# Hello, and my idea.



## zakelectric (Dec 5, 2009)

Hi everybody, my name is Zach, I'm from southern Cali, I'm 21, and I'm a complete gearhead/fabricator. Always been fascinated by electric cars and electricity for that matter, spent about 2 years of my life as a hobbyist electronics nerd. Then moved on to offroad stuff, here's my pride and joy that I'm building right now, '86 toyota pickup rockcrawler truck. Obviously not exactly finished yet.









Anywho, I know this isn't the forum for introductions, but I thought I'd hit two birds with one stone. I've got this idea that's been knockin around in my head for a while now, thought I'd run it past you guys. Here goes:

We all know that ICEs are rediculously inefficient because of wasted heat. Why waste that heat? Imagine this- A fully submerged motor (yeah i know that has problems, but it could be worked out) that heats the liquid around it to steam. Maybe it would be some sort of waterjacket, and not full submergal, I don't know. Let's say for example that that motor is a small diesel unit that we use to turn an alternator BUT the steam power it produces turns another alternator by turbine or steam piston. Likely steam piston as a turbine is not exactly a DIY kinda thing.

Say we boosted the energy output by %10, that's huge!! So we throw that bad-boy in an EV and whala, huge range extension. I hope to someday try this on my rock-crawler truck. An electric rock-crawler would be flippin amazing.

So go ahead, tear my theory apart, I'm curious to see what you guys have to say on the matter


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## PhantomPholly (Aug 20, 2008)

Co-generation has been explored extensively.

However, in all likelihood weight and complexity will render it impractical for propulsion, except perhaps on a railroad.


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## vpoppv (Jul 27, 2009)

Ideas are great, and shooting them down sucks. If you think it will work, do it and prove to the world it's possible! That said, the idea of actually using the heat produced is great, but a problem might be that an ICE needs that heat for its efficiency. If you lower the temp of the engine, you lose efficiency, which sort of defeats the purpose of harnessing the heat; but maybe there's a happy middle ground?


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## PhantomPholly (Aug 20, 2008)

Good point - don't let my post discourage you!


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## bliksem (Aug 3, 2009)

Have you seen the 6 cycle engine? Just after the fourth cycle 
it injects a little water in the cylinder which instantly turns to steam due to the residual heat.The water can then be recaptured through radiators and condensers. They claim that the efficiency can increase to above 40%.

My opinion is that ICE is a dead end and any further R&D must be focused on 
storage of energy .You already get not so high tech electric motors that are over 90% efficient.


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## MJ Monterey (Aug 20, 2009)

zakelectric said:


> An electric rock-crawler would be flippin amazing.


A while back somebody on Pirate had a battery electric Wrangler. I heard he changed back to ICE. Unfortunately I never tracked him down to find out why. You may want to poke around there and see what you can find so that you do not duplicate his mistakes.

MJ


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## zakelectric (Dec 5, 2009)

MJ Monterey said:


> A while back somebody on Pirate had a battery electric Wrangler. I heard he changed back to ICE. Unfortunately I never tracked him down to find out why. You may want to poke around there and see what you can find so that you do not duplicate his mistakes.
> 
> MJ


Really, never heard of that. Theres one build where a guy made an electric rock-crawler buggy.

What you're saying about the engine needing that heat does make sense. I wonder what percentage of the heat goes through the radiator as that is heat that could most likely be harnessed without any ill effects


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## tinrobot (Aug 26, 2009)

zakelectric said:


> We all know that ICEs are rediculously inefficient because of wasted heat. Why waste that heat? Imagine this- A fully submerged motor (yeah i know that has problems, but it could be worked out) that heats the liquid around it to steam.


You don't need to dunk the engine, there already is a water jacket surrounding the hot parts of most ICE's. It's called coolant, and its why cars have radiators. Perhaps intercept the hot coolant going to radiator and make it do useful work before cycling it back into the engine.

There's also been research on converting waste heat to electricity. Not very efficient at the moment, but I'd think it would be a another avenue of exploration. The electricity could be used in some sort of hybrid system.


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## MJ Monterey (Aug 20, 2009)

It's been a while, it may have been a buggy. Either way he may be a good contact to find out what you are up against......

I know some off-roaders are using that extra heat for good purposes Burrito warmers!

I'll be making one to take drop in bags of frozen home made stew/chili. Drop it in, drive the trails for a couple of hours, then have a hot meal.


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## Tesseract (Sep 27, 2008)

MJ Monterey said:


> I know some off-roaders are using that extra heat for good purposes Burrito warmers!


There's even a book about cooking food on your engine... Manifold Destiny

http://www.amazon.com/Manifold-Dest...=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1260014928&sr=1-1


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

What you are thinking of is combined heat and power.

There are very large systems already in use where the fuel is used to generate electricity and heat to be used in buildings. Technology is slowly making it small enough to install in individual houses.
The general idea is the fuel is used to heat water which then provides the energy to generate electricity via a turbine or stirling engine. The remaining lower grade heat is then used for building heating before returning back to the plant.

Your idea is to use a fueled mecanical output to drive a vehicle and the waste heat to drive a further generator. It is a good alternative view.

