Note: Descriptions are shown in the official language in which they were submitted.
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Disclosure
1 The general character of the class of article or the kind of process to
which the invention (i.e.
the inventive idea) relates
This invention relates to the recuperation of the loss of energy of weights,
vehicles, cars or trucks (
" vehicles "), in order to produce rotation and ultimately, generate
electrical energy or any other
forms of energy that is appropriate. This is done with small modules of Hill
Generator that convert
movement into Electrical Energy (" Hill Generator that could be added to
existing roads.
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2 The nature in general terms of the articles or processes previously known or
used which are
intended to be improved or replaced by resort to the invention and of the
difficulties and
inconveniences which they involve
Each time we accelerate a vehicle, we know we will decelerate it one day !
Typically, a vehicle that
weight 2000 kg that goes at 50 km/h has 192 kJoules of Kinetic Energy and,
eventually, it will need
to stop for various reasons. When the vehicle stops, it dissipates this energy
into the brakes. This is
equivalent to send to trash important quantities of energy. The aim of this
invention is to recuperate
the lost energy of the vehicles, when possible, and produce something more
useful than heat and
dust in the brakes. Today, without my invention, the loss of energy is
dissipated in the brakes, in
friction, etc... More or less, without my invention, all this energy goes in
useless works ( creation
of heat and dusts from brakes, etc... ). By simply adding modules of Hill
Generator to existing
roads, it is possible to recuperate this energy and convert it into something
more useful, typically,
electricity that we can send back to the grid or simply use it for ourselves
in the context of energy
efficiency.
In order to decelerate vehicles, we have to accept that it is not secure to
retrieve the Vehicles Energy
in a too short distance / period of time. This is why the mechanism of the
Hill Generator has to be
parallel to the traffic direction. This also means that the cost of
decelerating a vehicle will be
increased as a function of the maximum deceleration that we can apply on it,
so that it is
comfortable for the passengers. As a good example, in order to decelerate from
50 km/h to 0km/h, it
takes about 20 meters. This means that we have to add a few Hill Generator in
Series in order to
cover the entire decelerating zone.
In previous patent applications that I have seen, most/all mechanisms are
perpendicular to the
traffic. This immediately means that the authors of the patent were not aware
of the fact that it is a
must to decelerate vehicles over a decent distance, because with a
perpendicular mechanism, it is
only possible to decelerate vehicles with impacts at the precise moment where
the vehicles cross the
said mechanism. Said otherwise, in the previous example, if we were to remove
the 192 kJoules of
Energy from the car that goes at 50 km/h within a distance of 1 meter, the
passengers would have a
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similar feeling as a car accident. If we put a lot of perpendicular mechanism
in series, it will create
vibrations each time the vehicles will hit the decelerating mechanism.
With the Hill Generator, when the vehicle advances on the machine, it create a
rotation of the
crankshaft and the Hill goes away at the same speed as the car goes.
Therefore, no vibrations and
the net effect is like a Hill that goes away from the vehicles as it advances
on the Hill Generator.
This is the big difference between my invention and others.
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3 The inventive idea which the new article or process embodies, and the way in
which resort to
it overcomes the difficulties and inconveniences of previous practices or
proposals.
If we compare it to the bridge converting linear movement into electricity (
Painchaud # 2 446 783 ),
the crankshaft parallel to the traffic direction is similar, when you add a
few bridges in series.
However, with the Hill Generator, this energy will be taken off the vehicles,
at the appropriate
moment by creating or simulating a Hill over a long distance with adjustable
steepness effect
controlled by the power electronic. With this Hill Generator, usually,
vehicles tires will lie on more
than one road segment at the same time. You may also see this Hill Generator
as a Sine Wave
Generator, where the sine wave runs away from the vehicles as it advances on
the Hill Generator.
More or less, the vehicles have the impression to climb a hill and this
decelerate the vehicles without
any vibrations. To adjust the Hill Steepness, it is just a matter of
increasing the counter
electromotive force on the shaft of the alternators. This is done with the DC-
AC Drive ( it could
have been a AC to AC drive, it just depends on what type of generator we take
). More or less, we
just send more current to the grid when we want to increase the hill effect on
the vehicles. There is a
limit to increase the hill effect. In fact, if the vehicles see a speed bump,
it is because we have tried
to decelerate the vehicles too quickly. There will be applications where it
will be valuable to
generate speed bumps and this device can do it. We only have to think about
cases where police
run after criminals. We can stop the car of the criminals but let pass the
police.
Not only this is environmentally interesting but it produces electricity where
the demand is located.
In other words, it will generate more downtown New York City than in a small
town, because there
are more vehicles there. When you think about it, this recuperation of energy
is decentralized and it
brings strength to all the utility grids, because it generates everywhere,
where the demand is located.
