The fossil fuel engines which were good enough for us before

30-40 years but now they are one of the sources of contributor of global

worming and pollution with fossil fuel crises. The Air Powered Vehicle

is an eco-friendly vehicle which works on compressed air. An Air

Powered vehicle uses air as a fuel. An Air Powered Vehicle uses the

expansion of compressed air to drive the pistons of an engine.

An Air Driven Engine is a pneumatic actuator that creates useful

work by expanding compressed air. There is no mixing of fuel with air as

there is no combustion.
 Introducation

A compressed-air vehicle (CAV) is powered by an air engine,

using compressed air, which is stored in a tank. Instead of mixing fuel with

air and burning it in the engine to drive pistons with hot expanding gases,

compressed-air vehicles use the expansion of compressed air to drive the pistons.

One manufacturer claims to have designed an engine that is 90 % efficient

Compressed-air propulsion may also be incorporated in hybrid systems,

such as with battery electric propulsion. This kind of system is called a

hybrid-pneumatic electric propulsion. Additionally, regenerative braking can

also be used in conjunction with this system.

Tanks:
The tanks must be designed to safety standards appropriate for

a pressure vessel, such as ISO 11439. The storage tank may be made of

metal or composite materials. The fiber materials are considerably lighter

than metals but generally more expensive. Metal tanks can withstand a large

number of pressure cycles, but must be checked for corrosion periodically.

One company stores air in tanks at 4,500 pounds per quare inch (about

30 MPa) and hold nearly 3,200 cubic feet (around 90 cubic metres) of air.

The tanks may be refilled at a service station equipped with heat exchangers,

or in a few hours at home or in parking lots, plugging the car into

the electrical grid via an on-board compressor. The cost of driving such a

car is typically projected to be around 0.75 per 100 km, with a complete

refill at the “tank-station” at about US$3

Compressed air

Compressed air has a low energy density. In 300 bar containers,

about 0.1 MJ/L and 0.1 MJ/kg is achievable, comparable to the values of
electrochemical lead-acid batteries. While batteries can somewhat maintain

their voltage throughout their discharge and chemical fuel tanks provide the

same power densities from the first to the last litre, the pressure of

compressed air tanks falls as air is drawn off. A consumer-automobile of

conventional size and shape typically consumes 0.3–0.5 kWh (1.1–1.8 MJ) at

the drive shaft per mile of use, though unconventional sizes may perform

with significantly less.

Emission output

Like other non-combustion energy storage technologies, an air vehicle

displaces the emission source from the vehicle’s tail pipe to the central

electrical generating plant. Where low emissions sources are available, net

production of pollutants can be reduced. Emission control measures at a

central generating plant may be more effective and less costly than treating

the emissions of widely dispersed vehicles.Since the compressed air is filtered

to protect the compressor machinery, the air discharged has less suspended

dust in it, though there may be carry-over of lubricants used in the engine.

The car works when gas expands.

 History:

Gotthardbahn: Pneumatic Locomotive with attached pressure

container. Compressed air has been used since the 19th century to

power mine locomotives and trams in cities such as Paris (via a central, city-

level, compressed  air  energy  distribution  system),  and  was  previously  the

basis of naval torpedo propulsion. During the construction of

the Gotthardbahn from 1872 to 1882, pneumatic locomotives were used in

the construction of the Gotthard Rail Tunnel and other tunnels of the

Gotthardbahn. In 1903, the Liquid Air Company located in London England

manufactured a number of compressed-air and liquified-air cars. The major

problem with these cars and all compressed-air cars is the lack of torque

produced by the “engines” and the cost of compressing the air. Since 2010

several companies have started to develop compressed air cars including

hybrid types that also include a petrol driven engine; none has been

released to the public, or have been tested by third parties.

Advantages:

Compressed-air vehicles are comparable in many ways to electric

vehicles, but use compressed air to store the energy instead of batteries.
Their potential advantages over other vehicles include:

· Much like electrical vehicles, air powered vehicles would ultimately

be powered through the electrical grid. Which makes it easier

to focus on reducing pollution from one source, as opposed to

the millions of vehicles on the road.

· Transportation of the fuel would not be required due to

drawing power off the electrical grid. This presents significant

cost benefits. Pollution created during fuel transportation would

be eliminated.

· Compressed-air technology reduces the cost of vehicle production

by about 20%, because there is no need to build

a cooling system, fuel tank, Ignition Systems or silencers.

· The engine can be massively reduced in size.

· The engine runs on cold or warm air, so can be made of

lower strength light weight material such as aluminium, plastic,

low friction teflon or a combination.

· Low manufacture and maintenance costs as well as easy

maintenance.

· Compressed-air tanks can be disposed of or recycled with less

pollution than batteries.

