System for Producing Mechanical Energy from Electrical Energy

Abstract

A system for producing mechanical energy from electrical energy. The system has a source of electrical current, a boiler device for producing hot vapor from an electrically-conductive liquid directly from the electrical current, the boiler device comprising at least two electrodes that are electrically coupled to the source of electrical current and boil the liquid into a vapor by passing the current between the electrodes through the liquid, and an engine that produces mechanical energy from the hot vapor.

Description

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION[0001]This application claims priority of Provisional application Ser. No. 61 / 134,834 filed on Jul. 14, 2008. The entire contents of the Provisional application are incorporated herein by reference.FIELD OF THE INVENTION[0002]The present invention relates to the field of engine power, specifically to a dielectric steam hybrid engine system.BACKGROUND OF INVENTION[0003]Steam engines capable of meeting and even exceeding modern automotive performance requirements have been known since at least the mid-1920s and early 1930s, when Abner Doble developed innovations for the mechanisms (boilers, blowers, pistons, gears, valves, etc.) for operating several automotive steam engines. He also worked for several years in the early 1950s on the “Paxton Phoenix Project” steam sports car that was developed by the McCulloch Motors Corporation (known today for chainsaws and the like). However, the emphasis in Project Phoenix—which also used gasoline as its fuel ...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0029]Although the present invention has a great many potential uses, it is contemplated that the most significant advantage of the present invention lies in the elimination of the need for gasoline, or any other liquid fuel, from vehicle engines. The value of reducing or eliminating the dependence upon fossil fuels for power and transportation is impossible to overstate under existing geopolitical, economic and environmental conditions.

[0030]The unique combination of elements in the present invention produces a dielectric-steam hybrid engine system without any internal combustion and eliminates the need for fossil fuels to drive automobiles or other vehicular systems that use internal combustion engines. Therefore, it also eliminates the deadly threat of carbon monoxide poisoning associated with all fossil fuel internal combustion engines.

[0031]The ESG or other steam generator for the invention can be powered by any source of electrical energy, such as a combination of on-board batteries, shore power charging (for example, overnight charging, as utilized in the “Prius Plus” available through www.CalCars.org), and newly developed power generation technologies (for example: solar cells on the car or truck roof). Vehicles using the inventive system may also be equipped with accumulator devices to recover additional mechanical energy and regeneratively feed it back to the batteries, a scheme which is readily available to those who are skilled in the art of automotive engineering, and presently such devices can be installed in existing gasoline-electric hybrid vehicle designs. Due to the high price and limited supply of gasoline and fossil fuels, there is presently a great incentive for the development of such new power generation technologies, and the present system is versatile enough to accommodate the use of many such technologies, as long as they are capable of running a dielectric heating device such as the dielectrical steam generator, as described herein.

[0032]This invention allows a relatively lightweight and small engine system to replace the comparatively large and heavy engine, transmission and exhaust systems associated with internal combustion. It also provides tremendous amounts of torque in a small package. Those factors serve to overturn the current design paradigm that has been trending toward smaller and smaller vehicles in order to take advantage of “alternative fuel” sources. Even as the world's cars have been getting smaller and smaller, it is clear that when given the chance the public has consistently shown a strong preference for larger vehicles—large cars, SUVs, and pickup trucks. This public preference has drawn a lot of criticism from parts of the environmental movement in recent decades but studies have shown that larger cars are safer cars and that when vehicles get smaller a disproportionate amount of injuries and deaths occur. The smaller the car, the more likely the occupants are to be maimed or killed when a collision occurs. The inventive dielectric-steam hybrid engine system makes it possible to once again build large cars, SUVs, and trucks with real desirable road power characteristics without having to worry about damaging the immediate environment. The invention will facilitate a return to full-size vehicles in terms of both driver and passenger space and trunk and cargo capacity.

[0033]The present invention thus provides technology which is extremely versatile and can be scaled from small engines, such as those which might be used to power a push-type lawn mower or snow blower, to automotive vehicles, right up to trucks, tractor trailers, construction vehicles, lawn tractors, buses, motorcycles and scooters, farm machinery, forklifts, industrial and mining equipment, military vehicles, and even to train locomotives, light rail trolleys, boats and beyond by simply increasing the number and / or size of the steam engine cylinders and / or the number and / or size of the electric steam generator, and / or increasing the capacity of electrical input—for example, by increasing the number or size of batteries, capacitors, fuel cells, or other sources of electrical input. The electrical input can include newly developed technologies such as solar power in some embodiments, especially for those vehicles which have large surface areas that would lend themselves to being covered with solar cells such as large trucks, trains, ships, and some types of manned or unmanned aircraft, such as drones or dirigibles.

[0034]In addition to eliminating the need to use internal combustion engines in vehicles, this invention also allows for the elimination from vehicles of some or all of a host of gasoline-associated systems such as the ignition, timing system, carburetor, cooling system, clutch, transmission, muffler and catalytic converter. Thus, the need for manufacture of and repairs to these costly and complicated systems will be greatly reduced or eliminated.

Problems solved by technology

For example, these ‘flash’-type boilers rely entirely upon the use of resistive heating elements, which must utilize heat transfer surfaces at a temperature substantially higher than the desired steam temperature, which is undesirable.

The efficiency of such units depends on the efficiency of heat transfer, which is in turn highly dependent on heat transfer surfaces and decreases sharply as the flow of water increases which in turn requires enormous amounts of electricity to continue the heating process.

These deposits further reduce heat transfer efficiency.

However, even when a major effort was made to revive and develop a steam-powered sports car in the 1950s, steam car engine designs—elegant as they undoubtedly were—simply could not overcome fundamental issues associated with their complicated gasoline burners and boilers.

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