C10 2171 A TECHNICAL REVIEW OF THE AIR-POWERED CAR Caroline Baggott (cmb171) and Shawn McMullen (sjm95) Abstract - This paper will investigate the feasibility of the future use of air-powered cars as a means of greener transportation. The mechanics behind the compressed air powered pneumatic motor of this urban-based vehicle and its environmental impacts will be evaluated compared to the hybrid car, the electric-powered car, and the gasolinepowered car. Descriptions will cover how the efficiency, fuel cost, and carbon footprint of the air-powered car compares and contrasts to other environmentally friendly cars, such as the hybrid and the electric car. This paper will go into detail about how the technology behind the engine makes the air-powered car ideal for urban transportation. Emphasis will be put on how traffic patterns in Los Angeles support the air-powered car as an urban vehicle, as well as how the current market for air car production is focused in overpopulated and underdeveloped cities in India. Overall, the technology behind the air-powered car is feasible. However, many issues related to its efficiency and acceptance need to be addressed before it is available to the general population. The significance of the air-powered car is to decrease our reliance on and consumption of fossil fuels and possibly eliminate their use in ground transportation all together. However, the current idea of using compressed air technology in an air-powered car was created by former Formula One engineer, Guy Nègre. While a number of companies have done work with the design of an airpowered vehicle, Nègre’s company, Motor Development International (MDI), has made the most progress in the advancement of the air-powered car [3]. Indian car manufacturing company, Tata Motors, has even signed a deal with MDI to produce and distribute MDI’s air-powered car [1]. However, personal air-powered cars are not yet seen on any roads today. The purpose of this paper, then, is to take a deeper look into the air-powered car, analyzing the mechanics behind its compressed air motor and its efficiency compared to other alternative fuel vehicles, such as hybrid and electric cars currently on the market as well as gasoline powered cars. MECHANICS OF THE ENGINE The air-powered car runs on a pneumatic motor that is powered by compressed air stored onboard the vehicle. Once compressed air is transferred into the onboard storage tank, it is slowly released to power the car’s pistons. The motor then converts the air power into mechanical power. That power is then transferred to the wheels and becomes the source of power for the car. Under speeds of 35 mph, the air-powered car runs purely on compressed air through the previously stated process. Therefore it only emits cold air, making it emission free at speeds less than 35 mph. However, once the air-powered car accelerates beyond speeds of 35 mph, a small conventional engine kicks in to heat the air. This heating speeds the release of air to power the car’s pistons, increasing the cars speeds [4]. Since this process requires the use of a combustion engine and electricity to power the onboard air compressor, the air-powered cars emissions greater. This will be evaluated later in the paper. The air-powered car is able to collect compressed air in its onboard storage tank in two ways. One way is the car can be electrically injected with compressed air directly into its thermoplastic and carbon fiber tank. For this method to be used, air stations similar to today’s gas stations will be necessary. This process of refueling takes approximately three minutes [4]. While there are obviously no air stations available in today’s market for air-powered car fueling, Shiva Vencat, Chief Executive of Zero Pollution Motor (ZPM), does not see this as a downside. He claims that the economic Invisible Hand will take care of that problem when the time is right and air stations will be on the market when they are needed [3]. Key Words – Air-Powered Car, Compressed Air Motor, Guy and Cyril Negre, Tata Motors, Zero Emission Engine. INTRODUCTION In this time of immense fossil fuel dependency and uncertainty of our environmental future, the exploration of alternative, sustainable fuel sources becomes exceedingly important, especially in the area of transportation. While some examples of such vehicles can been seen on the road now, such as the hybrid and electrics cars, greater innovation is necessary. One such innovation that has been on the drawing board for at least the past 20 years is the airpowered car. The air-powered car is a vehicle that runs on compressed air stored in an