 · Compressed-air vehicles are unconstrained by the degradation

problems associated with current battery systems.

· The air tank may be refilled more often and in less time than

batteries can be recharged, with re-filling rates comparable to

liquid fuels.

· Lighter vehicles cause less damage to roads, resulting in lower

maintenance cost.

· The price of filling air powered vehicles is significantly cheaper

than petrol, diesel or biofuel. If electricity is cheap, then

compressing air will also be relatively cheap.

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 oil is converted to usable fuel

– including drilling, refinement, labor, storage, eventually transportation to

the end-user. For compressed-air cars, energy is lost when electrical energy
is converted to compressed air, and when fuel, whether coal, natural gas or

nuclear, is burned to drive the electrical generators.

· When air expands, as it would in the engine, it cools dramatically

(Charles’s law) and must be heated to ambient temperature

using a heat exchanger similar to the Intercooler used for

internal combustion engines. 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 the Intercooler, 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.

· Refueling the compressed-air container using a home or low-

end conventional air compressor may take as long as 4 hours,

while the specialized equipment at service stations may fill the

tanks in only 3 minutes.

· Tanks get very hot when filled rapidly. SCUBA tanks are

sometimes immersed in water to cool them down when they are

being filled. That would not be possible with tanks in a car and
 thus it would either take a long time to fill the tanks, or they

would have to take less than a full charge, since heat drives

up the pressure. However, if well insulated, such as Dewar (vacuum)

flask design, the heat would not have to be lost but put to use

when the car was running.

· Early tests have demonstrated the limited storage capacity of

the tanks; the only published test of a vehicle running on

compressed air alone was limited to a range of 72 km(4 mi).

· A 2005 study demonstrated that cars running on lithium-ion

batteries out-perform both compressed-air and fuel cell

vehicles more than threefold at same speeds. MDI has recently

claimed that an air car will be able to travel 140 km (87 mi)

in urban driving, and have a range of 80 km (50 mi) with a

top speed of 110 km/h (68 mph) on highways, when operating

on compressed air alone.

Possible improvements:

Compressed-air vehicles operate according to a thermodynamic

process because air cools down when expanding and heats up when being
compressed. Since it is not practical to use a theoretically ideal process,

losses occur and improvements may involve reducing these, e.g., by using

large heat exchangers in order to use heat from the ambient air and at the

same time provide air cooling in the passenger compartment. At the other

end, the heat produced during compression can be stored in water systems,

physical or chemical systems and reused later.

It may be possible to store compressed air at lower pressure

using an absorption material within the tank. Absorption materials like Activated

carbon, or a metal organic framework is used for storing compressed natural

gas at  500  psi  instead  of  4500  psi,  which  amounts  to  a  large  energy

saving.

Vehicles

Compressed-air locomotive used in boring the Rove canal tunnel in

France

Production cars

Several companies are investigating and

producing prototypes including  hybrid  compressed-air/gasoline-combustion

vehicles. As of August 2017 none of the developers have yet gone into

production, although Tata has indicated they will begin selling vehicles from

2020 and MDI’s  US  distributor  Zero  Pollution  Motors  says  production  of

the AIRPodwill commence in Europe in 2018.

Experimental cars and bikes:

In 2008 a compressed air powered vehicle designed by

engineering students at Deakin University in Australia was joint winner of

the Ford Motor Company T2 competition to produce a car with a 200 km

range and a cost of less than $7,000. Australian company Engineair has

produced a number of vehicle types - moped, small car, small carrier, go-

cart - around the rotary compressed air engine created by Angelo Di Pietro.

The company is seeking partners to utilise its engine. A compressed-air

powered motorcycle, called the Green Speed Air Powered Motorcycle was

made by Edwin Yi Yuan, based on the Suzuki GP100 and using the Angelo

Di Pietro compressed-air engine.

Three mechanical engineering students from San Jose State

University; Daniel Mekis, Dennis Schaaf and Andrew Merovich, designed and
built a bike that runs on compressed air. The total cost of the prototype was

under $1000 and was sponsored by Sunshops (on the Boardwalk in Santa

Cruz, California) and NO DIG NO RIDE (from Aptos, California.). The top

speed of the maiden voyage in May 2009 was 23 mph. While their design

was simple, these three pioneers of compressed air powered vehicles helped

pave the way for French automaker Peugeot Citreon to invent a brand new

air-powered hybrid. The ‘Hybrid Air’ system uses compressed air to move the

car’s wheels when driving under 43 mph. Peugeot says the new hybrid

system should get up to 141 miles per gallon of gas. Models should roll out

as early as 2016. “Ku:Rin” named air-compressed three-wheeler vehicle was

created by Toyota in 2011.

