Source: http://www.gizmag.com/calfee-design-bamboo-bikes/14378/

Calfee Design building bamboo bikes for the first and third worlds

By Ben Coxworth

15:09 March 2, 2010

We’ve seen bikes with frames made out of aluminum, titanium, carbon fiber, and even IsoTruss tubes, but bamboo? Well yes, actually, we saw some here in Gizmag just last May. Back then, we were looking at some fairly basic city bikes built by Brazilian designer Flavio Deslandes. This time around the bamboo bikes are decidedly higher-end creations, built by Californian designer Craig Calfee, of Calfee Design. Although these bikes are definitely high-end, he’s also working on using bamboo to provide employment and cheap transportation for the people of Ghana.

Calfee started out building carbon fiber frames in 1987. In 1995, as a publicity stunt, he built a bamboo-framed errand bike. It spawned 11 others, built for staff, family and friends, who commented on how smooth the ride was. By 2005, he decided to go into production. He now offers road racing, triathlon, cyclocross and mountain models.

Bamboo is used for all the main tubes, although you can choose carbon chainstays for extra stiffness. The bamboo is smoked and heat treated before construction, to prevent splitting. The tubes are joined together using hemp fiber lugs, then everything gets coated with polyurethane.

The finished frames weigh four to six pounds, and are said to offer excellent vibration damping, while also providing good stiffness. Calfee claims that the bamboo is very crash-resistant, to the point where he doesn’t even offer carbon mountain bike frames anymore. Bamboo also, of course, has a much lower carbon footprint than traditional frame materials - only water and sun are required to produce it.

While Craig’s bikes are definitely aimed at the affluent buyer, he’s also trying to get inexpensive bamboo bikes into the hands of villagers in Ghana. In 1984, he came up with the idea of a bamboo bike program while visiting Africa. He noticed that there was a lot of bamboo, but not enough cargo bikes, and not enough jobs. Since that time, he has been working on teaching local entrepreneurs how to build their own bamboo bikes, and looking for sponsors to provide funding and supplies. He plans to extend the project to other developing nations.

Source: http://www.gizmag.com/calfee-design-bamboo-bikes/14378/

Source: http://www.dnronline.com/news_details.php?AID=42535&CHID=1 a subscription may be required

Pickup Gets A Makeover Posted 2009-11-20

EMHS Students Turning Clunker Into All-Electric Marvel

By Jenny Jones

Stuart Bell (left) and Ashton Pease, seniors at Eastern Mennonite High School, paint the brackets Tuesday that will hold the batteries for the 1986 Mazda pickup they are converting into an electric vehicle. Photos by Pete Marovich MORE PHOTOS HARRISONBURG - A group of students at Eastern Mennonite High School is getting charged up, literally. Three senior students are turning a beat-up 1986 Mazda pickup truck into a modern marvel, swapping its fuel-powered internal combustion engine with an electric-powered motor. The students - Drew Veenis, Ashton Pease and Stuart Bell - are working under the direction of technology teacher Dennis Brubaker. They say they took on the task to learn new skills and show others that electric vehicles aren’t just science fiction. “I just really think it’s important …  that we start looking at ways to move away from fossil fuels,” said Veenis, 18. “Electric cars are definitely one of those ways.” A Little Community Help The idea for the project came after someone offered to donate an electric car to the school. While EMHS passed up the offer, the students and Brubaker began talking about how neat it would be to build their own electric vehicle. The guys started out by doing Internet research about what it would take to construct such a vehicle. Then, they began looking for a cheap ride. They found the Mazda in Staunton for $300. It had a thrown piston and a bit of rust, but that didn’t matter because the students wouldn’t need the engine and they planned to rework the body to make it more lightweight. From there, the students started contacting area businesses for donations. They need $2,400 for the 12 batteries it will take to power the vehicle, alone. Several companies have pledged materials and funds, including one that will donate environmentally friendly water-based paint for the exterior finish. “It’s become a big community kind of project,” Brubaker said. A School Showpiece For more than a month, the guys have worked on the truck practically every day. They’ve removed the old engine, taken off the bed and stripped the interior. And soon, they’ll drop a 150-pound electric engine under the hood. The batteries to power the engine will be secured to a bracket under the truck’s bed, which was shortened a foot to take weight off the truck. The vehicle will be 100 percent electric, Brubaker said. Once all the mechanical elements are in place, the guys will put an old-style flatbed on the truck, using wood Brubaker salvaged from his deck. They hope to enlist help to paint lightning bolts and possibly flames on the truck’s exterior in honor of the school’s mascot. They also dream of attaching solar panels to the truck, which would help provide additional energy to the engine. “There’s just lots of ideas going around,” Pease said. “Not a lot of people get a chance to build a car, let alone an electric car. … [It's] awesome.” When the truck is finished, it will likely be used to run errands for the school and, perhaps, be displayed at fairs and such to showcase the students’ work, Brubaker said. Paul Leaman, the school’s principal, said the project is teaching the students valuable skills, and he would like to see it continue for years to come. “We hope it can become kind of an icon for the school,” he said. Contact Jenny Jones at 574-6286 or jjones@dnronline.com

