Most people think that air conditioners lower the temperature in their

homes simply by pumping cool air in. What's really happening is the
warm air from your house is being removed and cycled back in as
cooler air. This cycle continues until your thermostat reaches the desired
temperature.
An air conditioner is basically a refrigerator without the insulated box. It
uses the evaporation of a refrigerant, like Freon, to provide cooling. The
mechanics of the Freon evaporation cycle are the same in a refrigerator
as in an air conditioner. According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary
Online, the term Freon is generically "used for any of various
nonflammable fluorocarbons used as refrigerants and as propellants for
aerosols."

Diagram of a typical air conditioner.

This is how the evaporation cycle in an air conditioner works (See How
Refrigerators Work for complete details on this cycle):

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  This is how the evaporation cycle in an air conditioner works (See How Refrigerators
Work for complete details on this cycle):
 The compressor compresses cool Freon gas, causing it to become hot, high-pressure
Freon gas (red in the diagram above).
 This hot gas runs through a set of coils so it can dissipate its heat, and it condenses into a
liquid.
 The Freon liquid runs through an expansion valve, and in the process it evaporates to
become cold, low-pressure Freon gas (light blue in the diagram above).
 This cold gas runs through a set of coils that allow the gas to absorb heat and cool down
the air inside the building.
 Mixed in with the Freon is a small amount of lightweight oil. This oil lubricates the
compressor.
 Air conditioners help clean your home's air as well. Most indoor units have filters that
catch dust, pollen, mold spores and other allergens as well as smoke and everyday dirt
found in the air. Most air conditioners also function as dehumidifiers. They take excess
water from the air and use it to help cool the unit before getting rid of the water through
a hose to the outside. Other units use the condensed moisture to improve efficiency by
routing the cooled water back into the system to be reused.
 So this is the general concept involved in air conditioning. In the next section, we'll take
a look at window and split-system units.

4/2/2013 By Gilbert W Techer 3

  A window air conditioner unit implements a complete air
conditioner in a small space. The units are made small
enough to fit into a standard window frame. You close the
window down on the unit, plug it in and turn it on to get
cool air. If you take the cover off of an unplugged window
unit, you'll find that it contains:
 A compressor
 An expansion valve
 A hot coil (on the outside)
 A chilled coil (on the inside)
 Two fans
 A control unit
 The fans blow air over the coils to improve their ability to
dissipate heat (to the outside air) and cold (to the room
being cooled).

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  The cold side, consisting of the expansion valve and the cold coil, is generally placed into
a furnace or some other air handler. The air handler blows air through the coil and
routes the air throughout the building using a series of ducts. The hot side, known as the
condensing unit, lives outside the building.
 The unit consists of a long, spiral coil shaped like a cylinder. Inside the coil is a fan, to
blow air through the coil, along with a weather-resistant compressor and some control
logic. This approach has evolved over the years because it's low-cost, and also because it
normally results in reduced noise inside the house (at the expense of increased noise
outside the house). Other than the fact that the hot and cold sides are split apart and the
capacity is higher (making the coils and compressor larger), there's no difference
between a split-system and a window air conditioner.
 In warehouses, large business offices, malls, big department stores and other sizeable
buildings, the condensing unit normally lives on the roof and can be quite massive.
Alternatively, there may be many smaller units on the roof, each attached inside to a
small air handler that cools a specific zone in the building.
 In larger buildings and particularly in multi-story buildings, the split-system approach
begins to run into problems. Either running the pipe between the condenser and the air
handler exceeds distance limitations (runs that are too long start to cause lubrication
difficulties in the compressor), or the amount of duct work and the length of ducts
becomes unmanageable. At this point, it's time to think about a chilled-water system.


4/2/2013 By Gilbert W Techer 7

  In a chilled-water system, the entire air conditioner lives on the roof or behind the
building. It cools water to between 40 and 45 degrees Fahrenheit (4.4 and 7.2 degrees
Celsius). This chilled water is then piped throughout the building and connected to air
handlers as needed. There's no practical limit to the length of a chilled-water pipe if it's
well-insulated.
 You can see in this diagram that the air conditioner (on the left) is completely standard.
The heat exchanger lets the cold Freon chill the water that runs throughout the building.
 In all of the systems described earlier, air is used to dissipate the heat from the outside
coil. In large systems, the efficiency can be improved significantly by using a cooling
tower. The cooling tower creates a stream of lower-temperature water. This water runs
through a heat exchanger and cools the hot coils of the air conditioner unit. It costs more
to buy the system initially, but the energy savings can be significant over time (especially
in areas with low humidity), so the system pays for itself fairly quickly.
 Cooling towers come in all shapes and sizes. They all work on the same principle:
 A cooling tower blows air through a stream of water so that some of the water
evaporates.
 Generally, the water trickles through a thick sheet of open plastic mesh.
 Air blows through the mesh at right angles to the water flow.
 The evaporation cools the stream of water.
 Because some of the water is lost to evaporation, the cooling tower constantly adds
water to the system to make up the difference.