This decentralization and independence make it almost impossible to stop the
generation
everywhere, unless everybody stops to use their vehicles at the same time.
When it is used in the
context of Energy Efficiency, you save the Generation, Transmission and
Distribution fees.
Also, because the Hill Generator uses DC alternators, there is a diode bridge
that will only let pass
electricity when a certain voltage or RPM has been reached. This allows us to
take the appropriate
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gear ratio in detennining the lower speed limit where we do not want to
decelerate the vehicles. For
example, if we were to use this device at stops, there are conditions of
traffic jam where the vehicles
do not need to be decelerated because they go too slow anyway.
It is also possible to use a ratchet on the crankshaft, so that the energy can
only flow one way. Said
otherwise, if vehicles pass on the wrong side of the Hill Generator, it is
possible to decelerate them
or simply use the ratchet function to let them pass without any deceleration.
However, it is not
mandatory because without ratchet, this device would work in the other
direction as well.
When a ratchet is used on the crankshaft to be sure that the flow of energy is
unidirectional, a
Flywheel may be used to accumulate a little bit of energy and simulate a
steeper hill for the vehicles.
This compensates a little bit for the predictability of energy but lower our
hill steepness adjustment
range.
It is also very important to add that the device can work with any other
cylinder arrangement than in
figure 1, meaning, with any number of moving road segments / cylinders per
gravitational motor.
Also, in the text, when we say gravitational motor, we also mean inertial
motor. More or less, we
use the terminology to say that we remove kinetic / potential energy from the
vehicles by using their
inherent mass to activate our Hill Generator.
Another particularity of the Hill Generator that renders it unique is that it
uses a rubber sheet on the
decelerating tracks. Also, on the top of the moving road segment, there could
be a thick layer of
rubber. This gives plenty of flexibility to the system to accommodate all
types of tires. Lets think
of the difference between the tires of a truck versus a small car and we
immediately understand that
the Hill Generator needed this flexibility to be able to accept all sorts of
tires radius. Finally, since
the Hill Generator simulates a travelling sine wave, the flexibility of the
rubber will push all the
stuff at the end of the Hill Generator, where it can be picked up by
maintenance crew. Lets think
here of the snow and the snow machines.
This rubber sheet combined with the sine wave effect allow the system to be
drained mostly by the
existing road infrastructure. Although there is a drain on the foundation of
the Hill Generator, this
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drain will not play the same role as the city drain, for example. It is only
there to make sure there is
no water accumulation inside the Hill Generator. The City drains continue to
play their roles and
our structure will redirect water to the City drains.
The single lane model shown on figure one uses two decelerating tracks and
could be used for
multiple lanes applications but we believe that multiple lanes applications
will use moving road
segments that have the same width as a full lane width. The model that we show
uses 4 sections,
each with 2 decelerating tracks and 4 gravitational motors per decelerating
tracks ( see figure 3).
However, it is also possible to connect it in a multitude of other
configurations, including
configurations where there is normal asphalt between each decelerating module.
Also, it is possible
to use a multiple lane model. However, in this case, the decelerating tracks
could be the same
width as the lane, to avoid going in and out of the decelerating tracks.
The most important factor in building these device is to avoid putting too
much inertia in the moving
part of the road because we do not want the device to remember the speed of
the last vehicles that
passed on it. The role of this section is to transfer the energy to the
alternator. So, the less inertia
we have on the crankshaft and on the moving part of the road, the better it
is. This is why the device
is built this way.
Also, the model with decelerating tracks could be put underground or above, it
is really not a
problem. However, its design allow snow machines to pass on it without
damaging it, because of
the middle section. Also, since the decelerating tracks act as travelling sine
waves, the snow and
other stuff are pushed naturally at the extremity of the Hill Generator, where
they are picked up by
the snow machines.
For train applications, the functioning of the gravitational motor is similar
but it is obvious that the
wheel of a train are different than the wheel of a car. For applications like
that, the decelerating
tracks would be less wider and the moving road segment that would rack the
train wheel to simulate
a Hill Effect would be stronger.
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For landing airplanes applications, the decelerating tracks will obviously be
stronger but the
principle would be similar.
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4 A full description of the best way of using or putting into operation the
inventive idea. If
there are drawings, the description should be preceded by a list of these
drawings and should
be related to them by the use of the numerals which appear upon them.
Patent Title : Hill Generator that convert movement into Electrical Energy.
In drawings which illustrate embodiments of the invention:
The number 1 represents moving part of the road.
The number 2 represents the rubber sheet.
The number 3 represents the crankshaft with pulleys separated by 90 degrees.
The number 4 represents the traffic / mass / vehicles.