Source: http://www.dnronline.com/news_details.php?AID=42535&CHID=1 a subscription may be required

To see this article, go to http://gas2.org/2009/10/16/kansas-students-run-retro-vw-beetle-on-batteries-and-biodiesel/

To view the students report on the project, go to http://groups.ku.edu/~ecohawks/IMECE2009-10247.pdf
(JMU AFV Lab students should take notice of this file and consider it when they report on their own projects.)

Kansas Students Run Retro VW Beetle on Batteries and Biodiesel

Written by Andrew Williams

A group of University of Kansas students have rigged up a 1974 Volkswagen Super Beetle to run on a mix of biodiesel and battery power.

The team, calling themselves the Ecohawks, claim the quirky hybrid is capable of getting 50 MPG from a series of 10 lead-acid batteries and a biodiesel generator.

Performance-wise, although quite cool looking in a retro kind of way, the car isn’t exactly what you’d call a speedster, topping out as it does at a leisurely 30 mph.

That doesn’t seem to bother team-leader Prof. Chris Depcik though, who told reporters, “We have driven it around and reached approximately 30 mph, but this was more of a proof-of-concept drive without pushing the boundaries. We are currently getting the vehicle into road-ready shape to be driven safely in order to determine these values.” (More pics after the jump).

• » See also: Update: Breakthrough Biodiesel Process Now Running At Commercial Scale
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Depcik says that given the mass availability of Beetle parts, (VW built 21.5 million of them before ceasing production in 2003), the choice of car was a no-brainer and estimates that it will be ready to pass a Kansas state inspection “with flying colors” by May 2010.

Teenage-Built Diesel Hybrid Does 0-60 in 4 Seconds, Soon to Break 100 MPG

Written by Jerry James Stone

Published on October 5th, 2009

2 Comments

Posted in Diesels, Hybrid-electric EVs

Students from West Philadelphia High School have built a diesel-hybrid race car that goes from 0-60 in four seconds. While the car currently gets 60+ mpg, they hope to soon break 100 mpg.

Why? They are competing for $10 million in the Automotive X-Prize .

Called the Hybrid Attack, the car was built by kids from West Philly’s Academy of Automotive and Mechanical Engineering. And if that alone doesn’t make them cool, they are the only high school team competing out of 90 different teams from the U.S. and overseas.

• » See also: Hyundai Enters The Green Auto Market With a Bang | IAA Frankfurt Auto Show
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The students were inspired by the gasoline-electric Prius they saw at the 2003 competition. But their car had to meet the proverbial requirements of a teenager: fast and cool-looking! “The Prius, it’s OK,” said Chris Millsip, a 17-year-old in his third year with the academy. “But it needs to go faster.”

Kids believe they can do anything. And I have to say I believe these kids can. According to Autoblog Green they are a top 10 contender for the prize.

“We didn’t design the car to win but to break the stereotype of what a hybrid car could be,” said Simon Hauger, the academy’s director since its inception in 1998.

