Compressed Air Mag-Lev (CAML) Generator and Motor

I have an idea for a generator and motor that could produce power using a sealed ball filled with compressed air and rings of magnets arranged in Halbach arrays.



Halbach arrays are ways of arranging magnets to focus magnetic energy in two directions. This generator works by pushing two rings of magnets on semi-elastic bands arranged in opposite Halbach arrays together using an industrial strength ball filled with compressed air and maglev bearings for the outer ring. When acting as a generator, the ball of compressed air would stay sealed causing the outer ring to continually spin and create energy. Needing only periodic refilling of the compressed air ball.

Halbach Array Configuration


When acting as a motor, the amount of compressed air could be varied to act as a speed controller by pushing the rings closer or farther apart, and thus speeding up or slowing down the spin of the outer ring. An arrangement of three wire of wires can also be placed on the inner Halbach array in a Linear Synchronous Motor (LSM) configuration to act as an electromagnet for higher motor speeds. This motor arrangement was used with magnets arranged in Halbach arrays on the Inductrak Mag-Lev train system developed by Richard Post from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

LSM Three Phase Wiring


A good presentation on the Inductrack Mag-Lev train which discusses the Halbach arrays and LSM wiring for propulsion can be found here:

http://gcep.stanford.edu/pdfs/ChEHeXOTnf3dHH5qjYRXMA/09_Post_10_11_trans.pdf

Let me know if you have any comments or ideas on this.

Thanks!

HoverBoarder said:

When acting as a generator, the ball of compressed air would stay sealed causing the outer ring to continually spin and create energy. Needing only periodic refilling of the compressed air ball.

Click to expand...

Fail boat.


What you're proposing would just be a bulky, heavy, inefficient (because you're going to lose substantial thermal energy in expansion/compression), alternative to a battery. Also, a basket-ball sized tank filled to 3,000psi with compressed air would still be less stored energy than a LiPo pack you can slip in your pocket (which doesn't need to lose energy in mechanical to electrical conversion processes, as it's all ready usable electrical energy).

One comment.

If all you have to do is push the two rings of magnets together by inflating your ball to make the outer ring spin, "generating energy," then you could in theory replace the inflatable ball with a rigid ball, or even a ring, as long as you did not let the magnets get misaligned. This is then a Perpetual Motion Machine, which is impossible by the three laws of thermodynamics.

Sorry, it won't work, at least what you described above.

Cameron

oldpiper said:

One comment.

If all you have to do is push the two rings of magnets together by inflating your ball to make the outer ring spin, "generating energy," then you could in theory replace the inflatable ball with a rigid ball, or even a ring, as long as you did not let the magnets get misaligned. This is then a Perpetual Motion Machine, which is impossible by the three laws of thermodynamics.

Sorry, it won't work, at least what you described above.

Cameron

Click to expand...

Hi Cameron,

Thanks for your response.

Using a rigid surface to mount the Halbach rings would not be a perpetual motion machine, it would be a flywheel. Flywheels are great ways for storing energy for wind or other periodic power sources as the energy losses from the spinning magnetic disks are very low with a low friction air vacuum environment (though not as efficient as electrochemical storage systems). However, the system resistance from eddy currents and air resistance eventually means the disks will stop spinning.

The difference with my design is the ability to 'reset' without using a lot of energy. When the resistance between the two Halbach rings becomes too large to be optimal for energy creation, the ball can be slightly deflated and inflated again. Thereby pushing the Halbach rings together again and starting the process over until the resistance exceeds the optimal operating speed.

liveforphysics said:

HoverBoarder said:

When acting as a generator, the ball of compressed air would stay sealed causing the outer ring to continually spin and create energy. Needing only periodic refilling of the compressed air ball.

Click to expand...

Fail boat.


What you're proposing would just be a bulky, heavy, inefficient (because you're going to lose substantial thermal energy in expansion/compression), alternative to a battery. Also, a basket-ball sized tank filled to 3,000psi with compressed air would still be less stored energy than a LiPo pack you can slip in your pocket (which doesn't need to lose energy in mechanical to electrical conversion processes, as it's all ready usable electrical energy).

Click to expand...

