Alternative Propulsion And Hulls

psychobikerbill, the HHO systems, such as the design im working on could quite possibly run a car on hydrogen gas, im buying a small lawnmower engine for scaled tests soon, a fuel cell would be much more reliable than actually running it in an engine, so i could probably get a small planing hull and an appropriate sized hydrogen fuel cell to test it out in a marine platform, and since salt water is quite electrically conductive, i probably wouldnt need to use potassium hydroxide to increase conductivity of the water.. maybe ill build or buy an 18' bass boat to give it a try, seen them go for a couple hundred used near here for the hulls.. but i think displacement hulls will be a very, very long shot, so for testing hho i think ill stick with planing, hydrofoil, and multihulls.. multihull probably the best bet since planing and hydrofoils require a certain amount of speed till the displacement and resistance is lifted, could probably construct a small cat using metal drums for the hulls and see how that goes

 

You may wish to research SES (Surface Effect Ship) and Surface Effect Craft. You can start by using my user name in the advanced search function of this forum and SES or Hovercraft.

http://www.boatdesign.net/forums/showthread.php?t=15137&page=10&highlight=atlantic hovercraft

 

Anyone I've ever talked to says it's too inefficient to do this on a small boat, not to mention that the initial cost is several times higher than the use of a simple diesel marine engine driving the prop directly through a gearbox.

 

Running a diesel to run a generator to charge a battery bank is certainly NOT
all that efficient.

The losses resulting from converting the output of a diesel motor to stored electrical energy inside a storage vessel ( battery bank in this case ) could not be recovered , regardless of " more torque " of the any electric motor,let alone INCREASE the efficiency.I dearly wished it was otherwise , but it`s simply not , at least not at this point in time.

As Ken already mentioned , the cost is excessive also.

I commend you for trying.It would be great if someone does this.

 

I suggest that you finish the alternative energy power system first, then measure its output. You may find that it puts out so little power that installing and testing it in a boat would be a complete waste of time.

 

Most folks can get the highest level of efficiency by being able to accept two compromises.

A VERY! small diesel working at 80+% of cont rated power and at 90% of rated rpm will give the most range. Were talking 6 to 15HP here.

However there will be NO power reserve for powering into "the big ones" so its best on a well found sail boat.

And there will be NO power reserve (or tiny) for aux systems like battery charging, water makers etc.

You will still be able to have items like Hyd windlass as the entire engine power will be at the pump. with zero needed for propulsion.

The other compromise required is to operate under power at slow SL X .8 or max .9 .

If you can handle 4K or 5K on a 36ft lwl , 15-18 nm/g should be EZ and more depending on the quality of the installed gear & propeller.

FF

 

i guess everyone here is suddenly an expert on engineering and physics and my years in college for it make me the least knowledgable on the subject

 

"my years in college for it make me the least knowledgable on the subject"


Probably , while any "engineering student" may create an acceptable bridge , with a book,

The chances of someone outside any field , with zero practical experience , and not even a knowledge of recent Source material to go "cutting edge" is close to ZERO.

For boat designers and aircraft designers where a 10% improvement would be a MONUMENTAL life goal realized , the chances of someone inexperienced and unknowledgable getting beyond current efficiency is sorta slim.

The board , if your really lucky will keep you from blowing cash and time on dreams , and let you get out sailing .

When properly selected current tech will get the job done at low cost , repairable and even have a resale value , an amateur experiment may never have.

Good Luck in reaching your goal, whatever it is.

FF

 

I did engineering too , so what ?
I can`t do it.I openly admit it for all to see.
No one else seems to be able to either.

You certainly haven`t proven much, at least not here.
Oh yes , I forgot , your`e too busy calling people idiots.....

A true measure of efficiency has to include how much the
system costs , not just to run it , but to put it together in the first place.
How much more will it cost , and how much fuel would this buy ?

play_ with_ fire (as your forum user name translates from German)
is appropriate when looking at the expenses alone...

Theory is fine .But in the end it comes to this :

Show me your system , prove that it works

 

And that is the key to it all.

If anyone's interested in saving money on do-it-yourself alternative power, may I suggest the following:
1. Do a schematic diagram of your system
2. Buy an engineering thermodynamics textbook (I recommend Moran & Shapiro, but there are plenty more)
3. Read (2) and apply the chapters on the First Law and Second Law to (1)
4. If (3) didn't completely kill your enthusiasm for the plan, read the chapter on exergy analysis, then compare the cost of your system to the cost of the way we do it now.
5. If you've made it through the first 4 steps and haven't said "Aaahhhh... oops", you might have something worth investigating.

I should note that diesel-electric does come out ahead in this type of analysis in many cases- but not all. Large house load fractions and a wide range in target operating speeds tend to work in favour of D-E. For most yacht applications, KISS wins. "HHO gas", on-board electrolyzers, and all that other "free energy" stuff barely breaks even under the First Law, and completely falls apart under the Second Law.

Happy sailing.... wind is free after all. (If only the same could be said for sailcloth.)

 

I will save myself a lot of trouble marshmat .
I admit that I found the " too hard ( read impossible ? ) basket " early
in the exercise. I think you know more about this than I do .

I also believe what you say.

 

At first I thought this thread was going to be interesting, and I was willing to try to help steer spiel_mit_feuer in the right direction -- or at least in some direction since he seems to have none. But it seems he is also unwilling to demonstrate respect for the far more experienced and knowledgeable members of this forum ...

I'm not really surprised to see this type of behavior. Some colleges these days are very good at teaching recent grads how to disrespect their elders and other people with decades of practical experience -- people who actually know how things work in the real world, and from whom inexperienced college kids like this one might actually learn a thing or two.

But even if spiel_mit_feuer eventually stops talking about everything under the sun and gains some focus for a change, I think his piss-poor attitude will preclude his learning anything of value from the rest of us anyways -- and I will simply not tolerate any more of his caustic, condescending and disrespectful posts any more so I'm out of here.

 

you might be interesteed in maxpower engines, they make factory converted LPG engines www.65engineparts.com
Talk to Eric, he can help you to the best solution

 

Alternative fuels..

I have schematics for solid state electric generators, but I don't know how to post them here- HUGE pdf file. If anyone here is interested, I can try to e-mail them- just send me an e-mail at psychobikerbill@comcast.net and I will do anything I can to help.

 

well kengrome, i refuse to show respect to someone who comes into my posts with nothing but negative things to say, he's done nothing but come onto my posts and just **** on everything, senior member or not, i dont give it a ****.. if he's just looking to start something he should go elsewhere because im not interested in his misplaced, misguided criticism, and his "its impossible to do something thats never been done" attitude