In order to make the cut they must get the Hybrid Attack up to 100 mpg, make it road safe and easily mass produced.

In 2002, 2005 and 2006, the team won the Tour de Sol, a competition for alternative vehicles to drive at least 150 miles while getting 100 mpg or better. In fact, in their first attempt they beat out 40 other teams including one from MIT.

“I know we’re going to win,” said 15-year-old student Stefon Gonzalez. “We’ve got a good history of winning competitions and we’ve got the engineering background and the experience.”

Though, this time their competition includes a team from Cornell University, engineers from Ottawa and Silicon Valley, and a group led by an inventor created the voice-recognition software for the BlackBerry.

Stiff competition aside, these kids aren’t just holding their own against the likes of MIT… they are doing what the auto industry can’t (or won’t).

For me, that’s the real win.

Source: http://gas2.org/2009/10/05/teenage-built-diesel-hybrid-does-0-60-in-4-seconds-soon-to-break-100-mpg/

Go to: http://gas2.org/2009/09/18/student-built-hydrogen-fuel-cell-powered-boat-to-set-sail-on-hudson-river/ to read the entire article.

Student-Built, Hydrogen Fuel Cell-Powered Boat to Set Sail on Hudson River

Welcome to another episode of “If college students can do it, why can’t the rest of the world figure it out too?”

An enterprising and organized group of undergraduate and graduate students at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have fitted an old sail boat with a spiffy set of hydrogen fuel cells and plan to run the boat from Manhattan to upstate New York later this month in a “green power” tour of sorts.

I love it when college students do this kind of stuff. Seriously. If I could have stayed in college forever, I would have. Believe me, I tried.
The group, founded by materials science graduate student William Gathright earlier this year, has taken a 40 year-old, 22 foot sailboat, fixed it up from its formerly decrepit state, fitted it with some compressed hydrogen gas storage tanks, and installed two off-the shelf GenDrive class 3 fuel cell units — each weighing 500 pounds. The fuel cells are on loan from local company, Plug Power.

“We’re high-tech environmentalists,” Said Gathright. “We want to share our vision of a time when people can take a pleasure cruise on their boat, or drive to the store, without leaving a trail of pollution and toxins behind them. We hope to inspire and challenge them to think of ways of making that vision a reality. This project, from beginning to end, has certainly been an exercise in creative problem solving. But you know what? We’re Rensselaer students. Innovating and problem solving is what we do best.”

In a nod to the history of the Hudson River as a source of American ingenuity and problem solving, the boat has been named the New Clermont after one of the world’s first commercial steam boats, Robert Fulton’s Clermont, which roughly followed the same route up the Hudson that the students will be taking on their green tour.

“Just as Robert Fulton wanted to prove to the world that steam was a viable, economical means to power boats and unleash the economic potential of our waterways, we want to open people’s eyes to the viability of hydrogen and fuel cells as a way to power boats, and one day maybe even our cars, trucks, and homes,” said student Leah Rollhaus, who also helps lead the New Clermont Project.

Source: Rensselaer (Via ScienceDaily)

Source: http://gas2.org/2009/09/18/student-built-hydrogen-fuel-cell-powered-boat-to-set-sail-on-hudson-river/

Source: http://gas2.org/2009/07/13/students-build-hydrogen-vehicle-that-gets-1336-mpg/

Students Build Hydrogen Vehicle That Gets 1,336 MPG

Written by Jerry James Stone

Published on July 13th, 2009

Turkish students at Sakarya University have built a hydrogen car that gets 1,336 mpg. Well, sorta.

Called the SAHİMO, the vehicle’s current range is about 353 miles on a quarter gallon of fuel (568 kilometers on 1 liter). It travels such an obscene distance with so little fuel due to the vehicle’s uber-light weight: it weighs only 240 pounds (110 kilograms). The car’s made up of 90-percent carbon fiber.

I assume the size and weight limit it to holding only a liter of fuel. I couldn’t verify this as their site is in Turkish and mine is a little rusty.