Totally understandable. I would feel the same way if I thought that someone was trying to pitch a perpetual energy machine as well.

LUCKILY, I have a backup.

Here's some REAL camel power.




It can carry you around AND power your Ipod!

Years ago I was the Ops Director for the UK organisation that procured all defence research in the UK. I spent much of my time sifting through ideas like this submitted by helpful members of the public, but have to say that 99.99% of them were by apparently gifted and ingenious individuals who had absolutely no concept of the laws of conservation of energy. I don't know why, but the fundamental and inviolable principle that states that the total energy that comes out of a system must exactly equal the total energy that goes in to it often seems to be something that passes a lot of people by.

Still it is fun to think through these things from time to time. Here are a couple of memorable ones from my time in that job, by way of light entertainment:

A chap had read that the holographic representation of a physical object could behave just like the physical object itself, under certain conditions. The best known example is the case of the holographic prism, where the 3D holographic projection of a prism will apparently work to split white light into its constituent wavelengths somewhat like a real prism. The person submitting his spy invention put forward the idea that we didn't need to build expensive spy satellites, we could use lasers to project holographic satellites wherever we needed them and use the same lasers to transmit back imagery from these holographic spy sats using focused reflection on a part of the laser beam.

Another lovely idea was to save weight on armoured vehicles. The person submitting this one produced an elaborate scheme for only having one small slab of heavy armour on the side of a vehicle, with this slab fitted to X-Y slides and driven by rapid actuators. The idea was that you had sensors to detect an incoming shell or RPG and these sensors directed the actuators to move the heavy slab of armour to the precise place it was needed to intercept the incoming round.

Often, some of the simpler ideas were the best, like the person who invented (very expensive) Kevlar sand bags. I spent hours trying to patiently explain that it was the sand that absorbed the kinetic energy from rounds fired at a sand bag and that there was no merit in trying to protect the sand with Kevlar, to no avail.

The very best of the "mad inventor" brigade was one, very, very clever retired chap, who was a regular contributor of daft ideas (the holographic spy sat was one of his). This chap was clearly somewhat dotty, but inundated my desk with ideas for crazy devices, all of which had to be examined carefully, because you never know when you might find a gem of an idea. He took to telephoning me most weeks and was often quite rude when I had to politely tell him that we weren't going to buy his ideas. He wrote to our Prime Minister, who's office forwarded the stuff back to me, which infuriated the poor chap even more. Eventually I had a call one afternoon from our Ministry of Defence Police Special Investigations Branch, the mob that look into defence related terrorist stuff. They had received a call from the US Department of Homeland Security and asked if I could deal with it, as my name had been mentioned. I duly called the chap in Homeland Security (on a secure phone, at their request!) who told me that the President of the United States had been sent some plans and letters marked "Top Secret", that included letters written by me. It turned out that the clever nutter had got fed up with not getting the response he wanted from either me or our Prime Minister so had made up a "TOP SECRET" rubber stamp, stamped all his stuff and my letters with it and posted it all to the US President. The funniest bit was the reaction of the Homeland Security guy. He had absolutely no sense of humour, or even an inkling of the way we Brits tend to deal with things like this. When I told him to just shred the stuff and ignore it, because it was from a typical British eccentric, he kept reminding me of the seriousness of the situation and how action needed to be taken to protect World freedom etc etc.

Anyway, it's good to have a bit of light relief on here now and again.

Jeremy

Amazing post, Jeremy !
Good fun.

Kinda makes your ex-job sound like you were head of "Q" branch for MI6 in a bond saga.

:lol:

thewmatusmoloki said:

Amazing post, Jeremy !
Good fun.

Kinda makes your ex-job sound like you were head of "Q" branch for MI6 in a bond saga.

:lol:

Click to expand...

Nothing like that, I'm afraid. Most of the time it was politics and managing budgets, trying to keep control of the around £470M a year we then spent on pure defence related research. Anything really interesting was always on a need to know basis, and more often than not I didn't have a need-to-know any more than how much money they wanted!

Jeremy

Bummer, the realities of the real world. :?

ps
Not even an exploding golf ball or a powerful laser watch ??

Combine that thing with EEstor caps and ya got real magic.