onboard, pressurized tank. While the use of such a car may seem new, the idea for an air-powered car has been around since the early 20th century when innovators were working to come up with vehicle designs that could compete with the popular horse and buggy [1]. Not only is the idea of an air-powered vehicle dated, but also the technology behind a compressed air car has been in use for years. An example of this is stated in one article saying that, “off-the-shelf technology already uses compressed air to drive old-fashioned car engine pistons instead of combusting gas or diesel fuel to create a burst of air” [2]. University of Pittsburgh Twelfth Annual Freshman Conference Swanson School of Engineering April 14, 2012 1 Baggott McMullen The other method for refueling the air-powered car is by plugging the car into a wall outlet. This allows the car’s onboard air compressor to pressurize air surrounding the car. This process takes approximately four hours [4]. Unlike gasoline, compressed air is not an energy source. Compressed air is an energy storage medium similar to an electric battery [1]. According to the authors of the article, “Compressed Air Vehicles,” “Unlike other fuel types, which store energy within the chemical bonds of the fuel, compressed air derives its energy from the thermodynamic work done by an expanding gas” [1]. The thermodynamic work done by expanding gas in compressed air will be explained later in the paper. Where XV, Xm = energy density per unit volume and mass, respectively, mT = tank mass; R = universal gas constant; T = temperature of gas; M = molecular mass of gas [1]. Equations (2) and (3) show that in order to increase volumetric energy density, an increase in tank pressure is necessary. Similar to what was stated earlier, an increase in tank pressure leads to greater inefficiencies in the expansion process, limiting any benefits caused by the increase in energy stored [1]. Energy Density of Compressed Air Gas Expansion Losses Compressed air has a very low energy density, especially compared to the energy density of gasoline or electric batteries. This means that a large volume onboard storage tank is necessary to achieve a similar amount of energy output compared to that of an average volume tank of gasoline or an electric battery [5]. However, the small size of the air-powered vehicle limits the amount of space available for the onboard storage tank. This difficulty can be addressed with the use of next-generation, high-pressure tanks in air-powered cars. The current tanks used in air car design are carbon fiber and can be pressurized to 5,100 psi. These next-generation tanks can be pressurized to 10,000 psi [1]. While this option of using modern tanks may seem logical, higher tank pressure will lead to inefficiencies caused by greater losses of energy due to gas expansion [1]. This will be explained in greater detail in the following equations. The energy that is contained by compressed air is in the form of potential energy. This energy is equal to the amount of work that can be produced when the air expands to ambient pressure. The amount of energy can therefore be found by (1) below, which shows the amount of energy stored in the tank as a function of its volume and pressure. ET = -pTVT ln (pA/pT) As stated above, the thermodynamics of gas expansion greatly reduces the available energy in compressed air. The amount of energy lost through expansion depends on the decompression of the air through one of two processes. The first process, isothermal, achieves maximum efficiency of 100 percent when the temperature of the gas is held constant. This process is recognizable through the very slow expansion of the gas. The second process, adiabatic, achieves minimum efficiency when no heat is transferred within the system. This process is recognizable through the rapid expansion of the gas [1]. As stated earlier, the airpowered car relies on the slow release of the compressed air to power the car’s pistons. Therefore, the air-powered car’s expansion process is isothermal when the car travels at speeds under 35 miles per hour and does not rely on the small combustion engine [6]. However, over speeds of 35 miles per hour when the air-powered car relies on a small combustion engine to heat the compressed air and speed up the release, the air-powered car’s expansion process is adiabatic. Equation (4) below is used to calculate the work done by gas expansion. Based on (4) a gas expansion process is isothermal when n=1. The process becomes closer to adiabatic as the value of n increases until n=1.37, which represents a perfectly adiabatic process. (1) Where