The SAHMO won third most efficient vehicle in Europe’s 26th Shell Eco Marathon. And their next goal is to conquer the inaugural 2009 Global Green Challenge–an evolution of the World Solar Challenge competition in Australia–this October. About twenty electric, hybrid, alternative fuel and low emission production and prototype vehicles will compete in the race.

Melemez, a fourth-year student in the engineering department at Sakarya University, says “We are hoping to raise our record from 568 kilometers on one liter of hydrogen up to a full 1,000 kilometers on one liter, and we believe we can do it. “

Source: http://gas2.org/2009/07/13/students-build-hydrogen-vehicle-that-gets-1336-mpg/

Source: http://www.gizmag.com/dean-kamen-segway-hybrid-scooter/12096/

Dean Kamen developing eco hybrid that will run on anything that burns

By Ben Purvis

20:19 June 28, 2009 PDT

Dean Kamen – the multimillionaire inventor behind the Segway personal transporter – is well down the road in the development of a new bike that combines electric power and a radical generator which will allow it to burn almost any fuel.

Built around a fairly conventional battery and electric motor combination to provide the drive to the wheel, something Kamen’s experience with the much-hyped Segway makes relatively easy, the radical part of the design is the inclusion of a Stirling engine to recharge the bike’s battery pack. Based on technology that pre-dates the internal combustion engine by nearly a century, the Stirling engine is closer in concept to a steam engine, using external combustion, and without the need for a fuel that can be injected and burned incredibly fast inside a normal engine’s combustion chamber, it can run on virtually anything that burns – opening the door to easily renewable fuels rather than relying on dwindling fossil fuel supplies.

Although the prototype bike has yet to be shown in public, unlike Kamen’s Stirling-engined car which has been demonstrated several times, Kamen himself is understood to have been using the prototype to zip around his own estate.

As revealed in Kamen’s own patent for the technology, the bike looks like a conventional scooter, with the Stirling engine and its fuel tank mounted under the seat, a rechargeable battery pack in the floor and a radiator in the front fairing. Although the Stirling engine’s low output – one this size is unlikely to make any more than 5bhp – means it can’t give the bike much performance on its own, it’s able to keep the battery topped up by continuing to supply electricity even when you’re not moving. The energy reserves in the battery can be used when more power is needed. And as the Stirling engine could be left running at low speed even when the bike is parked, the battery would never be likely to go flat.

Kamen has already sunk more than $50 million into his development of Stirling engine technology, using the idea for everything from bikes to cars and even to water-purifiers to be used in the developing world.

What’s a Stirling engine?

Although the idea for Stirling engines has been around since 1816, they’ve never been mass produced so the concept is still quite unfamiliar.

Like a steam engine or internal combustion engine, Stirling engines use pistons to turn a crankshaft, but unlike the alternatives they have no valves as no gas ever enters or leaves the cylinders. Instead, the idea is to use the fact that gas expands when it’s hot and contracts when it’s cool to move the pistons. Although there are several variations on the theme, Kamen’s design uses a design known as a two-piston Stirling engine which has a power piston and a displacer piston.

The cylinder of the power piston is heated from outside, making the gas – normally helium – inside the cylinder expand, moving the power piston and giving a power stroke to the crankshaft.

The flywheel weight on the crankshaft keeps the rotation going, moving the power piston back, on what would be the exhaust stroke of a four-stroke internal combustion engine. But rather than sending the expanded gas out into the atmosphere, it’s sent through a transfer port into the second “displacer” cylinder, which has its own piston – at this stage moving down its stroke. Unlike the power cylinder, the displacer cylinder is cooled, so once the gas is moved there it contracts.

Again, flywheel momentum keeps the engine going as the displacer piston returns up its bore, forcing the gas – now cool – back through the transfer port into the power cylinder, where it’s heated for the cycle to begin again.

Disadvantages:

Compared to an internal combustion engine, Stirling engines give out relatively little power and torque compared to their size and weight, they take time to warm up and start working properly and they can’t react quickly to a throttle control – which explains why they never replaced either the steam engine (even slower to warm up, but more powerful) or the internal combustion engine (very powerful, no warm-up time and fast throttle response). But by linking a Stirling engine to a battery and electric motor, the disadvantages start to drop away.

