskimo.com Subject: RE: [Vo]:Tata Motors - full of compressed air! Seriously about the ice... Could not a form of regenerative braking be achieved? -----Original Message----- From: Terry Blanton [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: 28 October 2008 20:42 To: vortex-l@eskimo.com Subject: Re: [Vo]:Tata Motors - full of compressed air! I would like to suggest that we no longer refer to the infernal combustion engine as an ICE. Water ice is such a marvelous and beautiful material and is degraded by the acronym. I believe it would be more appropriate to refer to the combustion engine as an IC engine. "Icky" better describes the device and its byproducts. Regards, Terry On Tue, Oct 28, 2008 at 3:32 PM, Remi Cornwall <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> OK, perhaps I was too power hungry. > ROFL > > You get lots of ICE when you release compressed air! > > > On Oct 28, 2008, at 2:13 PM, Jed Rothwell wrote: > >> Edmund Storms wrote: >> >>> A normal car needs at least 100 hp to meet the needs of speed and >>> hills in the US. >> >> The Prius ICE delivers 70 hp max. >> >> As Stephen A. Lawrence pointed out, small cars such as the older VWs >> had 35 hp motors, and kept up with traffic. However they were kind >> of dangerous at highway speeds. Lightweight yet safe vehicles could >> be developed using advanced materials and techniques. >> >> My 1994 Geo Metro, which one reviewer affectionately called a >> "hamster powered tin can on wheels" has a 55 hp motor which was >> barely enough for U.S. highways when the car was new. >> >> - Jed >> > > > >
