New propulsion sytems for ships

Agree, but look at your local marina, GRP and AL, as far as you can see, only.
Naturally, many improvements are possible and worth the effort. I just wanted to point out, that it is´nt as simple as it was said in one of the (very naive) posts above. Just "I go for wind instead of IC engine", is a childish statement and not the whole story.

Regards
Richard

 

childish statement !

Sentiments are not facts
Lets put adult numbers on the table:

In an average sailing boat with his regular sailor:

Sail : 70% of time, hydro generate electricity aboard.
In this case 130% to 150% efficiency from your nominal available electric power as you create energy for present use and stock it too in batteries for future use.
Does your IC engine spits oil in a can if turned reverse when you sail ?

You motor from battery : 20% of time
In harbour I/O or for short distance, cool motion in nice places
100% efficiency as you use an energy you made yourself


you start IC generator: 10% time left to allow you tokeep on moving after battery are flat.
In this case your efficiency is average, more or less like IC+CPP...Not dramatic as it is just 10% of the time of use

Of course if you never sail, only motor...get a motor boat, it is nice too !

This is real life


So in my opinion, we behave like mammoth, myself included
We all are mammoth when we burn oil.
Mammoth have left the surface of earth not because they where good or bad, but only because their time was over
Burning oil is burning our future
Mammoth burn oil.

The time of burning oil should stop as fast as possible.


How much petrol do we have left :
40,60, 120 years with coal liquefied ?

And after ?

After the last drop of oil no more of this !

CARBON FIBERs
KEVLAR
SPECTRA
NOMEX
EPOXY
POLYESTHER
ERTALON
POLYETHYLENE

Imagine your life without theses materials
Heavy life for shure


We need the earth
We need oil for clever secured chemical use only

Earth need urgently respectable use of its resources
Hybrid goes in this direction if installation are good quality and a long lasting, over 20 years, and reliable.

Hybrid lowers oil burning of most boats as it is more efficient for slow and cool motion.

Oil is a gift.
Oil is unique and only replaceable by coal

Burning oil is stupid
I burn oil, just like you
I regret it,
i am not satisfied to do so.
That is why i want an electric boat.

MAYDAY MAYDAY MADY
STOP BURNING OIL IN MOTORS
OIL IS A TREASURE
STOP BURNING OIL

​

 

Physically very interesting point of view, get it patented! Become a billionaire, leave us ignorant ****** stick to ice age. But leave us..........
And thats for free hähh?

 

A cat or trimaran sailing 8/15 Knts will fill the batteries reaching 100% of his energy reserve, and will keep producing 30 to 50 % of the rated power of the motor. So this is a 130 to 150% gain from empty.

You do not like this way of thinking ?
This is the reality of physics
And this is public domain technology, available for all.
Hydro generating electricity just as old as electricity.


Sailing above 12 Knts with a good propeller and a good motor, feeds batteries with 50% efficiency or very close. And maybe more with good prop and MPPT controller

With a 6 Knts heavy trawler, efficiency can be similar, or even better because of low speed
But low speed will also make the total available energy, lower.

Minimum speed to get amps is 5, being better, Knts, You will need a very big propeller, bringing other problems.

You know just like me that force you get in a fluid is more than square of speed.
A cat sailing 12 Knts, is not 2 times more powerful than a 6 Knts trawler but rather 4 times. Same is for energy you bring to your batteries

 

I am moving my boat to highest concentration of electric boat and start charging for tows....

Electric Motors are for windshield wipers.... That will get all you boiling hot.. lol..

 

I hate to throw a wrench into the logic
but we ate out the Woolly Mammoths
there numbers went down as human numbers went up
big slow and apparently kinda tasty

same thing with the ancient wild horses the giant ground sloths and a host of others

as paleolithic man spread throughout new regions
he ate everything dumb enough not to run like hell
and what did run
got herded off a cliff

speaking of cliff
were in the process of heading off one ourselves if we dont learn to get from point a to point b a little more efficiently

wouldnt hurt if we could learn not to eat everything out of existence either

 

You make silly statements again, as usual. Just one point:
A boat of 100 tonnes displ. dragging a prop at 6kn might produce 50 times the energy your tiny toy could do. Still not economically but possible.

Thats physics............................

 

First Around the World with Solar Energy Vessel

...have you fellows seen this??

A project by PlanetSolar to design and construct a solar catamaran that will be used to circumnavigate the globe during a 25,000-mile, 120-day journey in 2010. The company, based in Germany, will use stops during the trip to promote renewable energy and solar power.

At first I wondered, why does a sailboat need solar power? After all, sailboats under sail are the ultimate green vehicles. But then the words “dead calm” leapt into my mind. And, when there’s no cloud cover it certainly is pretty sunny on the ocean.

PlanetSolar is using several products from Autodesk to design the boat including Digital Prototyping features in Autodesk Inventor that will help visualize the impact of design changes. The engineers are also using AutoCAD Electrical and Autodesk Productstream.

Here’s a YouTube video about the project.

