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Microcap & Penny Stocks : BAAT - world records for electric vehicles with zinc-air -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: (Bob) Zumbrunnen who wrote (1917)	2/17/1998 12:45:00 PM
From: shashyazhi	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 6464

I can't quantify the efficiency of a spring as an energy storage device, but I do agree with you that a spring's energy return efficiency probably is almost 100%. Hysteresis is the the intermolecular friction which tends to dampen out the self-restoring action of a spring. And hysteresis is related to the natural frequency of a spring. Hysteresis decreases as it cycles from fully compressed to fully decompressed. Hysteresis increases as the spring is compressed. And hysteresis is a function of the natural frequency of a spring. Faster rates of movement increase hysteresis. Some spring designs inherently have less hysteresis. Clock springs exhibit low hysteresis because they unwind at a very slow rate. I envision your spring-assisted vehicle as having a flat spring like a clock, and it gets wound up by the drive train. The driver can choose whether to use this energy assistance at any time, going up a steep hill, or on the flat. Energy gets stored as the vehicle descends a hill. Absorbing energy in a spring is more efficient than wasting the energy by applying brakes and turning the potential energy of position into heat and throwing it away. Your concern about using heavy weights to store energy is justified. Heavy weights would reduce the accleration of the vehicle. Newton said that acceleration equals force divided by mass, so you can easily work out the problem, and see how much the acceleration is reduced by increasing the weight. Using smaller weights and raising them higher implies to me that you have a small derrick sticking up on top of your car, and that you have to avoid certain freeway overpasses just as do large trucks. And you can't get your derrick-mobile into your garage. LOL! But keep thinking and dreaming, it's good exercise for the brain. it passes the time while we wait for good news. We could use some of that.