The number 5 represents the exit gear of the crankshaft with or without
ratchet.
The number 6 represents the arm that is connected between the articulation and
the moving
part of the road.
The number 7 represents the arm that is connected between the articulation and
the
crankshaft.
The number 8 represents the articulation.
The number 9 represents a DC Alternator
The number 10 represents the DC bus that could be at any DC Voltage.
The number 11 represents the DC-AC Drive that will allow us to connect to the
utility grid at
the right frequency, voltage and phase.
The number 12 represents a AC Bus that could be at any voltage, since we can
pass it through
a transformer to connect to the utility grid.
Figure 1 is a side view of the Hill Generator with 4 gravitational / inertial
motors in series,
Figure 2 is a front view of the Hill Generator (1 lane model ) showing 2
decelerating tracks
with their respective gravitational / inertial motors,
Figure 3 is a top view of the Hill Generator (1 lane model ) showing 4
sections of two
decelerating tracks and the four gravitational motors per track
Figure 4 is an electrical diagram showing the general functioning of the Hill
Generator.
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In figure 1, you see the side view of the Hill Generator that creates the
equivalent of an hill ( or a
sine wave ) that runs away from the vehicles, with the vehicles. As you can
see, the crankshaft is
coupled to 5 moving road segments, each separated by 90 degrees. More or less,
a 4 cylinder set up
with 5 cylinders, to make sure that the rest position is with the first
cylinder completely depressed.
We could have made it with any other configuration, as soon as we take the
inertia problem into
consideration.
In figure 2, you see a front view of the device, if it was cut at the
beginning of the Hill Generator.
You see the gravitational motors that are used to decelerate vehicles in each
of the decelerating
tracks. This model is a single lane model with 2 decelerating tracks. There
could be other models
where the decelerating tracks will be as wide as the lane.
In figure 3, you have a top view of 4 sections of Hill Generator. Each section
consists in 2
decelerating tracks and 4 gravitational motors per decelerating tracks. We
could have put any other
configurations, including but not limited to putting asphalts between sections
or changing the
number of gravitational motors per sections or simply, changing the number of
pistons per
gravitational motor.
In figure 4, you have the electrical single line diagram of the Hill
Generator. As you might have
understood, this model is made with DC Alternator. However, it is also
possible to generate with
any other electrical arrangement. For this particular case, it is easy to put
as many alternator as we
wish in series. The only precautions are to " electrically " isolate the base
of alternator as well as
use a rubber strap to drive the generator, so that it is electrically isolated
at the shaft also.
The preferred applications for the single lane model would be in a big city,
in a one way road, single
lane, with a lot of traffic, before a stop, on a 50 km/h zone ( or 30 mph ).
Assuming that there is a
regular traffic at this location, we expect to recuperate 300 MWh per year in
lost energy. This has a
different value depending of the tariff where these savings are generated.
Indeed, the energy contained in a vehicles could be Kinetic of Potential. The
Kinetic energy will be
defined by half the mass ( in kg ) times the speed squared ( in m/s ). The
Potential Energy is defined
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by the loss of altitude ( in m) times the gravitational force ( in m/s2) times
the vehicles mass ( in kg
). Once we know the traffic at a particular location, it is very
straightforward to determine the
quantity of energy that we can recuperate from vehicles. Then, the economical
analysis is easy to
do.
This form of electrical generation / recuperation is more useful than other
existing alternative forms
of generation ( like wind farms for example ) in the sense that it will have a
better availability and
predictability because it is dependant upon traffic in urban areas and this is
well known and
predictable. Also, one can easily imagine the quantity of energy contained in
a traffic period in Los
Angeles, New York, etc... ! The other fact is that the loss of energy of
moving vehicles is free and
we save the brakes of the vehicles when we recuperate the lost energy ! From
an environmental
perspective, this is a good project since there is no negative impact on
environment.
Another advantage of this invention is that it could be built remotely and
have a modular
installation. Due to that, it will easily be moved to other locations and very
easy to maintain since
we can remove a module and replace it with another one while we do maintenance
work !
It is clear that this invention will have to take advantage of the trucks that
go down the hills or
decelerate, although cars, airplanes, bus and subways will be good targets
too.
There are no patents on this to the best of my knowledge and after I made
several searches.
However, the techniques of generation of electricity are well known and none
looks like this one but
they are not equivalent or anything like that. All I have seen up to now are
generation techniques
with recuperation systems perpendicular to the traffic direction. All these
recuperation systems will
create vibrations or not collect enough energy.
I have never given away any information about the subject of this invention
other than to say to
some of my friends that I found a way to generate electricity with gravity and
that I was trying to
obtain a patent for this idea.
Finally, it is my intent to patent this invention in the maximum countries as
possible.