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  The amount of cooling that you get from a cooling tower depends on the relative
humidity of the air and the barometric pressure.
 For example, assuming a 95-degree Fahrenheit (35-degree Celsius) day, barometric
pressure of 29.92 inches (sea-level normal pressure) and 80-percent humidity, the
temperature of the water in the cooling tower will drop about 6 degrees to 89 degrees
Fahrenheit (3.36 degrees to 31.7 degrees Celsius). If the humidity is 50 percent, then the
water temperature will drop perhaps 15 degrees to 80 degrees Fahrenheit (8.4 degrees to
26.7 degrees Celsius). And, if the humidity is 20 percent, then the water temperature will
drop about 28 degrees to 67 degrees Fahrenheit (15.7 degrees to 19.4 degrees Celsius).
Even small temperature drops can have a significant effect on energy consumption.
 Whenever you walk behind a building and find a unit that has large quantities of water
running through a thick sheet of plastic mesh, you will know you have found a cooling
tower!
 In many office complexes and college campuses, cooling towers and air conditioning
equipment are centralized, and chilled water is routed to all of the buildings through
miles of underground pipes.
 In the next section, we'll look at how much all this cooling power costs.



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 
 Most air conditioners have their capacity rated in British thermal units (BTU). Generally speaking, a BTU is the amount
of heat required to raise the temperature of one pound (0.45 kg) of water 1 degree Fahrenheit (0.56 degrees Celsius).
Specifically, 1 BTU equals 1,055 joules. In heating and cooling terms, 1 "ton" equals 12,000 BTU.
 A typical window air conditioner might be rated at 10,000 BTU. For comparison, a typical 2,000-square-foot (185.8 m2)
house might have a 5-ton (60,000-BTU) air conditioning system, implying that you might need perhaps 30 BTU per
square foot. (Keep in mind that these are rough estimates. To size an air conditioner for your specific needs, contact an
HVAC contractor.)
 The energy efficiency rating (EER) of an air conditioner is its BTU rating over its wattage. For example, if a 10,000-BTU
air conditioner consumes 1,200 watts, its EER is 8.3 (10,000 BTU/1,200 watts). Obviously, you would like the EER to be as
high as possible, but normally a higher EER is accompanied by a higher price.
 Let's say that you have a choice between two 10,000-BTU units. One has an EER of 8.3 and consumes 1,200 watts, and the
other has an EER of 10 and consumes 1,000 watts. Let's also say that the price difference is $100. To understand what the
payback period is on the more expensive unit, you need to know approximately how many hours per year you will be
operating the unit and How much a kilowatt-hour (kWh) costs in your area
 Let's say that you plan to use the air conditioner in the summer (four months a year) and it will be operating about six
hours a day. Let's also imagine that the cost in your area is $0.10/kWh. The difference in energy consumption between
the two units is 200 watts, which means that every five hours the less expensive unit will consume 1 additional kWh (and
therefore $0.10 more) than the more expensive unit.
 Assuming that there are 30 days in a month, you find that during the summer you're operating the air conditioner:
 4 mo. x 30 days/mo. x 6 hr/day = 720 hours
 [(720 hrs x 200 watts) / (1000 watts/kW)] x $0.10/kWh = $14.40
 The more expensive unit costs $100 more, which means that it will take about seven years for the more expensive unit to
break even.
 See Climate Magic for a great explanation of seasonal energy efficiency rating (SEER).
 In the next section, we'll look at cutting these costs with some new, energy-efficient cooling systems.


4/2/2013 By Gilbert W Techer 12

 