ET = tank energy, VT = tank volume, and PA, PT = ambient and tank pressures, respectively. WE = pTVT (n/n-1) ((pA/pT)n-1/1 -1) Where WE = work done when gas expands, pT = tank pressure, VT = tank volume, pA = ambient atmospheric pressure, and n = the degree to which the expansion process is adiabatic or isothermal [1]. However, “the energy embodied in compressed air itself can be expressed independently of the storage tank, in the form of energy density per unit volume or unit mass” [Papson, Creutzig, Schipper]. This is shown in (2) and (3). XV = (ET/VT) = pT ln (pT/ pA) (2) Xm = (ET/mT) = (RT/M) ln (pT/ pA) (3) (4) Comparison to Other Alternative Fuel Cars University of Pittsburgh Twelfth Annual Freshman Conference Swanson School of Engineering April 14, 2012 2 Baggott McMullen While increasing the pressure of compressed air increases its energy density, compressed air still does not carry as much energy as gasoline or electric batteries. According to the article “Compressed Air Vehicles,” “compressed air holds only 0.5% of the energy in gasoline...” [1]. Electric batteries used in electric cars, such as lead acid, nickel cadmium, nickel metal hybride, and lithium ion, also have greater energy densities than compressed air. Even though compressed air has greater energy by mass than electric batteries, compressed air holds only 12 percent of the energy in Lithium ion batteries [1]. Similarly, Mechanical engineering assistant professor at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, James Van de Ven, said that air compressors only recover 25 to 30 percent of the energy used to compress the air, while the remainder of the energy is lost [4]. This loss is attributed to heat, air leakage, and other forms of waste. Van de Ven also said that the overall efficiency of the air-powered car is nowhere near the 80 percent efficiency of hybrid-electric cars [4]. Therefore, one possibility for increasing the efficiency of the air-powered car is by making it a hybrid vehicle that runs on compressed air and some other energy source, such as gasoline, diesel, or electricity. FIGURE 1 “COMPARISON OF VEHICLE CARBON INTENSITY ACROSS ELECTRICITY GENERATION SCENARIOS” [1]. This report from “Compress Air Vehicles” also showed that the air-powered vehicle had the worst urban driving range of the electrically powered Think City and gasolinepowered Volkswagen Fox. Because of the limited space on the air-powered car and the low energy density of compressed air, the air-powered car achieves only about 29 miles of travel on one tank of fuel. The gasoline-powered Volkswagen Fox is able to travel about 408 miles on one tank of fuel, and because of its efficiency, the electrically powered Think City can travel about 127 miles on one charge [1]. These results can be seen in Table 1. Lastly, the report evaluated the air-powered car, the Volkswagen Fox, and the Think City in terms of fuel cost based on average 2007 prices. Prices are based on 2007 prices because that was the time that the article was written and the time that the designing of the air-powered car was at its peak. At that time, the average cost of electricity was $0.21/mi, and the average cost of gasoline was $2.80/gal. This was equivalent to $0.09/mi for the Volkswagen Fox. The results of this comparison can also be seen in Table 1. This table shows that the cost of fueling the air-powered is over twice as much as the cost of fueling a gasoline-powered car such as the Volkswagen Fox. While gasoline is obviously more expensive today, even if it costs $3.80/gal today that would be equivalent to $0.12/mi for the Volkswagen Fox. Therefore, even compared to today’s prices, the fuel cost of the air-powered car is greater than the gasoline-powered car [1]. ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT To evaluate the environmental impact of the air-powered vehicle, one peer-reviewed article called “Compressed Air Vehicles,” compared the air-powered vehicle to an urban gasoline vehicle, the Volkswagen Fox, and an urban electric vehicle, the Think City. The authors looked at each car’s driving range, carbon footprint, and fuel cost. Since both the air-powered car and the electric car rely on electricity, their carbon emissions vary based on how the electricity used was generated. However, the emissions of the gasoline-powered car are constant at 11.3 kg CO2/gal [1]. The graph in Figure 1 shows the comparison of carbon emission of all three vehicles, the air-powered car, the electric car, and the gasoline powered-car, across different electricity generating scenarios. The scenarios used in this report were a low-carbon scenario