Author Archives: Alexander Heartt Granlund

Electric Cars: Fad or the Future?

There are many car manufacturers that make electric cars. You may have been wondering about electric cars and why so many people are moving towards electricity as a fuel source for their cars. I certainly have. The concept of electric cars has been around as long as the car itself. In fact there were three ways of making your car go in the early days of automobiles. Steam, gasoline, and electricity. One of the first practical electric cars was called the Magnetic it was powered the same way that modern locomotives are. It had a gasoline engine powering a generator and an electric motor powering the wheels.

In recent years there has been a big push for “zero emissions” vehicles. The problem that people forget is that the electricity is generated somewhere. the fact of the matter is that the term “zero emissions” is not entirely true. The electricity used to charge the car likely comes from either coal-fired power plants or a nuclear power plant. As we have seen, nuclear power is generally clean but accidents happen. It is also not a very environmentally friendly process to make the batteries for electric cars. One the other hand, the infrastructure is much more efficient for electricity than for any other fuel source. I’m using it right now and if you are reading this, you are too.

In my opinion the best way to power a car would be a hydrogen fuel cell. It uses compressed hydrogen and turns it into water and in the process make electricity that powers an electric motor. In some models you can even power your home.  The only emission from this type of vehicle is pure water. The news gets even better! Hydrogen is the most abundant element in our atmosphere. You’re breathing it right now. The only problem is that you need to purify and compress the hydrogen and set up the infrastructure to sell it. On the environmental side of things, the hydrogen fuel cell car is as easy and clean to make as a gasoline car. So its economical to buy and environmentally friendly to run.

Are electric cars the future? As long as we can get a reliable and efficient compressed hydrogen infrastructure built, my answer is yes. I would hope that people understand the benefits ad downfalls of these different types of electric cars. I can also see that no matter what the future of personal transportation is bright.

SLS AMG Coupé Electric Drive (2013) - Rundenrekord für Elektro-Serienfahrzeuge auf der Nürburgring-Nordschleife; Rekordzeit 7:56,234 Minuten  This is the Mercedes SLS AMG electron. it uses the massive torque of the electric motor and the flexible placement of the batteries to make it very fast and make it handle very well.

sources:    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_electric_vehicle

https://www.teslamotors.com/

https://www.teslamotors.com/

Vehicle Fuel Systems: Carburetor v. Fuel Injection

Every car has to have some way to deliver the fuel to the combustion chamber so it can make the car move. The science of fuel delivery has been around since the first internal combustion engine. The technology has been changing for roughly 50 years because of environmental issues and push for performance and efficiency increases.

The first type of fuel delivery system was the carburetor. They come in many different shaped and sizes but the all do the same basic thing. Use the vacuum of the engine sucking air in to mix the fuel in with the incoming fresh air. There are a couple reasons that carburetors can be bad. They are inefficient because the carb has a fixed mixture or in other words one set of atmospheric variables (temperature, humidity, and barometric pressure) that the carb is optimized for. This means that the carb is often unreliable and cumbersome. Good thing that we don’t use them in cars anymore.

Fuel injection for production cars started in the early sixties. It allowed cars to get better fuel economy and lower emissions but best of all higher specific output or more power for the size of the engine. The most popular form of fuel injection is EFI or electronic fuel injection. This uses a computer to measure atmospheric variables and calculates the best mixture and then calculates how much fuel the injectors need to dispense. Injectors are like a electrical version of a hose nozzle and they are very precise. They spray the fuel at high pressure to make a fine mist that allows for much more complete burning. making the engine more efficient. When you have control over exactly how much fuel goes into each cylinder you can reprogram  the amounts and mixtures. That would be called changing the “fuel map”.

So as we can see the EFI system is far superior than the carburetor for nearly every application. EFI is more environmentally friendly and will make more power out of the same size engine. I’m very exited to see how the new technologies progress.

 

 

sources:  https://www.holley.com/

http://www.edelbrock.com/automotive/mc/carburetors/

Drones: Should We Be Worried?

IMG_0420    The hobby of Radio controlled aviation has been around for about 40 years. With modern technology (solid state gyroscopic sensors to be specific) we are able to get some very bizarre and incredible machines to fly. The first time the term “drone”  was attached to an unmanned aircraft was when the military began using unmanned recon aircraft in the Cold War and during the Vietnam conflict. Now pop culture and the media have attached this term to small aircraft used for photography purposes or just fun.

