Investigating The Use Of Hydrogen As An Alternative Fuel

Escalating apprehension about the harmful effects of widespread use of conventional fossil fuels in vehicles, has led to vast amounts of effort and capital being directed towards researching and developing sustainable alternative energy sources. One of the most promising and abundant of these sources is hydrogen. This project analyzes the scope of liquid hydrogen as a replacement for conventional fuels, in comparison to other alternatives as well as gasoline. Recommendations are made on improving methods of hydrogen generation and storage, and a major drawback is observed in the fact that hydrogen requires high amounts of energy for its extraction, but the fuel itself has a low energy density

Flywheel-Accumulator for Compact Hydraulic Energy Storage

The energy density of hydraulic drive trains is inferior in comparison to electrical and mechanical systems. A solution to this problem is to improve the energy storage density by storing potential and rotating kinetic energy in a flywheel-accumulator. A flywheel-accumulator is a cylindrical pressure vessel with oil and gas volumes separated by a piston that is rotated about a central axis. A low-energy prototype was created and tested to verify an increase in energy density and to validate that a parabolic pressure distribution exists on the oil side due to centripetal acceleration. If an increase in energy density is proven, the flywheel-accumulator has the potential to revolutionize compact hydraulic energy storage