Integrating Capacitors Into Car Frames

necro81 writes "It has long been recognized that adding capacitors in parallel with batteries can improve the performance of hybrid and electric vehicles by accepting and supplying spikes of power, which reduces stress on the battery pack, extending range and improving cycle life. The challenge has been figuring out where to put them, when batteries already compete for space. A new research prototype from Imperial College London has integrated them into the body panels and structural frame of the vehicle itself. In their prototype, carbon fiber serves as both the structure for the vehicle and electrode for the energy storage sandwiched within."

Comments

What could go wrong?

[Anonymous Coward]

as a side benefit it functions as reactive armor in a collision.

Re:What could go wrong?

[Interoperable]

A sure way to see an exploding anything is to hit it lightning.

Re:What could go wrong?

[Tanktalus]

Seriously? I got a used Honda Odyssey earlier this year, and my 2-year-old has already managed to kill the battery once (by turning on a light inside the vehicle that we didn't notice he did). Got a free jump from our local AMA-affiliate (AMA is the Alberta equivalent of the CAA which is the Canadian equivalent of AAA - not sure what the equivalent is in other parts of the world). Noticed the light, turned it off. But the radio and nav systems were both locked out. Opened the user manual where the previous owner put the stickers with the passcodes, entered them in, and everything was working before we left the driveway.

When looking at these vehicles, I tried some out at the dealership (they wouldn't come down in price far enough, so I left after wasting 5 hours there). In the middle of winter, all the batteries were dead. So I asked the sales critter about it, jokingly complaining about the $35 labour charge for resetting the radio if I didn't already know about it. He said that the sales critters would generally do this for free.

I'm not sure if he's lying (he is in sales, after all), or if Honda just has nicer policies, but I'd be somewhat surprised if Ford charged for this.

Re:What could go wrong?

[Walt Dismal]

On the bright side, a conductive bullet hitting the side will cause a nice discharge and maybe a fire. Or if a piece of metal pierces the capacitor after a collision, and the discharge either ignites gas fumes if the car is a hybrid, or the short heats something and causes a fire. Yes, energy storage in the frame is a really good idea. Also, if capacitors are in a door panel, which of course moves, then the energy-carrying cable leading out of the door will be flexed every time the door moves, until the day the cable breaks. Although window motor cables seem to endure without breaking, so maybe it's okay.

I remember experiments in college with exploding-wire phenomena, where we pulsed conductors with capacitors and vaporized wires. This both generates a shock pulse and can do a soft X-ray discharge. Yeah, I want that in my car.

Re:What could go wrong?

[jo_ham]

My sister just bought a brand new Ford - the radio code is "in her possession" in that it's included with the car's manual. They do suggest you don't keep it in the car with the rest of the car's documentation, and that you don't lose it.

Code-locked radios (for anti theft) have been common for years, mainly because the factory radios don;t usually have removable facias.

Re:What could go wrong?

[ArcCoyote]

Stop spreading FUD.

Some anti-theft radios have a code, provided with the owner's manual, that you can enter after the radio has lost standby power. Others know what vehicle they are in.

I'm fairly sure what you were trying to say is that in modern vehicles (As in Fords with the Sync system) the electronics are keyed to the VIN, which is provided by the car's computer. If you remove the radio and put it in another vehicle, it will require rekeying, which can only be performed by authorized service centers.

There are strict laws when it comes to car safety. Car manufacturers can NOT knowingly (intentional or otherwise) make it dangerous to service a car, as doing so may affect emergency personnel or the driver/passengers in breakdown situations.

We build excitement!

[whitelabrat]

Does anyone fail to see the problem of having what would likely be several Farads of high voltage stashed away in the body panels? I would expect if fully charged the capacitors if shorted, in a fender bender or whatever, they would leave little trace that they or anything that touches them ever existed. Just a spot of charred metal and the smell of electrolyte.

And what about the aging of capacitors or capacitor failure? It's certainly exiting when a small capacitor goes POP! Imagine when one of these suckers blow your doors off while you're driving!