There are two main types of these aircraft that are commonly equipped with cameras and live feed video. There are fixed wing aircraft, commonly known as airplanes, that typically have one or two motors and propellers that provide forward thrust to make the airplane fly. Then there are multirotors that have anywhere from 3 to 8 motors and propellers that they use to provide upward thrust, like the rotors on a helicopter, to hover. The most common type of multirotor is a quadcopter. They use 4 motors and come in a “+” configuration and an “X” configuration. Most of these machines are miniscule in size. Many you could hold in your palm. There are a few that can be as big as half a meter from motor to motor.

There is a common misconception that these machines could be used as an invasion of privacy. The truth is they can BUT someone with bad intentions  would have to spend thousands of dollars and build a very complicated and LOUD machine that anyone that would be getting “spied” on hear it before they could be seen. As for most of us hobbyists we are very responsible about where we fly and what we do.

FPV is an acronym for “first person view”. FPV is a very exiting experience as it puts you virtually in the aircraft by way of video goggles or a TV screen. What this allows you to do is fly the machine live through the goggles or screen as if you were in it. A new sport has come out of this. Its called FPV racing. People take small fast multirotors, set up a course in the woods or a safe urban area like an empty parking garage, and race their machines at speeds of 10 to 65 mph.

 

Photo credit: Alex Granlund

sources: http://flitetest.com/articles/fpv-racing-w-multigp    and various human sources as well as personal experience

 

 

Supercharging: Why It Makes Cars Faster

Most people that have looked at cars or have been around gearheads have heard the word “boosted”, “blown”, or “turbo”. These are all ways to say that the car has a device technically known as a supercharger. Basically  supercharger is a piece of equipment that forces more air into the engine and the engine makes more power. The reason you want more air in the engine is so that you can burn more fuel. There is an ideal fuel-air mixture for every engine at certain  ambient air temperatures and air density so more air and fuel in the engine means it produces  more power. There are a few ways to do this. There is the belt driven supercharger that is driven by a belt from the engine and uses the spin from the engine to compress air and fuel. Also, there is the turbine driven supercharger (turbocharger or turbo for  short). This type uses the energy in the high speed and high temperature (high energy) exhaust gasses to spin the compressor that looks much like the front of an airliners engine ( because they have the same general purpose).  If you ever feel the heat coming from your cars tailpipe, you’re losing energy in the form of heat. The turbo uses some of that energy that is normally wasted. This is why turbos are sometimes used to better fuel economy.

If its off-the-line acceleration you seek then you want a belt driven supercharger because it will give you the boost (i.e. intake pressure) as soon as you put your foot down. For top end power you want the turbo because it doesn’t rob the engine any power that could have been used to spin the wheels but it needs a certain volume of exhaust gasses to make it spin fast enough to compress the intake air. The term for this period before the turbo makes boost is called “turbo lag”. Therefore a smaller turbo needs less time to spool up but will not be able to keep up the flow that I bigger engine needs. That is why large engines will sometimes have a “twin turbo” setup like the one pictured. This allows high airflow but without the lag of one really big turbo.

most of my sources are human sources and information that I’ve picked up over my time as a car enthusiast but I used this website to refresh my memory:

http://www.popularmechanics.com/cars/a7867/engine-intel-how-turbos-and-superchargers-work-9919436/

My friends twin turbo Corvette engine that he put in his GMC cyclone. This engine generates nearly 850 horsepower.

My friends twin turbo Corvette engine that he put in his GMC cyclone. This engine generates nearly 850 horsepower. Note the two turbos, one on each side and the pipe to get the pressurized air into the engine.

First Blog: Introductions

my ride is kind of a big deal... to me

my ride is kind of a big deal… to me

My name is Alex Granlund. I live in State College I decidedto take this course because I sat in on the first day and was instantly engaged by what Andrew had to say. I am currently a non-degree student and I am still not sure what I want to get into major wise. My hobbies include aerial photography with multi-rotors and track days ( driving your car to a race track, messing around on the track and hopefully driving the same car home) .          Here is a video of some FPV quadcopter flying that you should enjoy.    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1MBW8zoZUR4