 Passive Cooling
 Some people go to the extreme and get rid of their AC units entirely. Passive cooling is the greenest of trends and a great
way to save money. Passive cooling revolves around the concept of removing warm air from your home using the
interaction between the house and its surroundings. There are several ways to block and remove heat, including shading
through landscaping, using a dark exterior paint, installing a radiant barrier in the roof rafters and good old- fashioned
insulation. Another way is through thermal siphoning, the process of removing heat through controlled airflow.
Opening the lower windows on the breezy side of your house and the upper windows on the opposite side creates a
vacuum that draws out the hot air. Ceiling fans and roof vents are other ways to direct heat out at low cost [source: Earth
Easy].
 Because of the rising costs of electricity and a growing trend to "go green," more people are turning to alternative cooling
methods to spare their pocketbooks and the environment. Big businesses are even jumping on board in an effort to
improve their public image and lower their overhead.
 Ice cooling systems are one way that businesses are combating high electricity costs during the summer. Ice cooling is as
simple as it sounds. Large tanks of water freeze into ice at night, when energy demands are lower. The next day, a
system much like a conventional air conditioner pumps the cool air from the ice into the building. Ice cooling saves
money, cuts pollution, eases the strain on the power grid and can be used alongside traditional systems. The downside of
ice cooling is that the systems are expensive to install and require a lot of space. Even with the high startup costs, more
than 3,000 systems are in use worldwide [source: CNN]. You can read more about ice cooling in Are Ice Blocks Better
than Air Conditioning?
 An ice cooling system is a great way to save money and conserve energy, but its price tag and space requirements limit it
to large buildings. One way that homeowners can save on energy costs is by installing geo-thermal heating and cooling
systems, also known as ground source heat pumps (GSHP). The Environmental Protection Agency recently named geo-
thermal units "the most energy-efficient and environmentally sensitive of all space conditioning systems" [source: EPA].
 Although it varies, at six feet underground the Earth's temperatures range from 45 to 75 degrees Fahrenheit. The basic
principle behind geo-thermal cooling is to use this constant temperature as a heat source instead of generating heat with
electricity.
 The most common type of geo-thermal unit for homes is the closed-loop system. Polyethylene pipes are buried under the
ground, either vertically like a well or horizontally in three- to six-foot trenches. They can also be buried under ponds.
Water or an anti-freeze/water mixture is pumped through the pipes. During the winter, the fluid collects heat from the
earth and carries it through the system and into the building. During the summer, the system reverses itself to cool the
building by pulling heat from the building, carrying it through the system and placing it in the ground [source: Geo
Heating].
 Homeowners can save 30 to 50 percent on their cooling bills by replacing their traditional HVAC systems with ground
source heat pumps. The initial costs can be up to 30 percent more, but that money can be recouped in three to five years,
and most states offer financial purchase incentives. Another benefit is that the system lasts longer than traditional units
because it's protected from the elements and immune to theft [source: Geo Exchange].



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  One thing that makes winter uncomfortable for
humans, even inside a nice warm building, is
low humidity. People need a certain level of
humidity to be comfortable. In the winter,
indoor humidity can be extremely low and the
lack of humidity can dry out your skin and
mucous membranes. Low humidity also makes
the air feel colder than it actually is. Dry air can
also dry out the wood in the walls and floors of
our houses. As the drying wood shrinks, it can
cause creaks in floors and cracks in drywall
and plaster.
4/2/2013 By Gilbert W Techer 14
  How does the thermostat in a car's cooling system work?
 TreeHugger.com: Top 5 Internal Combustion Engine Technologies
 Although gasoline engines have improved a lot, they are still not
very efficient at turning chemical energy into mechanical power.
Most of the energy in the gasoline (perhaps 70%) is converted into
heat, and it is the job of the cooling system to take care of that
heat. In fact, the cooling system on a car driving down the freeway
dissipates enough heat to heat two average-sized houses! The
primary job of the cooling system is to keep the engine from
overheating by transferring this heat to the air, but the cooling
system also has several other important jobs.
 The engine in your car runs best at a fairly high temperature.
When the engine is cold, components wear out faster, and the
engine is less efficient and emits more pollution. So another
important job of the cooling system is to allow the engine to heat
up as quickly as possible, and then to keep the engine at a
constant temperature.

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  Inside your car's engine, fuel is constantly burning. A lot of the heat from this
combustion goes right out the exhaust system, but some of it soaks into the engine,
heating it up. The engine runs best when its coolant is about 200 degrees Fahrenheit (93
degrees Celsius). At this temperature:
 The combustion chamber is hot enough to completely vaporize the fuel, providing better
combustion and reducing emissions.
 The oil used to lubricate the engine has a lower viscosity (it is thinner), so the engine
parts move more freely and the engine wastes less power moving its own components
around.
 Metal parts wear less.
 There are two types of cooling systems found on cars: liquid-cooled and air-cooled.
 Liquid Cooling
The cooling system on liquid-cooled cars circulates a fluid through pipes and
passageways in the engine. As this liquid passes through the hot engine it absorbs heat,
cooling the engine. After the fluid leaves the engine, it passes through a heat exchanger,
or radiator, which transfers the heat from the fluid to the air blowing through the
exchanger.
 Air Cooling
Some older cars, and very few modern cars, are air-cooled. Instead of circulating fluid
through the engine, the engine block is covered in aluminum fins that conduct the heat
away from the cylinder. A powerful fan forces air over these fins, which cools the engine
by transferring the heat to the air.
 Since most cars are liquid-cooled, we will focus on that system in this article.