The way to make an experiment would be to completely insulate the ICE so that all of its heat is transfered to the water jacket, this will make the water hotter so you will get a higher grade heat out of it. You may need a worn out ICE to do it as it will run hotter and take up more clearances inside. Make sure it is a good ICE and maybe lock down all the core plugs an nip up all the seals and gaskets. Change the pressure cap to a higher rating on the rad and see how hot you can run the ICE.
Then get a stirling engine or a steam turbine.
You can improve the steam pressure if you use the hot water to heat a transfer fluid with a lower boiling point in a closed system.


[sits back and waits for the first video]


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## E DAKOTA (Mar 13, 2009)

Don't forget about the exhaust. I believe about 50% of the heat goes out the exhaust. That could easily be captured.


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## zakelectric (Dec 5, 2009)

E DAKOTA said:


> Don't forget about the exhaust. I believe about 50% of the heat goes out the exhaust. That could easily be captured.


Good thinkin! perhaps a couple catalytic converters in line to capture the heat then sorround the whole thing in a water jacket.

woodsmith, good ideas, thanks!

Yeah that would be great if there were technology to convert heat into electricity effectively. I thought about this when I learned about thermocouplers, but the efficiency just isn't there.

Thanks for all the input everyone I definitely hope to try this in the future. And when I do I'll be sure to make a thread on here


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## MJ Monterey (Aug 20, 2009)

Tesseract said:


> There's even a book about cooking food on your engine... Manifold Destiny
> 
> http://www.amazon.com/Manifold-Dest...=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1260014928&sr=1-1



Have it, read it. I will most likely plumb a cook box into my heater lines so that I will have an under hood slow cooker/crock pot. Yes a crock pot for the crack pot.....


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## _GonZo_ (Mar 23, 2009)

> We all know that ICEs are rediculously inefficient because of wasted heat. Why waste that heat? Imagine this- A fully submerged motor (yeah i know that has problems, but it could be worked out) that heats the liquid around it to steam. Maybe it would be some sort of waterjacket, and not full submergal, I don't know.


Well I think you do not have to submerge the IC motor they are usually partially "submerged" the cooling system is what I mean. it allready heats up water...


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## zakelectric (Dec 5, 2009)

_GonZo_ said:


> Well I think you do not have to submerge the IC motor they are usually partially "submerged" the cooling system is what I mean. it allready heats up water...


Right, but touch any part of an engine and it is HOT. if we submerged the engine and let the water pump freely pump coolant into the engine and back out into the submersal I would imagine more heat could be harnessed


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

zakelectric said:


> Right, but touch any part of an engine and it is HOT. if we submerged the engine and let the water pump freely pump coolant into the engine and back out into the submersal I would imagine more heat could be harnessed


You would get better heat out of it if you insulated the engine and circulated the water faster. You would be able to reduce heat losses much more easily and have a higher grade heat. Plus the electrics won't get wet.


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## PhantomPholly (Aug 20, 2008)

So, you then get two possible steam solutions - Open Loop or Closed Loop.

In Open Loop, you need a large supply of clean water which is ultimately expelled as steam. In closed loop you need a much smaller supply of water, but you need a rather large condensing system to cool the steam back to water. For simplicity and experimentation purposes, I'd start with an open loop and just tank up with distilled water.

I'm not sure whether using actual coolant in the steam cycle would be a good thing - for experimentation purposes, it might be better to use exhaust as your heat source since it runs between 1200-1600 degrees farenheit.

A Sterling Cycle engine is very efficient, but tends to be large and heavy for the power produced. A turbine is not efficient unless run at a particular pressure - so if you are idling a lot in your car you may not get spectacular gains. However, turbines are very light - so you might have a system that turns one or more turbines "on" or "off" depending on your steam generation.

I'll also point out that this is fundamentally another variety of "hybrid." As such, a small ICE and co-generating system run continuously at optimum output combined with some batteries might make a VERY efficient hybrid.


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## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

Dispensing with the mechanical parts and their associated friction and just running an efficient multi-fuel burner to heat the water might be simpler.
But then you'd just have a good old fashion steam engine with two or three stage cylinders.


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## Electric Car-Nut (Jul 5, 2009)

I used to be a member of "Half baked.com" but I finally figured out, all they do is negative remarks, so that is the place to go if your feeling masochistic. try those guys, We want to help with good advice for reasonable ideas, please. 

Look at the replies you generated, every one a positive, sound, and valid comment! 

Are these a great bunch, DARN RIGHT.


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## zakelectric (Dec 5, 2009)

Woodsmith, freakin great idea about the insulation that would simplify things a TON!

Phantompholly, good info youre right coolant might not be the ideal thing, guess I'll come to that bridge when i . . . come to it.

I think I really need to learn more about steam tech as I'm very uneducated in this area. If a multi-stage burner is the way to go then so-be it. Why waste time with an ICE? But it seems to me like it might not work because of weight/size, but I regress because like I said I'm not educated in this area. I'm gonna go educate myself on steam tech now



Electric Car-Nut said:


> I used to be a member of "Half baked.com" but I finally figured out, all they do is negative remarks, so that is the place to go if your feeling masochistic. try those guys, We want to help with good advice for reasonable ideas, please.
> 
> Look at the replies you generated, every one a positive, sound, and valid comment!
> 
> Are these a great bunch, DARN RIGHT.


You mean pirate4x4? hehe yeah that place is full of losers, but some of them really know their stuff. You guys are great though, I'm really diggin this place!


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