of electricity generation from natural gas, a high-carbon scenario of electricity generation from coal, and an average scenario of electricity generation based on a U.S. average fuel mix. Based on these results, the air-powered car has the greatest carbon footprint of all three vehicle types in any scenario of electricity generation [1]. University of Pittsburgh Twelfth Annual Freshman Conference Swanson School of Engineering April 14, 2012 3 Baggott McMullen TABLE 1 Figure 2 shows the typical velocity of cars for different types of roadways [7]. Given this information, it is clear that the air-powered car would be considered most environmentally beneficial in local areas, such as cities, because traffic patterns do not commonly break 35 miles per hour. Studies show that Los Angeles, California has the worse traffic congestion of any other city in the entire nation. The INRIX is a traffic services company that collects historical and real-time traffic information. According to the INRIX, commuters to Los Angeles, the second largest populated city in the United States, waste eighty-six hours a year stuck in traffic. During rush hour on the 110 North, the average speed is only 6 miles per hour [8]. Figure 3 shows the speeds at which carbon dioxide emissions are at their greatest. The graph shows that cars release the most amounts of carbon dioxide emissions when stuck in urban traffic and when exceeding speeds of 60 miles per hour. This means that a single Los Angeles commuter spends 86 hours a year releasing the highest amounts of carbon dioxide possible from their car. With the above facts in mind, the air-powered car seems like an ideal choice for urban transportation because it would be releasing nothing but clean air when stopped in urban traffic. This being the case, it would be ideal for the airpowered car to be used in urban areas where the benefit of zero emission release under thirty-five miles per hour can be taken advantage of. “PERFORMANCE CHARACTERISTICS OF CAVS VERSUS GASOLINE AND ELECTRIC VEHICLES” [1]. URBAN-BASED VEHICLE The main appeal of the air-powered car as an urban vehicle is its 6-cylinder air-powered engine [4]. However, the airpowered car has the major drawback of running on pure air power only at speeds up to 35 miles per hour, as mentioned before. The car will then switch to a small conventional engine that can run on various gases, such as gasoline, diesel, or other fuels. FIGURE 2 “TYPICAL VEHICLE VELOCITY PATTERNS FOR DIFFERENT ROADWAY TYPES AND CONDITIONS” [7]. Current Market Since the air-powered car’s engine is most beneficial to the environment in urban areas, and it is still in early designing stages, manufacturers have focused their production in overpopulated, underdeveloped cities. To date, the only automaker licensed to sell Nègre’s technology is the India based, Tata Motors. Based on size alone, Tata Motors is the eighteenth largest motor vehicle manufacturing company in the world. As stated earlier in this paper, the company bought the rights to the technology in 2007 and made plans to mass-produce the air-powered vehicles in Indian. Their plan was to later sell the production rights to the United States for 15,000,000 dollars. However, currently Tata focuses its sales in densely populated and underdeveloped cities in India [2]. An example of such a city is the Indian city of Mumbai. Mumbai has the fourth largest population in the world, and it is only surpassed in population density by other Indian cities. Mumbai is also one of the most polluted cities in the world. As of August 2008, only 31 air-powered buses were running in India as opposed to the 3812 diesel buses. Considering the fact that air-powered transportation is a new form of transportation, this may not be very surprising information. However, 292 more diesel buses were put on FIGURE 3 “EMISSION-SPEED PLOT OF INDIVIDUAL TRIPS OR TRIP SEGMENTS” [7]. University of Pittsburgh Twelfth Annual Freshman Conference Swanson School of Engineering April 14, 2012 4 Baggott McMullen the road in a matter of seven months, while 6 air-powered buses were taken off the road in the same time frame [9]. hybrid, and city and industrial transportation use slower moving vehicles, the air-powered car could be beneficial if assimilated into these areas. Two companies that are currently looking into using the air-powered car are Air France Industries and KLM Engineering & Maintenance. These two companies are trying to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions to meet AirFrance KLM Group’s environmental policy in order to reduce ecosystem impacts [4]. The 2008 mayor of Paris, France