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  The cooling system in your car has a lot of plumbing. We'll
start at the pump and work our way through the system,
and in the next sections we'll talk about each part of the
system in more detail.
 The pump sends the fluid into the engine block, where it
makes its way through passages in the engine around the
cylinders. Then it returns through the cylinder head of the
engine. The thermostat is located where the fluid leaves the
engine. The plumbing around the thermostat sends the fluid
back to the pump directly if the thermostat is closed. If it is
open, the fluid goes through the radiator first and then back
to the pump.
 There is also a separate circuit for the heating system. This
circuit takes fluid from the cylinder head and passes it
through a heater core and then back to the pump.

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  Fluid
 Cars operate in a wide variety of temperatures, from well below freezing to well over 100 F (38 C). So
whatever fluid is used to cool the engine has to have a very low freezing point, a high boiling point, and it has
to have the capacity to hold a lot of heat.
 Water is one of the most effective fluids for holding heat, but water freezes at too high a temperature to be
used in car engines. The fluid that most cars use is a mixture of water and ethylene glycol (C2H6O2), also
known as antifreeze. By adding ethylene glycol to water, the boiling and freezing points are improved
significantly.

 Pure Water
 50/50
C2H6O2/Water
 70/30
C2H6O2/Water
 Freezing Point
 0 C / 32 F
 -37 C / -35 F
 -55 C / -67 F
 Boiling Point
 100 C / 212 F
 106 C / 223 F
 113 C / 235 F

The temperature of the coolant can sometimes reach 250 to 275 F (121 to 135 C). Even with ethylene glycol
added, these temperatures would boil the coolant, so something additional must be done to raise its boiling
point.
 The cooling system uses pressure to further raise the boiling point of the coolant. Just as the boiling
temperature of water is higher in a pressure cooker, the boiling temperature of coolant is higher if you
pressurize the system. Most cars have a pressure limit of 14 to 15 pounds per square inch (psi), which raises
the boiling point another 45 F (25 C) so the coolant can withstand the high temperatures.
 Antifreeze also contains additives to resist corrosion.



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  Each year, cars seem to get more and more
complicated. Cars today might have as many
as 50 microprocessors on them. Although these
microprocessors make it more difficult for you
to work on your own car, some of them
actually make your car easier to service.


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  Before emissions laws were enacted, it was
possible to build a car engine without
microprocessors. With the enactment of
increasingly stricter emissions laws, sophistic-
ated control schemes were needed to regulate
the air/fuel mixture so that the catalytic
converter could remove a lot of the pollution
from the exhaust. (See How Catalytic
Converters Work for more details.)

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  Controlling the engine is the most processor-intensive job on
your car, and the engine control unit (ECU) is the most
powerful computer on most cars. The ECU uses closed-loop
control, a control scheme that monitors outputs of a system
to control the inputs to a system, managing the emissions
and fuel economy of the engine (as well as a host of other
parameters). Gathering data from dozens of different
sensors, the ECU knows everything from the coolant
temperature to the amount of oxygen in the exhaust. With
this data, it performs millions of calculations each second,
including looking up values in tables, calculating the results
of long equations to decide on the best spark timing and
determining how long the fuel injector is open. The ECU
does all of this to ensure the lowest emissions and best
mileage. See How Fuel Injection Systems Work for a lot
more detail on what the ECU does.

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  ECU might contain a 32-bit, 40-MHz processor.
This may not sound fast compared to the 500- to
1,000-MHz processor you probably have in your
PC, but remember that the processor in your car is
running much more efficient code than the one in
your PC. The code in an average ECU takes up less
than 1 megabyte (MB) of memory. By comparison,
you probably have at least 2 gigabytes (GB) of
programs on your computer -- that's 2,000 times
the amount in an ECU.


