Posted on 07/06/2005 8:33:43 AM PDT by skyman
Really cool invention brings teens awards Physics students: They came up with an environmentally friendly, economical air conditioner By Jessica Ravitz The Salt Lake Tribune Salt Lake Tribune
BLUFFDALE - The code name, Space Beast, was one they came up with in the wee hours of the night.
Tyler Lyon, Daniel Winegar and Chad Thornley were overtired and giddy as they tackled a science fair project. Their idea: Eliminate the use of Freon in automobile air-conditioning systems by relying on the Peltier effect - of course.
"We aren't planning our lives around making air conditioners," Lyon explained. "We wanted to do something to help the environment and the economy."
But what began as a Riverton High School physics class assignment nearly two years ago has morphed into an award-winning, internationally recognized invention.
Lyon and Winegar, two recent Riverton graduates - Thornley graduated in 2004 and is now on an LDS Church mission - won the first-ever Ricoh Sustainable Development Award in May when they competed against 1,400 other worldwide invitation-only entries at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair in Phoenix.
Aside from the $50,000 college scholarship the two 18-year-olds will share, the budding engineers are jetting off to Japan today for a 10-day visit on Ricoh's dime. The office equipment and electronics company, a leader in the field of sustainable development, has invited the Utahns to attend the World Expo, address Ricoh executives, tour their research and development lab, meet with government officials - including the Minister of the Environment - and sit down with Tokyo University professors.
"It's been a total, unbelievable dream," marveled Tyler's mom, Diane Lyon, last week. "They're just typical boys. But when someone believes in you, amazing things can happen."
Physics teacher Kari Lewis, who recently left Riverton High, said trusting in Lyon and Winegar was easy.
"They came up with this idea . . . and they made it work," she said. "It's a perfect solution to an incredible problem."
Today, the young inventors say, U.S. drivers use about 7.9 billion gallons of fuel each year to run their air-conditioners, which draw power from the engine. By adopting their contraption - which taps into the electrical system, using fans to blow hot air through five Peltier chips and then releasing cold air - they say the country stands to save 3.9 billion gallons of fuel annually, or about $10 billion based on current gas prices.
Furthermore, the product would free drivers from Freon - which despite improvements, remains an ozone-depleting chemical in current air-conditioners. The Peltier chips, which they purchased on eBay for $9.99 each, have a life span of 20 to 30 years and an unfaltering cooling capacity. And like every component in the Space Beast, which can be minimized in size to about 2 inches in width, the chips are recyclable.
As a young boy, Lyon's parents said he tore apart and reassembled household electronics - CD players, clocks, an old stereo that didn't work until he fixed it. And while Daniel's mom, LouAnn Winegar, was grateful her son was "not a take-apart-person," she said her boy's love for science, engineering and computers has been consistent.
"It's nice to see all of his years of interest and hard work being recognized," she said.
The two-year process of fine-tuning, however, was not without its glitches. When the teens were trying to convert a blow-dryer fan from AC to DC power, a miswiring gave Lyon a doozy of a shock - "a low-enough amp that it couldn't really stop my heart," he said. And there was that computer power strip that they managed to ignite, before throwing it outside in the snow, only to retrieve it two days later to recycle its parts.
Despite the setbacks, and bouts of procrastination, the teens didn't give up. When they weren't playing computer games, skiing, snowboarding or, in Lyon's case, rock-climbing, they buckled down, sometimes working through the night. Their focus nearly cost them graduation - they had to scramble to make up work in other classes - but they accomplished what others couldn't.
After they had already begun their work, Lyon and Winegar learned about a 1964 General Motors analysis that explored the idea before the car company concluded it wasn't possible.
Going in with open minds, however, the teens were not deterred and pulled off what GM rejected. "Nobody told them it couldn't be done," Robert Lyon, Tyler's dad, said.
The first time he felt a cold gust of air successfully come through the system, Winegar said he remembers saying: "We may actually have something here."
Looks like they do. A Salt Lake City attorney is working to secure a patent. The Environmental Protection Agency called to express interest Tuesday morning. And though repeated attempts to communicate with Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. have gone unanswered, high officials in Japan - an ocean away - are awaiting the arrival of Riverton's young inventors.
Start walking.
The energy has to come from somewhere.
Found this page with a listing of links on Peltier Chips.
that's right. no a/c. this is the jeep that i used more for trail riding. i dumped alot of unnecessary items to improve power and mileage. my point was, that by dumping the a/c compressor, you gain noticable increases in mileage and power. which is a much larger advantage of putting this new system in vehicles than just getting rid of freon. also the system would be much cheaper to install and maintain.
Where do you think a traditional AC unit dumps its heat? Surely you don't think it stores it away into a heat piggy-bank to be used when you turn the heater on in the winter...
Well, fudge. I thought you had pulled off some cool conversion. I think it was the idea you installed a bigger alternator that made me think that.
It's not very obvious, is it? Underlying all the details is a simple fact. Energy can neither be created nor destroyed, only converted in form. (Motion to friction to heat, for example)
In order to get more electrical energy out of a generator/alternator you have to put more mechanical energy in.
An engine takes chemical energy from the fuel and converts it into mechanical energy. More energy out requires more fuel in.
That being said, these kids may have a more efficient way of converting the engine's motion to cooling, and still achieve a fuel savings.
You were wrong, but a lot of people were attributing a position to you that you didn't actually take (i.e., free energy). I understood your position -- that a given alternator at a given speed produces up to X watts of electrical power, that may or may not be used, but can't be exceeded.
But yeah, the traditional system does dump heat. It just does not need as much of a heat difference in order to move that heat. My last post was missleading if not inacurate. Peltiers need help to get rid of heat. AC closed loop systems don't need much.
Yeah. I have a cast iron bitch of a time getting my system refilled.
I'm glad that's never happened to me...
That is to say a traditional AC unit DOES just move heat around but it does it in a way that produces a massive temperature difference without having to have a piggy bank to put the heat in.
It doesn't? What does it do?
Here's my understanding of how a car A/C works. The refrigerant expands adiabatically from its compressed state, rapidly cooling. The cold refrigerant passes through a heat exchanger where it absorbs heat from the car's warm interior air. The refrigerant gets compressed & heats up even more, then passes through another exchanger to give off some of its heat to the outside air, and then back to the expansion valve again.
I.e., it moves heat from the interior car air to the outside air.
Get any static on THAT one? LOL..........
My home AC unit has a big honkin' fan surrounded by lots of cooling fins. This is where the coolant dumps its heat into the atmosphere.
Now, if you're talking about home use, geothermal is the way to go! Constant ground temperatures; run it one way and heat the house, run it the other way and cool the house. Very nice.
Ah, OK, I see you revised your remarks.
Very. Wrong. Again.
None to speak of..........Even some Army guys agreed........
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.