considered the use of the air-powered car for urban “rent-by-the-hour” transportation. At this point, the mayor of Nice, France, committed the city and its outlying regions to testing the airpowered car and possibly using them as car-rentals [11]. No major information on how the air-powered car has been accepted in these two areas has been collected yet. If the bus system in India is any indication of its growth, then it probably did not progress very far. In 2008, MDI developed the vehicle known as the OneCAT. The basic three-seat model ended up costing the consumer about 5000 dollars. The OneCat weighed 700 pounds or .35 tons, and had a zero-pollution urban range of 62 miles [12]. Even with environmentally friendly models, like the OneCAT, the air-powered car has yet to become a wellestablished vehicle, and it continues to make up a small portion of public transportation where it is found [13]. Since the concept is not very deeply explored, it does not come as a surprise that the air-powered car has just enough draw backs to keep it on the side of the road and nearly out of sight. FEASIBILITY With the reduction of air-powered public buses in India, questions arise to whether or not the air-powered car will ever become a feasible resolve to harmful fuel dependencies. Are the vehicle’s mechanics and environmental impacts enough to become a strong competitor with other environmentally friendly cars, such as the hybrid and electric car? Even if the air-powered car becomes a viable new form of transportation, how well will it be incorporated into the power craving style that is the American auto-industry? Mechanics and Environmental Impacts The main issue with the mechanics behind the air-powered car is its efficiency. While the air-powered car emits no harmful gases below speeds of 35 miles per hour, it can only do this for 62 miles. This is because the energy density of air is much less than that of fossil fuels and batteries. Unfortunately, this problem cannot be solved by simply increasing pressure, because this would only lead to inefficiencies caused by greater losses of energy during gas expansion [1]. Not only can the car not store as much energy as a hybrid or electric car, but it also cannot recover as high of a percent of the energy stored. The air-powered car can only use 25 to 30 percent of the energy used to compress the air, which is much less than the 80 percent efficiency of hybrid-electric cars [4]. Tests run by KLM, a part of Air-France, also showed that an air-powered car with a combustible fuel engine released more greenhouse gases than an electric car. With batteries being common in everyday life, research into making them better is in high demand. Therefore, the electric car benefits by having a larger scale of research being done on its fuel source. However, thermodynamic technology has no real push to better performance, so research behind the airpowered car rests solely on the designers of the air-powered car [10]. Although the air-powered car is in fact feasible and could one day compete with hybrid and electric cars as a method of carbon footprint reduction, some major improvements still need to be made. One method to improve the airpowered car would be to make it a hybrid with some other fuel source. Even with these changes, it does not seem likely that it will gain an advantage over either the hybrid or the electric car [10]. American Market While the market for the air-powered car seems to be growing in popularity as an urban rental fuel saver, it has yet to make an appearance on the roads in America. According to an article by Motor Authority, the American company Zero Pollution Motors (ZPM), which is affiliated with MDI, planned to sell two models of the airpowered car in 2010. The CityCat and the OneCAT designs were to go on sale, but seeing as they have not yet been on the American market to date, something must have gone wrong. It is possible that the air-powered car was viewed too optimistically and recent information has stalled its progression [13]. While the air-powered car has hit a wall in mass production, it may hit an even bigger wall known as the American consumer. Today American consumers want to be “green” without having to give up the luxuries of their gaspowered vehicles and without paying an arm and a leg. With a lighter design and large power loss compared to gasoline powered engines and hybrids, it seems unlikely that the current designs will be widely welcomed in America any time soon. Considering it took the electric car almost 70 years after the first model was built to gain American Urban Transportation Since the