The speciality about this vehicle is it has registered a record-

breaking highest speed 129.2 km/h (80 mph) even if it has engine which

uses only compressed air. This car was developed by the companies “Dream

car workshop”. This car is nicknamed as “sleek rocket”, or “pencil shaped

rocket”.

As part of the TV-show Planet Mechanics, Jem Stansfield and Dick

Strawbridge converted a regular scooter to a compressed air moped.  This

has been done by equipping the scooter with a compressed-air engine and
air tank. In 2010, Honda presented the Honda Air concept car at the LA

Auto Show.

Trains, Trams, Boats and Planes:

Compressed-air locomotives are a kind of fireless locomotive and

have been used in mining and tunnel boring. Various compressed-air-powered

trams were trialled, starting in 1876. In Nantes and Paris such trams ran in

regular service for 30 years. Currently, no water or air vehicles exist that

make use of the compressed air engine. Historically certain torpedoes were

propelled by compressed-air engines.

Process description and discussion:

To convert a conventional IC engine into an Air Powered one,

few components are to be replaced. First of all replace the spark plug

with a pulsed pressure control valve which can create required

pressure. Now the pulsed air firing in this valve is controlled by

controlling the supply of electrical signal to the plunger. For this

we require an electronic timing circuit which can control the flow of

electrical supply to the plunger of this valve. This can be achieved by using

PLC circuit. Now speed of the engine will be controlled by controlling this

input signal.

Now fuel tank is to be replaced with air vessel, as it requires

pressurized air as input. And two things are to be taken care while

designing air vessel:

1) First is its strength to withstand high internal pressure,

which exists due to compressed air. For this outer body of it

should be made of a material, having high strength, like

carbon fiber.

2) Second is its capacity to store air and its weight.

Now replace cam with a modified cam. This is to be

done, so that both the inlet and outlet valves open and close at the same

time. Main advantage of doing this is to achieve better

scavenging system. Also this will result in conversion of 4 stroke engine into

2 stroke air engine, which in turn gives us the benefit of low mean effective

pressure requirement in addition to other operational benefits.

Detail Working of Engine:

The normal 4 stroke SI engine is shown as:

Operation:

Initial torque is supplied from the DC exciter motor, and then the

engine operation starts.

Stage 1: When the piston is in the TDC, compressed air is injected

through the pulsed air firing valve, which pushes the piston

to BDC.
Stage 2: Due to the motion of the engine and its inertia, the piston

moves back to TDC, pushing the air out of the valves.

The plunger of the pulsed firing valve is controlled by a

timing circuit which is specifically a PLC programmed circuit. It supplies the

electronic signals by which the plunger moves so that it opens and closes

the pulsed firing valve.

On comparing it with the working of normal SI 4 stroke

engine, we can say that:

· “Stage 1” of the air engine comprises of the combined

operation of “Suction stage” and “Power stage” of the normal

4 stroke SI engine.

· “Stage 2” of the air engine comprises of the combined

operation of the “Compression stage” and “Exhaust stage” of

the normal 4 stroke SI engine.

· In comparison to petrol or diesel powered vehicles

“air powered vehicles” have following advantages:

· Air, on its own, is non-flammable, abundant, economical,

transportable, storable and, most importantly, non- polluting.

· Compressed air technology reduces the cost of vehicle production

by about 20%, because there is no need to build a cooling

system, fuel tank, spark plugs or silencers.

· High torque for minimum volume. The mechanical design of

the engine is simple and robust.

· Low manufacture and maintenance costs as well as easy

maintenance. Lighter vehicles would mean less abuse on

roads, thus, resulting in longer lasting roads.

· The price of fueling air powered vehicles will be significantly

 cheaper than current fuels. When the air is being compressed

at reasonable speeds, it heats up. The heat given off

during compression could be reclaimed for space heating

or water heating, or used in a stirling engine.

· Transportation of the fuel would not be required due to

drawing power off the electrical grid. This presents significant

cost benefits. Pollution created during fuel transportation would

be eliminated.

· Compressed-air vehicles are comparable in many ways even

to electric vehicles and their potential advantages over

electric vehicles include: Compressed-air vehicles are unconstrained

by the degradation problems associated with current battery

systems.

· Much like electrical vehicles, air powered vehicles would

ultimately be powered through the electrical grid which makes

it easier to focus on reducing pollution from one source, as

opposed to the millions of vehicles on the road. Compressed-

air tanks can be disposed of or recycled with less pollution

than batteries. The tank may be able to be refilled more

often and in less time than batteries can be recharged, with

 refuelling rates comparable to liquid fuels.

· The tanks used in a compressed air motor have a longer

lifespan in comparison with batteries, which, after a while

suffer from a reduction in performance.