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  The processor is packaged in a module with hundreds of other components on a multi-layer circuit board.
Some of the other components in the ECU that support the processor are:
 Analog-to-digital converters - These devices read the outputs of some of the sensors in the car, such as the
oxygen sensor. The output of an oxygen sensor is an analog voltage, usually between 0 and 1.1 volts (V). The
processor only understands digital numbers, so the analog-to-digital converter changes this voltage into a 10-
bit digital number.
 High-level digital outputs - On many modern cars, the ECU fires the spark plugs, opens and closes the fuel
injectors and turns the cooling fan on and off. All of these tasks require digital outputs. A digital output is
either on or off -- there is no in-between. For instance, an output for controlling the cooling fan might provide
12 V and 0.5 amps to the fan relay when it is on, and 0 V when it is off. The digital output itself is like a relay.
The tiny amount of power that the processor can output energizes the transistor in the digital output, allowing
it to supply a much larger amount of power to the cooling fan relay, which in turn provides a still larger
amount of power to the cooling fan.
 Digital-to-analog converters - Sometimes the ECU has to provide an analog voltage output to drive some
engine components. Since the processor on the ECU is a digital device, it needs a component that can convert
the digital number into an analog voltage.
 Signal conditioners - Sometimes the inputs or outputs need to be adjusted before they are read. For instance,
the analog-to-digital converter that reads the voltage from the oxygen sensor might be set up to read a 0- to 5-V
signal, but the oxygen sensor outputs a 0- to 1.1-V signal. A signal conditioner is a circuit that adjusts the level
of the signals coming in or out. For instance, if we applied a signal conditioner that multiplied the voltage
coming from the oxygen sensor by 4, we'd get a 0- to 4.4-V signal, which would allow the analog-to-digital
converter to read the voltage more accurately (see How Analog and Digital Recording Works for more details).
 Communication chips - These chips implement the various communications standards that are used on cars.
There are several standards used, but the one that is starting to dominate in-car communications is called CAN
(controller-area networking). This communication standard allows for communication speeds of up to 500
kilobits per second (Kbps). That's a lot faster than older standards. This speed is becoming necessary because
some modules communicate data onto the bus hundreds of times per second. The CAN bus communicates
using two wires.
 In the next section, we'll take a look at how communication standards have made designing and building cars
easier.
4/2/2013 By Gilbert W Techer 26
  Another benefit of having a communications bus is that each module can
communicate faults to a central module, which stores the faults and can
communicate them to an off-board diagnostic tool.

The diagnostic port from a Toyota minivan

This can make it easier for technicians to diagnose problems with the car,
especially intermittent problems, which are notorious for disappearing as
soon as you bring the car in for repairs.
 BATauto.com: Technical Info Pages lists the fault codes stored in the ECU
for various carmakers. Sometimes, the codes can be accessed without a
diagnostic tool. For instance, on some cars, by jumping two of the pins in
the diagnostic connecter and then turning the ignition key to run, the
"check engine" light will flash a certain pattern to indicate the number of
the fault code stored in the ECU.
 Let's take a look at how microprocessors and communications standards
have made cars easier to build


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4/2/2013 By Gilbert W Techer 28
  Having communication standards has made designing and building cars a little easier. A good example of this
simplification is the car's instrument cluster.
 The instrument cluster gathers and displays data from various parts of the vehicle. Most of this data is already used by
other modules in the car. For instance, the ECU knows the coolant temperature and engine speed. The transmission
controller knows the vehicle speed. The controller for the anti-lock braking system (ABS) knows if there is a problem
with the ABS.
 All of these modules simply send this data onto the communications bus. Several times a second, the ECU will send out a
packet of information consisting of a header and the data. The header is just a number that identifies the packet as either
a speed or a temperature reading, and the data is a number corresponding to that speed or temperature. The instrument
panel contains another module that knows to look for certain packets -- whenever it sees one, it updates the appropriate
gauge or indicator with the new value.
 Most carmakers buy the instrument clusters fully assembled from a supplier, who designs them to the carmaker's
specifications. This makes the job of designing the instrument panel a lot easier, both for the carmaker and the supplier.
 It is easier for the carmaker to tell the supplier how each gauge will be driven. Instead of having to tell the supplier that a
particular wire will provide the speed signal, and it will be a varying voltage between 0 and 5 V, and 1.1 V corresponds
to 30 mph, the carmaker can just provide a list of the packets of data. Then, it is the carmaker's responsibility to make
sure that the correct data is output onto the communications bus.
 It is easier for the supplier to design the instrument panel because he doesn't need to know any details of how the speed
signal is generated, or where it's coming from. Instead, the instrument panel simply monitors the communications bus
and updates the gauges when it receives new data.
 These types of communications standards make it very uncomplicated for carmakers to outsource the design and
manufacture of components: The carmaker doesn't have to worry about the details of how each gauge or light is driven,
and the supplier who makes the instrument panel doesn't have to worry about where the signals are coming from.


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  Clusters are now being used on a smaller scale for sensors. For instance, a
traditional pressure sensor contains a device that outputs a varying voltage
depending on the pressure applied to the device. Usually, the voltage output is not
linear, depends on the temperature and is a low-level voltage that requires
amplification.
 Some sensor manufacturers are providing a smart sensor that is integrated with all
the electronics, along with a microprocessor that enables it to read the voltage,
calibrates it using temperature-compensation curves and digitally outputs the
pressure onto the communications bus.
 This saves the carmaker from having to know all the dirty details of the sensor, and
saves processing power in the module, which otherwise would have to do these
calculations. It makes the supplier, who is most up on the details of the sensor
anyway, responsible for providing an accurate reading.
 Another advantage of the smart sensor is that the digital signal traveling over the
communications bus is less susceptible to electrical noise. An analog voltage
traveling through a wire can pick up extra voltage when it passes certain electrical
components, or even from overhead power lines.
 Communication buses and microprocessors also help simplify the wiring through
multiplexing. Let's take a closer look at how they do this.