air-powered car falls short to hybrids and electric cars in efficiency, it would be better suited for urban or even industrial areas. This is because speeds will remain low enough for the car to release no harmful gases. Because the buying price of the air-powered car is cheaper than any University of Pittsburgh Twelfth Annual Freshman Conference Swanson School of Engineering April 14, 2012 5 Baggott McMullen consumer attention, it is not likely that the air-powered car will never make it in the American automobile market any time in the near future [14]. [14] “Timeline: History of the Electric Car.” (2009, Oct. 30). PBS.org. [Online]. Available: http://www.pbs.org/now/shows/223/electric-cartimeline.html REFERENCES [1] Papson, Andrew, Felix Creutzig, and Lee Schipper (2010). “Compressed Air Vehicles: Drive Cycle Analysis of Vehicle Performance, Environmental Impacts, and Economic Costs.” Journal of the Transportation Research Board. No. 2191. p. 67-74 [2] “TATA Buys Rights to Make ‘Air-Powered Cars’ for Indian Market.” (2008, Nov. 5). Asian News International. [Online Article]. Available: http://www.lexisnexis.com/hottopics/lnacademic/?shr=t&csi=282802 &sr=HLEAD (TATA+BUYS+RIGHTS+TO+MAKE+%27AIRPOWERED+CARS%27+FOR+INDIAN+MARKET)+and+date+is+N ovember,%202008 [3] Ferguson, Wm. (2008, Apr. 20). “The Compressed-Air Car.” New York Times Magazine. p. 71 [4] Strumpf, Dan. (2009, May 31). “Entrepreneur believes air-powered cars will fly Zero Pollution Motors weathers experts' criticism.” The Houston Chronicle. p. 4 [Online Article]. Available: http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/BCRC?srchtp=adv&c=1&ste=31 &tbst=tsVS&tab=2&aca=nwmg&bConts=2&RNN=CJ200969565&d ocNum=CJ200969565&locID=upitt_main [5] Liu, Lin and Yu, Xiaoli. (2008). “Practicality Study on Air-Powered Vehicle.” Higher Education Press and Springer-Verlag. [Online Article]. Available: http://www.springerlink.com/content/721r7419j51104m7/ [6] Greenberg, Lisa. (2002, Dec.). “Compressed Air Becomes Latest Alternative ‘Fuel’.” Automotive Body Repair News. vol. 41. p. 98 [7] Barth, Matthew and Boriboonsomsin. (2009, Fall). “Traffic Congestion and Greenhouse Gases.” ACCESS. p.2-9 [Online Article]. Available: http://www.uctc.net/access/35/access35_Traffic_Congestion_and_Gre nhouse_Gases.shtml [8] Gleeson, Gene. (2010, Feb. 23). “Study ranks L.A. as most congested in U.S.” Los Angeles News. [Online Article]. Available: http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?section=news/local/los_angeles&id =7292591 [9] “Mumbai Traffic Stats; Statistics for Reference on Transportation in Mumbai.” (2009). Mumbai Environmental Social Network. [Online]. Available: http://www.mesn.org/mumbai%20traffic%20stats.html ADDITIONAL SOURCES “An Air-Powered Car by 2009? Don’t Hold Your Breath.” (2008, Feb. 27). The New York Times. [Online]. Available: http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/02/27/an-air-powered-car-by-2009/ Clark, Amy. (2009 Apr. 14). “Voila! A Car Powered by Air.” CBS News. [Online]. Available: www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/10/28/tech/main2135518.shtml Ryan, Lisa and Turton, Hall. (2007). Sustainable Automobile Transport. Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar Publishing, Inc. p. 23-52, 92-98, 227-253 Sperling, Daniel and Gordon, Deborah. (2009). Two Billion Cars: Driving Toward Sustainability. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, Inc. p. 151-179 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS We would like to give special thanks to our grader, Janine Carlock, our Chair, Andrew Deao, our Co-Chair, Stephanie O’Neill, and our advisor, Beth Newborg for their help with this paper. [10] “KLM Testing MDI AirPod Compressed Air Cars at Schiphol; UC Berkeley Study Finds Compressed Air Cars Significantly Less Efficient than Battery Electric Vehicles.” (2009, Dec. 13). Green Car Congress. [Online Article]. Available: http://www.greencarcongress.com/2009/12/klm-mdi-20091213.html [11] Fairley, Peter. (2009, Nov.). “Deflating the Air Car.” IEEE Spectrum. [Online Article]. Available: http://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/environment/deflating-the-air-car/0 [12] “Air Car Models of the CATvolution.” AirCarCATvolution. [Online]. Available: http://aircarcatvolution.com/air-car-model/onecat-eng.php [13] Ireson, Nelson. (2008, Feb. 21). “Tata-backed air-powered car in U.S. by 2010.” Motor Authority. [Online Article]. Available: http://www.motorauthority.com/news/1025098tata-backed-airpowered-car-in-u-s-by-2010 University of Pittsburgh Twelfth Annual Freshman Conference Swanson School of Engineering April 14, 2012 6