Re: Capacitance and mass

Hello, sci.physics.research readers.

I have been writing about capacitance and mass and energy in an
"electric flywheel"; a motor/generator coupled to a capacitor bank.

NI.com has provided one USB DAQ at a deep academic discount of $159
including a perpetual student license of LabView. I now have LabView 8
and Mathcad 13, a powerful combination made better by some
interoperation software supplied by Mathsoft. All this is relevant to
educators and students. I'll probably interface the DAQ and GPS on the
bike with Bluetooth to keep the portable computer hand- or lap-
compatible.

Let write about the academic focus of this project now.

Any terrain map is a map of height. Travel across the terrain is
deflected by local slope. This is analogous to light travelling through
a medium of varying density, say a saline solution being mixed gently
with neat water. A map of nearby terrain by slope can provide useful
information for bicycle travel.

An eikonal is a path mimizing a parameter of the path. Light follows
the time-eikonal in every case. We say "Light is fast". We say the same
thing about bicycles, but it means something different. It seems to me
the time-energy eikonal is the one to focus on for bicycle travel.
Bicyclists usually apply a strategy of constant power input, so the
energy factor can be dropped out in preliminary analyses, but in the
real world, power input does vary, so energy is a natural component of
this "eikonal".

Three methods of terrain traversal are: (1) "Shooting" rays from
arbitrary point A and seeing if they end up at B, (2) evolving
stright-line travel from A to B with genetic or other variational
algorithms, and (3) tracing a uniformly sloped convoluted line from A
to B. If A and B are at equal heights, this is a topographic line path,
when one exists.

Neither of these provides the optimum solution in a reasonable time.

So much for the academic aspects.

Methods of interface to a bicycle operator are unclear. A server-side
or locally-stored display of topographic information is useful. A
display of an area by slope is useful. A map with current position in
the center would seem to be oriented naturally to north and south,
while a map with position at one edge would seem to orient naturally to
the direction of travel, across to the opposite edge.

The absolute last thing you want in a smart electric bicycle is to toil
for hours dragging pounds of equipment around when the batteries are
flat. That's something I avoid with the variable-potential "electric
flywheel", storing EE proportional to KE at electrical equilibrium,
with the constant of proportionality set by C, capacitance, and m,
mass. It doesn't take much work to bring such a system to a useable
condition of charge. My current system weighs 74 pounds all up for
travel. I can just barely throw it on the bus bike rack if I tire
during a test ride. That happened Saturday.

The two main motor/generator configurations are road coupled and pedal
coupled. The two DC options are brushed and electrically commutated
(usually by Hall effect sensors). An AC option is a self-excited
induction generator; an SEIG. I am exploring brushed and SEIG options.
A future diamond frame will use EE=KE as the limit of energy with the
limit of voltage set by pedal-coupled motor/generator speed. That
should slim things down a bit. Such a small capacitor bank may be
integrated into the frame.

You know, I have heard and read that you have to choose experimental or
theoretical physics early on if you want to be good at either one. I
seem to have a temperament suited to either, although I don't think I
will ever publish anything theoretical that's any kind of breakthrough.
I guess I am backing up my experimental work with more theory than some
others might apply.

The idea of a time-energy eikonal is kind of novel, I think, but then,
I don't get out much. :) That is to say, I don't read the literature
enough to really know what's novel.

Doug Goncz
Replikon Research
Seven Corners, VA 22044-0394

.

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