Re:We build excitement!

[mangu]

It's certainly exiting when a small capacitor goes POP! Imagine when one of these suckers blow your doors off while you're driving!

Capacitors that go POP are usually electrolytics, where the electrolyte boils when it gets shorted. There are capacitors that are self-repairing, a short vaporizes the conductor around the failure. Presumably, the capacitors they are proposing here, doping the carbon fibers with lithium, would work that way.

Good idea but...

[Sollord]

I'd think they'd be far safer in the front and rear quarter panels I wouldn't want a capacitor in my cars door or roof that is just asking for trouble when it comes to accidents especially ones where the passengers might have to be cut free from a wreck.

risk to emergency medical services

[sleep-doc]

Besides mechanics, please recall that EMS and police often face the issue of getting through metal to reach injured passengers. The 200 volts typically in a hybrid battery is one issue, knowing the location of batteries and how to disconnnect them another, but the thought of potentially still charged capacitors in the body frame sounds like an issue that could hinder response to emergencies.

Re:risk to emergency medical services

[rrossman2]

You sir, need to do a little more research :)

" ( perhaps near the engine mount, isolated from the rest of the frame but still near the engine and possible to run wires through the chassis to the batteries etc ) out of the way and where hazard crews wont get buzzed if they try get the person out."

If you hit the wire coming from the PARALLEL wired cap, no matter if it's the engine side in your example or the wire going to the battery side, BOTH sides of the wire to where the parallel caps are hooked up carry the EXACT same charge. So even if you hit the wire going to the batteries in your example, is no different than cutting the wire between the capacitor(s) and the engine (again in your example).

Plus your grounding idea has issues of it's own :)

Not very well thought out...

[s13g3]

Agreed with previous posters, having electricity stored in such a way throughout a vehicle - regardless of volts or amps - doesn't seem like such a hot idea (pun intended). It would certainly be a no-go on any vehicle with any sort of secondary, fueled motor, be it gas, hydrogen, etc., and the potential for other accident based on age, faulty manufacture, simple atmospheric conditions (how well will these fare when exposed to salt air in coastal areas) and too many other things to list here is simply enormous. There is danger enough in basic battery systems during a car accident, especially a major one that might involve another I.C.E. vehicle on fire... I don't relish the idea of trying to an injured person out a car that might kill me for touching the wrong exposed part of a wrecked frame.

Re:Not very well thought out...

[houghi]

If you replace electricity with fuel, you would get to the same result, I assume.

At least they try to think outside the box and then see where it leads them. Sure it might kill a few people, but so did planes and steam engines and a lot of other things before they were turned into more save designs.

throw away car?

[roman_mir]

Combine these capacitors in body together with the motor in wheel thing, and you'll get that much closer to a car, that you can't fix without replacing too many functional parts, when all you needed to do was to replace wheels (how about winter?) and do some body work after a minor accident, so at some point the most economic thing will be just to toss the car away and get a new one.

Is that where they are going with this?

How about stopping with all this nonsense with the batteries and working on nuclear engines instead?

Re:throw away car?

[optimism]

"Combine these capacitors in body together with the motor in wheel [e-traction.com] thing, and you'll get that much closer to a car, that you can't fix without replacing too many functional parts, when all you needed to do was to replace wheels (how about winter?) and do some body work after a minor accident"

On the contrary, the motor-in-wheel concept radically ~improves~ the maintainability of a car.

Motor-in-wheel eliminates the transmission, differentials, drive shafts, and CV joints. That's a whole lot of stuff that is expensive to repair on modern cars. Also since the power losses of that complex drivetrain are eliminated, a motor-in-wheel car can use a much smaller/cheaper power system. And regenerative braking allows smaller/cheaper mechanical brakes.

Wheel swaps are not an issue at all. All of the motor-in-wheel designs that I've seen, use a tire/rim assembly that bolts on to the motorized hub, just like our wheels today bolt onto the hub. If anything, the rims should be lighter and cheaper than current rims. So more people will be able to keep a set of winter wheels.