Website: http://www.planetsolar.org/bateau.en.php

 

Glad to see that they abandoned the impractical wave piercing trimaran which was their original design. This catamaran design pretty much has the right stuff although I am not sure that their hull shape in maximally efficient. A large flat array with nothing to shade the panels (the slight protrusion of the pilot house bubble should not be a problem). Actually I think that the view from that bubble makes it nearly useless to see anything but the sky. It makes more sense on a boat like this to have the pilot be at a front position on the deck with a remote control so that the boat can be piloted from anywhere on the ship. The designs I have made also have video cameras at at least five locations.

Solar boats require a large battery which also serves as ballast and keeps the CG low. How they build the battery into the boat will be important. These systems need to be accessible while underway.

By the way, solar boats can continue to make headway in cloudy weather. They generate electricity from light. Even dark cloudy conditions allow 10-20% of the rated output. Plus they utilize a large storage battery to have as much as 1-2 days of modest cruising with minimal sun.

Another thing about this design is that it has hinged wings. These can be oriented toward the sun for maximum generation of power. However I have my doubt as to whether this would be practical underway. Generally, mechanical systems are much less reliable than the solid-state photovoltaic system. If one of these wings were to break or become damaged underway it would put a severe restriction on the performance of the vessel.

 

I commend there efforts but that is one but ugly boat

 

You imagine- if when that prop planes where replace with Jets, that these new plans where slower, or in general got worst performance. Would we still be flying in Prop planes. Notice something - propeller planes get better fuel mileage and have a lower carbon footprint than jets. But is any one flying then cross country by choice. How about electric airplanes?

If you want an electric boat - or want to make an electric boat, make it perform like a real boat. Not 1 or 5 or 10 hp, that is a joke. It can't move out of tidal current, or any kinds of flow. Or at least make sure you have a gas outboard as a backup to get it out of the way of that big tanker head your way.

 

myda, I see you are interested in electric boats. I suggest you need to look at the limitations. current battery tech is 0.2kwh/kg. Current motor tech is around 10 kw/kg. What is really nice about it is that the motor is >90% efficient, directly applicable to the screw with no gear. It is a simple device with one moving part for the entire drive train plus bearing balls. There is nothing to wear out except batteries and bearings.
If you need power this is not a problem. You can have batteries with intermittent power of >10kw/kg. However storing a lot of energy in battery is expensive and heavy.
So, figure a way or some ways to charge the batteries. Charging can be >90 efficient. Externally there is sun, waves, water flow for a sailboat (example, with 40% efficiency, a 40cm dia screw can extract ca 3kw at 10kt), and wind.
As you can see solar energy requires some considerable surface. Wind generators are reasonably compact. Wave generators for this application are unknown to me, but should be possible to make quite compact.
Finally there is chemical storage. Since the motor is already an ideal generator, it seems logical to use a rotary engine with a fitting speed.
Or, you can check out the thermoacoustic thread of mine here in propulsion somewhere. Many chemical to mechanical converters can eat a variety of fuels. Especially those with external combustion, like a steam plant, stirling engine, the thermoacoustic one, but also IC piston engines and turbines can often be run on wastes or scavenged fuel like wood or trash.

I don't know the size of your boat... 10hp is perfectly reasonable for many boats up to 50 ft., especially sailboats. Most boats that size has too much resistance though. The three most imporant factors to consider for this, are, a narrow hull, a narrow hull, and low windage.

In my opinion the most obvious reason for getting a motor is the ease of scavenging energy from the surroundings. If you had needs of high short duration power at low weight it could also be considered, but this is not common with boats. Electric transmission is also to be considered. It is chosen sometimes because it allows the engine to move at its most efficient pace for each load.

 

Electric motors have overtaken ICEs in model planes. Half the weight. half the cost and same power but over a wider rev range - ideal for planes. No need to carry a separate electric motor and battery to start them either.

Dare say the fastest growing area for motor transport is electric scooter - take a look at China. The fastest growing area for automobiles is hybrid (essentially electric propulsion). Straight electric cars are now in commercial production.

Certainly small manned aircraft are now using electric motors.

Here is one of my electric motor tests. The motor is running on 24V in the video and listen to the music. It can be run up to 72V and 200A. Roughly 20HP at the shaft. It can be carried in one hand:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zg9-APfZ5Tw
This is serious power to weight and achieves it at 90% efficiency.

Rick W

 

I thought most of that was brush noise but then I read your description again. Care to speculate where it comes from? Looks compact.

 

Hello Rick,
I'm with you buddy. I think this electric drive motor field is wide open for innovation. I am particularly interested in the all-electric car. I do think the 'storage problem' is the biggest obstacle, and I'm trying to track a bit of this EEStor experimentation. Do you know of better or other comparable experimentation in electrical energy storage??

Batteries and New Battery Technologies
http://www.boatdesign.net/forums/boat-design/batteries-new-battery-technologies-21869.html

Put me on your mailing list. I'm on sabbatical from the boating subjects for awhile