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  Multiplexing is a technique that can simplify the wiring in a car. In older cars, the wires
from each switch run to the device they power. With more and more devices at the
driver's command each year, multiplexing is necessary to keep the wiring from getting
out of control. In a multiplexed system, a module containing at least one microprocessor
consolidates inputs and outputs for an area of the car. For instance, cars that have lots of
controls on the door may have a driver's-door module. Some cars have power-window,
power-mirror, power-lock and even power-seat controls on the door. It would be
impractical to run the thick bundle of wires that would come from a system like this out
of the door. Instead, the driver's-door module monitors all of the switches.

Doors with lots of switches are becoming more and more common.

Here's how it works: If the driver presses his window switch, the door module closes a
relay that provides power to the window motor. If the driver presses the switch to adjust
the passenger-side mirror, the driver's door module sends a packet of data onto the
communication bus of the car. This packet tells a different module to energize one of the
power-mirror motors. In this way, most of the signals that leave the driver's door are
consolidated onto the two wires that form the communication bus.
 The development of new safety systems has also increased the number of
microprocessors in cars. We'll talk about this in the next section.


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4/2/2013 By Gilbert W Techer 32
  Over the last decade, we've seen safety systems such as ABS and air bags
become common on cars. Other safety features such as traction-control
and stability-control systems are starting to become common as well.
Each of these systems adds a new module to the car, and this module
contains multiple microprocessors. In the future, there will be more and
more of these modules all over the car as new safety systems are added.
 Each of these safety systems requires more processing power, and is
usually packaged in its own electronics module. But it doesn't end there.
In coming years, we'll have all kinds of new convenience features in our
cars, and each of these requires more electronics modules containing
multiple microprocessors.
 It seems that there is no limit to how much technology carmakers are
going to pack into our cars. The addition of all these electronic features is
one of the factors driving carmakers to increase the system voltage on
cars from the current 14-V system to a 42-V system. This will help provide
the extra power these modules require.

4/2/2013
 By Gilbert W Techer 33
  Yes, it could. You could compress the air at
your house using an air compressor, fill a
compressed-air tank in the car, and the car
could run off of it. You could use an engine
very similar to a steam engine (using
pressurized air instead of pressurized steam) to
convert the compressed air to rotational
energy.

4/2/2013 By Gilbert W Techer 34

  The main problem you would have is the size of the "gas tank" you would need to get any kind of reasonable range. You
would need a LOT of compressed air to take a car very far.
 An alternative would be to use a liquefied gas like liquid nitrogen. You can think of liquid nitrogen as air that has been
compressed so much it has liquefied. Liquid nitrogen is much denser than compressed air, so you could store enough in
a car to give it reasonable range. You could then fill up at the liquid-nitrogen station.
 A compressed air car would generate no pollution while you are driving. However, the power plant that produces the
electricity that compresses the air (or liquifies the nitrogen, for that matter) is probably generating pollution from the coal
or oil it is burning. Power plants are relatively clean and very efficient compared to car engines, so this is not a bad trade-
off. Still, it's important to compare apples to apples.
 Another thing that would be interesting to figure out is the efficiency of a liquid-nitrogen engine. If you burn gasoline in
a car engine, only about 20 percent of it powers the wheels. The rest creates wasted heat. It would be interesting to see
how efficient a power plant is, plus how efficient a nitrogen liquefier is, plus how efficient a liquid-nitrogen engine is --
that would tell you whether you were creating a technology that is better or worse than the gasoline engine in terms of
efficiency.
 Gasoline is already the fuel of the past. It might not seem that way as you fill up on your way to work, but the petroleum
used to make it is gradually running out. It also pollutes air that's becoming increasingly unhealthy to breathe, and
people no longer want to pay the high prices that oil companies are charging for it. Automobile manufacturers know all
of this and have spent lots of time and money to find and develop the fuel of the future.
 The search is on, but what will this fuel of the future be? Ready-made fuels like petroleum are becoming more difficult to
find and automobile manufacturers are turning to greener energy sources like batteries. These batteries can be charged
with energy and placed in a car where that energy can be released. As good as that idea might seem, some manufacturers
think air could become an even better energy source.
 Air? At first glance, the idea of running a car on air seems almost too good to be true. If we can use air as fuel, why think
about using anything else? Air is all around us. Air never runs out. Air is nonpolluting. Best of all, air is free.