Advantages:

Because they don’t need internal combustion, where you need a highly volatile, liquid fuel to burn at incredibly high speed inside the cylinders, they can run on almost anything and use high-efficiency burners that completely use whatever fuel is being used. With many of the emissions problems from internal combustion engines relating to “unburned hydrocarbons”, Stirling engines can be cleaner.

Think of them like the wood burners that are becoming increasingly popular in homes, which are able to chuck out huge amounts of heat from slow-burning, natural fuel. Just like them, the Stirling engine’s ability to completely burn whatever fuel is being used, making the most of the potential power tucked away inside that fuel.

They also use the heat from burning fuel very efficiently. In an internal combustion engine, heat is a problem and engineers go to huge efforts to get rid of it, Stirling engines use the heat itself to create power.

And by running cleanly and at a constant speed, they’re perfect for being linked to a generator to supply electricity.

Has the Stirling engine come of age?

Kamen isn’t the only person to have leapt onto the idea of Stirling engines as the world looks around for cheap, sustainable and clean energy, although with several years’ development under his belt and more than $50 million invested he’s got a head start.

Honda has also been looking at the idea, not so much as a way of powering an entire vehicle but as a way of extracting more power from a conventional internal combustion engine. The firm has patented concepts revolving around small Stirling engines bolted to the exhaust system of a normal engine, using the heat from the exhaust as “free” power for the Stirling engine, which could then be used instead of a power-sapping alternator to power a car’s (or bike’s) electrical systems.

Motorsport experts Prodrive have also been helping develop a Stirling engine, not for a vehicle but for your home. The idea is to create a machine roughly the size of a tumble drier that will both heat a house and provide all its electrical needs, all using the Stirling engine concept.

Other new applications for the technology include an autonomous robot for the US military, which is being designed around a Stirling engine which allows it to effectively “eat” by feeding itself wood or leaves, creating a machine that can remain active for years on end without needing to be recharged, while on the other side of the world, in Taiwan, tiny Stirling engines are being developed to run off the heat from computer chips, providing power for a cooling fan.

source: http://www.gizmag.com/dean-kamen-segway-hybrid-scooter/12096/

It reports on a group in the UK that took a conventional front wheel drive delivery van and installed twin electric motors on the rear axle that are powered by: “…a valve-regulated lead-acid battery rather than the nickel metal hydride (NiMH) or lithium ion (LiIon) technology used in conventional electric vehicles.” They plan to market this as a retrofit kit to install on existing vehicles. This concept could find a market in delivery companies that seldom carry loads that approach the GVWR of the van; delivery companies like florists, parcel services, auto parts jobbers, electrical wholesalers, and the like.

I can even see the possibility of such a project for the AFV Lab. It is doable. It could use a conventional rear drive differential with an electric motor attached to it, like a golf cart or like one of the Vantage vehicles JMU has ordered, or, following this article’s lead, an electric motor at each wheel.

Source: http://www.gizmag.com/plug-in-hybrid-retrofit-kit-ice-vehicle/11631/

UK team Develops plug-in hybrid retrofit kit for ICE vehicle

from Automotive (1891 articles)

ADDZEV was developed using a standard Vauxhall Combo van

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May 8, 2009 Automotive engineering facilities in the UK have joined forces to design a system which allows conventional delivery vans to be cheaply converted to run in a zero-emissions, all-electric mode for urban use. The ADDZEV (affordable add-on zero emissions vehicle) system was developed using a standard Vauxhall Combo van, retaining the existing conventional front-wheel-drive (FWD) system and an adding an electric drive in parallel for the rear wheels. The vehicle can operate with just front wheel drive powered by the internal combustion engine or can turn off the petrol engine and run with rear wheel drive under electric power only.

