DailyDirt: Making Lightweight Cars
from the urls-we-dig-up dept
Only about 15% of a car's fuel actually goes towards propulsion, but making cars lighter would still significantly improve fuel efficiency. The trick will be maintaining the safety (or perceived safety) of lightweight cars... which also need to share the roads with trucks and cars that haven't been on a diet. Here are some interesting links on materials that might make cars greener and lighter.- Coal ash is a cheap waste product, but it might also be a good filler material to make cars about 10% lighter. Coal ash added to steel or aluminum could create less dense metals that are still just as strong. [url]
- Brazilian scientists are working on incorporating fibers from bananas, pineapples and other plant matter into plastic car parts to make them stronger and lighter and more renewable. Instead of wood paneling on old station wagons, there might be a faint fruity smell to car dashboards, bumpers and body panels. [url]
- Injecting more air into plastic parts when they're created could produce more lightweight materials. The air bubbles have to be really really small, though, so that the structural integrity of the final part isn't affected too much. [url]
- To discover more interesting car-related content, check out what's driving around StumbleUpon. [url]
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Filed Under: coal ash, fuel efficiency, lightweight cars, plastic
Reader Comments
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Time Travel
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15%?
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Response to: Anonymous Coward on Apr 6th, 2011 @ 6:21pm
Here's a quick video on topic: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=joMK1WZjP7g
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Re: 15%?
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google "henry ford hemp car"
http://www.hiddenmysteries.org/conspiracy/facts/fordhemp.html
"Ford demonstrated the strength of the car body by smashing an ax against the trunk, only to have it bounce off."
Also http://hempcar.org/ford.shtml
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Re: Response to: Anonymous Coward on Apr 6th, 2011 @ 6:21pm
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Re: Time Travel
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Re: google "henry ford hemp car"
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All we need are millions of really, really tiny people to blow those bubbles.
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Re: 15%?
I didn’t say it was just from the road.
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Re: Re: 15%?
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Re: 15%?
http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/atv.shtml
That site explains it in most detail:
In gasoline-powered vehicles, over 62% of the fuel's energy is lost in the internal combustion engine (ICE). ICE engines are very inefficient at converting the fuel's chemical energy to mechanical energy, losing energy to engine friction, pumping air into and out of the engine, and wasted heat.
Advanced engine technologies such as variable valve timing and lift, turbocharging, direct fuel injection, and cylinder deactivation can be used to reduce these losses.
In addition, diesels are about 30-35% more efficient than gasoline engines, and new advances in diesel technologies and fuels are making these vehicles more attractive.
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Re: 15%?
So at a constant velocity, all the engine’s output is being used up in friction.
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Re: Re: 15%?
One may argue that a heavier car requires more energy to maintain a constant speed regardless of exposed surface area and aerodynamics, but that's only because a heavier car creates more surface friction along the imperfect road/surface. If you were on a frictionless surface (ie: while ice isn't frictionless, skis on ice have less friction than cars on pavement) then the energy required to maintain a constant speed wouldn't depend on weight nearly as much.
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Re: Re: Re: 15%?
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Re: Re: Re: 15%?
Sure your hands aren't on wheels, but even if you performed the same experiment with a hot wheel (gently roll the car across the surface vs pushing down hard and rolling it across the surface) the result will be that pushing it down requires more energy to maintain a constant speed. Somewhere along the line, the extra weight of (or applied to) the car produces more friction.
Much of that is also dependent upon the smoothness of the surface as well. For example, it would generally be much more difficult to overcome a bump on the road if there is more weight vs if there is less weight, especially if it's a sharp bump where the gain in potential energy due to moving up is lost as a result of the vehicle moving straight down in opposed to moving down over a smooth slope.
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