4/2/2013 By Gilbert W Techer 35

  Can we power cars with grass?
 5 Alternative Fuels That Never Made It Out of the Lab
 Salt Water Fuel
 Discovery.com: From Garbage to Gas Tank
 Unfortunately, air alone can't be used as a fuel. First, energy has to be
stored in it by squeezing the air tightly using a mechanical air
compressor. Once the compressed air is released, it expands. This
expanding air can be used, for example, to drive the pistons that power
an engine. The idea of using compressed air to power a vehicle isn't new:
Early prototypes of an air-powered vehicle go back to the middle of the
19th century, even before the invention of the internal combustion engine.
 At least one manufacturer thinks that it's ready to sell air cars to the
American public. If all goes well, these cars could be available in the
United States relatively soon [source: Sullivan]. Over the next few pages,
we'll look at this technology, the reasons you may want to use it -- and a
few reasons you might not.


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4/2/2013 By Gilbert W Techer 37
  MDI's AirPod One and its compressed air engine, at MDI's headquarters near Nice, France.
 The laws of physics dictate that uncontained gases will fill any given space. The easiest way to see this
in action is to inflate a balloon. The elastic skin of the balloon holds the air tightly inside, but the
moment you use a pin to create a hole in the balloon's surface, the air expands outward with so much
energy that the balloon explodes. Compressing a gas into a small space is a way to store energy. When
the gas expands again, that energy is released to do work. That's the basic principle behind what
makes an air car go.
 The first air cars will have air compressors built into them. After a brisk drive, you'll be able to take
the car home, put it into the garage and plug in the compressor. The compressor will use air from
around the car to refill the compressed air tank. Unfortunately, this is a rather slow method of
refueling and will probably take up to two hours for a complete refill. If the idea of an air car catches
on, air refueling stations will become available at ordinary gas stations, where the tank can be refilled
much more rapidly with air that's already been compressed. Filling your tank at the pump will
probably take about three minutes [source: Cornell].
 The first air cars will almost certainly use the Compressed Air Engine (CAE) developed by the French
company, Motor Development International (MDI). Air cars using this engine will have tanks that will
probably hold about 3,200 cubic feet (90.6 kiloliters) of compressed air. The vehicle's accelerator
operates a valve on its tank that allows air to be released into a pipe and then into the engine, where
the pressure of the air's expansion will push against the pistons and turn the crankshaft. This will
produce enough power for speeds of about 35 miles (56 kilometers) per hour. When the air car
surpasses that speed, a motor will kick in to operate the in-car air compressor so it can compress more
air on the fly and provide extra power to the engine. The air is also heated as it hits the engine,
increasing its volume to allow the car to move faster [source: Cornell].



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4/2/2013 By Gilbert W Techer 39
  to power a car's engine is that a pure compressed air vehicle produces no pollution at the tailpipe.
More specifically, the compressed air cars we're likely to see in the near future won't pollute at all
until they reach speeds exceeding 35 miles per hour. That's when the car's internal air compressor will
kick in to achieve extra speed. The motor that runs this air compressor will require fuel that'll produce
a small amount of air pollution. Some fuel (you can use eco-friendly biofuels or fossil fuels) will also
be used to heat the air as it emerges from the tank. The newest compressed air engines also offer
drivers the option of using fossil fuels or biofuels to heat the air as it enters the engine. Nonetheless,
this technology represents a marked improvement over cars powered by internal combustion engines
that produce significant amounts of pollution at any speed.
 Air cars are also designed to be lighter than conventional cars. The aluminum construction of these
vehicles will keep their weight under 2,000 pounds (907 kilograms), which is essential to making these
vehicles fuel efficient and will help them go faster for longer periods of time.
 Another advantage of air cars is that the fuel should be remarkably cheap, an important consideration
in this era of volatile gas prices. Some estimates say that the cars will get the equivalent of 106 miles
(171 kilometers) per gallon, although compressed air will probably not be sold by the gallon. A more
meaningful estimate is that it may take as little as $2 worth of electricity to fill the compressed air tank,
though you'll also need gasoline to power the electric motor that compresses air while driving [source:
Cornell].
 The vehicles themselves also will be relatively cheap. Zero Pollution Motors, which plans to release
the first air cars in the United States and estimates a sticker price of about $17,800, which would make
these cars affordable to budget-conscious American buyers [source: Max].