Source: http://www.gizmag.com/plug-in-hybrid-retrofit-kit-ice-vehicle/11631/

While the numbers of this project aren’t that impressive, it is a concept that could benefit from some development. For instance, since operating temperatures would be lower, maybe Teflon compression rings could be used instead of metal rings.  Historically, air motors haven’t been models of efficiency; their main purpose has been their ability to offer maintenance free rotational power in environments that needed such. Efficient use of energy was a secondary consideration.

Source: http://www.autobloggreen.com/2009/05/09/engineering-students-from-india-create-air-powered-motorcycle/

Engineering students from India create air-powered motorcycle

by Jeremy Korzeniewski on May 9th 2009 at 4:27PM

Just over a year ago, we reported on an air-powered moped that was built using carbon fiber tanks originally intended for firefighting use. Apparently, the idea has occurred to a few other people as well, as a group of engineering students from India have just completed another compressed air-powered motorcycle using a small 100 cc motorcycle as a starting point. Arshdeep Singh, one of the Air Bike’s designers, says:

“Our professors had asked us to create something which nobody has done so far and is also pollution free. Something which is economical and affordable to a common man. So we thought of inventing a bike, which runs on air. There is no combustion in this bike as it does not use any petrol, diesel or anything.”

At this point, the bike isn’t all that practical. Top speed is limited to just 18 kilometers per hour, but the team hopes to improve on the figure in future versions. Want to see and hear it run? Click past the break for a video.

[Source: Green Launches]

Source: http://www.autobloggreen.com/2009/05/09/engineering-students-from-india-create-air-powered-motorcycle/

Zero Emissions Motorcycle Gears Up For The Big Race

enlarge

Engineering students (from left to right) Dean Goldsmith, Michael Payne (sat on the bike), Sean Whittaker, Alex Jones-Dellaportas and Gonzalo Carrasco with the green bike. (Credit: Image courtesy of Kingston University)

ScienceDaily (Apr. 28, 2009) — It has the ability to reach speeds of 102mph, race around a 38 mile mountainous course and is powered by batteries which can be charged from a standard household socket. It’s Kingston University’s new, green motorbike. Designed by six final-year engineering students, the bike is set to make history by competing in the world’s first zero-emissions Grand Prix this summer. The Kingston team will join 24 eco-bikes from America, India, Italy, Germany and Austria on the start line at the 2009 Isle of Man TTXGP.

Work on the bike began last October, under the guidance of course director for motorsport and motorcycle engineering Paul Brandon. The motorbike, which has gone through many designs, will run on non-fossil fuel but will still be able to clock-up an average 70 mph around the course. “Being green doesn’t have to mean slow,” Mr Brandon said. “There are too many sceptics when it comes to electric vehicles but we all need to reduce our CO₂ output and this initiative is taking a huge leap in that direction. The ideas we and others put to the test on the racing circuit are the ones most likely to become commonplace on the road.”

The bike is run from a custom-built, 72-volt battery and the team estimates it will reach speeds of 102 at the fastest downhill section of the 38 mile course. “The energy density of batteries is far less than that of petrol or diesel so how we manage the energy we carry is critical to our success in the race,” Mr Brandon added. “The bike we have designed has a whole vehicle efficiency of 90 per cent, so we are only wasting 10 per cent of what we carry. By comparison a petrol-based vehicle wastes 70 per cent of the energy it carries.”

Students studying on the motorcycle engineering design course have worked on the project since October last year and it will form part of their final assessment. Alex Jones-Dellaportas, 40, originally from Oldham, Lancashire, said: “The design has gone through many different stages. We’ve refined it at each step along the way to try to make it lighter and faster and the majority of the materials we have used have been recycled.” Team mate Gonzalo Carrasco, 21, originally from near Madrid, in Spain, said: “It might look similar to a normal motorbike but it has no internal combustion engine, no exhaust system and no fuel tank. The overall CO₂ usage, including the CO₂ generated to charge the batteries, will be around 50 per cent less CO₂ than a petrol or diesel-power bike. People need to realise that this technology is the future. By entering green races and building green designs we are hoping policy-makers will see the potential for this technology and start investing in it.”

The competition takes place on June 12.

Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/04/090424073909.htm