A DoD design contract?

"martin griffith"

The DOD details are here:

Looks like a devious way to get a military grade, wearable *fuel cell* battery pack designed and prototyped on the cheap.

Get the Chinese to mass produce them for $50 a pop later .

....... Phil

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martin

Anyone who can squeeze 185kWHr capacity into 4kg deserves to win $1M.

Mine went right to it.

I think Telefonica is blocked by some sites, loads of spam generators used to use telefonica, but I got through using Tor, via germany, eventually

martin

They should just tote a little generator and snitch truck fuel. ;-)

Cheers! Rich

No problem at all. They don't state in the requirements if the subject carrying the PSU is expected to survive acute radiation poisoning following the 96 hour period.

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Never mind. I found the bit about 'no radio-isotopes'. Damn spoil-sports.

The system energy density they want suggests either some really exotic battery chemistries or a fuel cell plus a small recargable cell to provide short term peaking power. They are looking at about 1.8E6 Joules/Kg for the system. Lithium-ion batteries (alone) run around 4E5 Joules/Kg if I'm not mistaken. I didn't see anything about noise. Just rig up a little generator using a model airplane engine and some rechargable batteries to ride through peak loads, submerged operation, etc. The spec's didn't say the wearer had to be sane after the end of the test either. ;-)

"John B"

....... Phil

Then they should win 1.92/185 * $1M = $10.4k bucks.

Ah, Mea Culpa. I failed to look at the DoD spec and interpreted the magazine article as 1920W/hr for 96 hours. A little bit different from reality.

And not only that, but with an engine, the load would get lighter as fuel is burned. :-) ISTR seeing a little Honda 1KW about the size of a football, once.

Cheers! Rich

Seriously, I gave the requirements a quick scan and didn't see anything definite about the wearer's comfort. I don't seriously think anyone will be proposing a reciprocating engine. But some fuel cell technologies can get pretty warm in operation. The temperatures may not reach harmful levels, but I don't want to lug a heating pad around the Iranian* desert for 96 hours. In fact, one parameter of interest to the DoD seems to be how thick the unit is, suggesting that this will be warn against a soldier's body.