Air powered motorcycle?

Do you think it would be possible to build an air-powered motorcycle
based on the air car engines? The air car engines are available in 2,
4, and 6 cyclinder configurations. I would guess that the 2 cylinder
engine would be best for a bike. Not sure how big the air "fuel" tank
is.

Cheers,

Ross-c

 

In uk.rec.motorcycles, Ross Clement (Email address invalid - do not use)
belched forth and ejected the following:

Not half as big as the compressor would need to be!

 

Couldn't you keep the compressor in the garage at home?

Cheers,

Ross-c

 

Ross Clement (Email address invalid - do not use) came up with the
following;:

Anything's possible. Just depends, I guess, on how much moolah you want to
fling at it, and what sort of performance you want after you've done it.

 

I don't know about those specific engines, but the question is: why?

If it's "just to see if I can do it", then go for it. I'd be
interested to see how well it works.

Practically, it's unlikely that you'd get any more energy storage than
a similar size/weight electric pack, unless you're going for a
lightweight drag setup that only needs a few seconds' worth of power,
or you're going for colossal tank pressures.

If it's for 'green' reasons, then there are probably better solutions.
Apart from efficiency problems, ultimately the energy has to come from
somewhere.

If it were easy, we'd all be using air-powered vehicles...

 

http://www.theaircar.com/

Check out the articulated conrod.

 

Coo, ta.

I'm intrigued as to why they need time to fill the cylinder. An air
engine shouldn't need to rev that hard, any more that a steam engine
needs to. Big cylinder volumes shouldn't be a problem like they are
for IC engines.

This "sufficient time to establish gas pressure" thing interests me.
As the tank drains down, this pressure would drop unless regulated.
Normally you'd need a pressure regutator, or at least a throttle, to
control the gas pressure entering the engine. These devices waste
energy in turbulence.

Maybe, then they've found a way of dropping the pressure without loss
that takes time, or it's actually a variable-geometry engine (moving
the fixed end of the conrod?) that runs directly off tank pressure.
This would probably be the most efficient way to do it and may even be
the real reason for the articulated conrod.

There are other technical issues that I can see. The exhaust is cold,
so cold in fact that icing-up of the engine exterior is a potential
problem. The cold would also cause pressure drops in the engine that
could lose power.

They seem to claim 150km range and top speed of 110kph for the city
variant, which I assume is air-only. Presumably not at the same time!

They do seem to be inventing for invention's sake, I mean, why radio
link controls when CAN exists? Sounds like a recipe for needless
interference-related trouble.

If they can deliver the performance they're claiming, then good luck
to them, I do like the idea of an air-powered vehicle, but ultimately
it comes down to how much energy you can cram into an air bottle.

 

Hmm, to research all this stuff, you must have a lot of time on your
hands...

 

Research? I have acolytes to do research for me.

 

*slaps hand to forehead* - I'll get my coat...