The biggest problem with the motor-in-wheel design appears to be the increased unsprung mass, which affects suspension response. I'm confident that problem will be solved by a combination of modern lightweight components, plus changing driver expectations of performance. Folks who drive hybrids today, have already accepted that lower performance and ride quality are an acceptable price for better mileage.

Invention of petrol car/LPG

[metalmonkey]

What could possibly go wrong driving around at speed with a tank of highly flammable liquid strapped to the undercarriage of the car.
What insanity!!!
The same can be said for LPG a high pressure canister of highly flammable GAS just behind your seat - imagine that in a crash.

Any dense energy source put into a car has a potential for that energy to be released in a way that is not intended especially in a crash. It is the details of the design that can make the energy storage (relatively) safe.

Re:Invention of petrol car/LPG

[thegarbz]

There's a differences in not the worst case, but the simple case of your examples from this one. We have a tank of volatile liquid which is dangerous when exposed only to an ignition source and oxygen, vs something that could make the car live.

An emergency services worker probably knows full well not to step in a car to help a victim when there's fuel leaking everywhere and a fire nearby. The same can not be said for someone approaching a wreckage which now simply may be live. There's no indication of the danger. Worse still when the standard method of saving something stuck in a wreaking involves the jaws of life going through a power cable it becomes quite hard whereas fuel lines and fuel tanks were typically run in quite well defined areas of a car i.e. not in the roof or in the doors where these could go.

Ironically enough an LPG tank is one of the most solidly built things in a car. There's enough cases of cars exploding but I have yet to hear of an LPG powered one doing the same. Doesn't stop our government from requiring all cars have a special dot on the license plate and banning the cars from underground parking garages.

I agree with you. If the car was invented today it would never pass our safety requirements. You want to go how fast with What chemical strapped in the boot? I mean I can't even walk up the stairs at work without seeing a "stair code" reminding us to take steps one at a time, not use phones, and use the handrails.

Re:Invention of petrol car/LPG

[couchslug]

Doors, hoods, and roofs are frequently subject to damage in crashes. Th

Fuel tanks are in protected locations. Bodywork is not a protected location.

Put the capacitors in a nice standard, removable package and it becomes practical because it can be protected AND easily serviced.

Why, on a supposedly tech-literate forum, does this need to be explained?

Re:Invention of petrol car/LPG

[couchslug]

"Advancement REQUIRES risk taking."

You aren't a mechanic I take it? There is a difference between "risky" and "silly".

I defy you to propose a practical way to implement, maintain, and repair "body panel capacitor" technology. Make it crashworthy, easy to fix, and economical to repair. Make it and its interconnects and power management work well in areas subject to road salt in winter.

BTW, cars were well-established a century ago.

Re:We build excitement! && Danger

[dr2chase]

As opposed to, say, driving around with ten or more gallons of gasoline in the car?
Or even, real live CNG, since vehicles are out there, and fracked gas is Our Future.
We'll be fine (or rather, no worse off), as long as an arcs-in-crashmobile doesn't run into a leaks-gas-in-crashmobile. :-)

And semi-seriously, how many deaths to you predict that this would cause, and how does that number compare with pedestrians killed per year (US, 3000), people-in-cars killed per year (US, 30,000), or people dying early for lack of exercise per year (US, perhaps 300,000 -- it's a good fraction of all CV deaths, as well as some cancers, strokes, complications of diabetes, etc).

Body panels?

[PPH]

Or in the frame?

I'd better remember that the next time I'm drilling some holes to mount a CB radio antenna or eight track player.

What about HazMat when the cars burn?

[couchslug]

Vehicle fires are common, and even without a petrol tank they burn very nicely. Exotic materials can produce dangerous products when burned, and their inhalation isn't just an EMS issue

When carbon fiber aircraft structures are burned or damaged, Crash Recovery teams are required to spray them with a fixative (commercial floor wax is one) then wrap them in plastic for transport and disposal.

A CONTAINERIZED capacitor can retain material which will be destroyed in a fire if it's the skin of the vehicle.