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4/2/2013 By Gilbert W Techer 41
  While an air car produces no pollution running on already compressed air in its tank, pollution is nonetheless produced
when the air is compressed, both while the car is moving and while it's being refueled. As we mentioned earlier, the
vehicle's air compressor will probably run on gasoline, and this gas will produce pollution when burned.
 The air compressor at the gas station will probably be powered by electricity. The production of that electricity may or
may not pollute, depending on how that electricity is generated. For example, coal-powered electricity could produce
substantial amounts of pollution. Cleaner sources of electricity, such as nuclear power or hydropower, will result in far
less pollution. According to the Web site Gas 2.0, an air car in the United States would create about .176 pounds of
carbon dioxide emissions per mile based on the average mix of electric power sources during refueling. By comparison, a
Toyota Prius Hybrid, which combines a battery-powered electric motor with an internal combustion engine, generates
about 0.34 pounds of carbon dioxide per mile. So, while the air car is not quite pollution free, it still represents an
improvement over one of the most popular hybrid cars on the market [source: Nuccitelli].
 Distance could also become a disadvantage, depending on your travel habits. The distance that an air car can cover
without refueling is crucial because very few filling stations will have compressed air pumps available at first. If you
only plan to use your air car for short commutes -- distances less than 100 miles --will be fine. However, the one-to-two
hour wait for the car's built-in air compressor to compress a tank full of air could become a problem on cross-country
trips. Zero Pollution Motors -- the American arm of MDI and the company likeliest to produce the first air car for the U.S.
market -- aims to have a car available soon able to travel between 800 and 1,000 miles on one tank of air plus 8 gallons of
gas [source: Cornell]. Early prototypes, however, have traveled distances closer to 120 miles -- good enough for your
daily commute, but not quite adequate for longer trips [source: Motavalli].
 What will happen if an air car suffers damage in an accident? After all, compressed air tanks can be dangerous. To
reduce this danger, the air tanks are made of carbon fiber and are designed to crack, rather than shatter, in a crash. This
crack would allow the "fuel" to escape harmlessly into the surrounding air. Manufacturers feared that air escaping from
one end of the tank could produce a rocket-like effect and propel the car on a jet of air. The valve on the cars' fuel tanks
has been placed on the side to minimize this effect.
 Despite these precautions, there is some concern that the air cars' lightweight construction might make it difficult for
them to pass stringent American safety requirements and that this could hold up the arrival of air cars in the U.S.
marketplace. Other factors have come to the forefront as well, and we'll learn about those next.


4/2/2013 By Gilbert W Techer 42

4/2/2013 By Gilbert W Techer 43
  India's Tata Motors will likely produce the first air car in the marketplace in the next few
years. Tata Motors' air car will also use the CAE engine. Although Tata announced in
August 2008 that they aren't quite ready to roll out their air cars for mass production,
Zero Pollution Motors still plans to produce a similar vehicle in the United States.
Known collectively as the FlowAIR, these cars will cost about $17,800. The company,
based in New Paltz, N.Y., says that it will start taking reservations in mid-2009 for
vehicle deliveries in 2010. The company plans to roll out 10,000 air cars in the first year
of production [source: Max]. MDI also recently unveiled the joystick-driven AirPod, the
newest addition to its air car arsenal. Although the AirPod generates a top speed of only
43 mph, it's also extremely light and generates zero emissions.
 Major automobile makers are watching the air car market with interest. If the first
models catch on with consumers, they'll likely develop their own air car models. At
present, a few smaller companies are planning to bring air cars to the market in the wake
of the MDI-based vehicles. These include:
 K'Airmobiles -- French company K'Air Energy has built prototypes of an air-fueled
bicycle and light road vehicle based on the K'air air compression engine [source: K'air]
 Air Car Factories SA -- This Spanish company has an air car engine currently in
development. The company's owner is currently involved in a dispute with former
employer MDI over the rights to the technology [source: MDI].
 Initially, the MDI cars will be the only air vehicles on the market. However, MDI has
reportedly licensed the technology to manufacturers in a dozen different countries, so air
cars should be available around th


4/2/2013 By Gilbert W Techer 44

  Next Up
 How Manual Transmissions Work
 Transmission Quiz
 Discovery.com: 10 Most Fuel-Efficient Cars

 If you have ever driven a car with an automatic transmission, then

you know that there are two big differences between an automatic
transmission and a manual transmission:
 There is no clutch pedal in an automatic transmission car.
 There is no gear shift in an automatic transmission car. Once you
put the transmission into drive, everything else is automatic.
 Both the automatic transmission (plus its torque converter) and a
manual transmission (with its clutch) accomplish exactly the same
thing, but they do it in totally different ways. It turns out that the
way an automatic transmission does it is absolutely amazing!

4/2/2013 By Gilbert W Techer 45

4/2/2013 By Gilbert W Techer 46
  Comments:

4/2/2013 By Gilbert W Techer 47