OT: Petrol consumption

Ah yes. I recall on one trip to India the groundspeed was 630 mph ! Not bad.

Graham

My favorite traffic story occurred late one February evening on a two lane road which no longer had shoulders due to snow drifts. One lane got used for parking volunteers and other for alternating traffic.

Over Fire Police CB: *STOP THAT CAR* Stop that car. She almost ran me over.

Fire Chief was standing in the "right place" and flags her down and asks for "license and registration" etc.

I witnessed the following conversation ;)

Chief: Why didn't you stop for officer at bottom of the hill? Lady: I was confused by all the flashing lights. Chief: Did you think of slowing down? Lady: No.

At this point I wish I had had a video camera. The various expressions that wandered across her face as: she realized what she had just said. she realized it was a perfectly accurate description.

Chief let her go with polite caution to remember in future what she had just said.

In realm of general fire related lack of functioning neurons stories, there is tie for first place.

_Guy Tries to Impress Girl_

Scene: Old three story former one family residence that been converted into TOO many "apartments". [as in any "college town"]

Act 1: Guy invites girl for candle lit dinner. Act 2: He cooks dinner and sets table with mundane lighting on. Act 3: the dinner candelabra lit and mundane lights extinguished room still too bright to be "romantic" what to do? what to do? move candelabra into adjoining closet OOOPPPPSSS contents of closet ignite *WHAT TO DO?* *WHAT TO DO?* leave without telling anyone building is on fire offstage - fire discovered and alarm given Epilogue: He and she have "conversation" with appropriate deans as this was in age of "in loco parentis" and she had neglected to sign out of dorm.

_Girls Try to Impress Guys_ [I'll bow to ERA ;]

Scene: Old three story former one family residence that been converted into many "apartments". Cornell required that any "apartment house"/"rooming house" wishing to be listed with university have a pressurized clear water fire extinguisher on each floor. There may have also been a local ordinance of same intent. Plot:

Girls invite guys to dinner which will feature vegetables flash cooked in hot oil.

Large amount of oil placed in large kettle and brought to heat.

Veggies added to pot. Lots of splatter. Pot of oil ignites. Johnny to Rescue grabs required extinguisher. Reads instructions -- as is Ivy League student he is able. "Aims at base of flames" --- ignites kitchen curtains. decides to call Fire Department Asst. Fire Chief is first on scene -- sees kettle's cover on drainboard -- places on kettle -- walks out without saying a word.

You *DID* ask

BEWARE I've more stories -- some even include evidence of own lack of functioning neurons -- doubt I'll post those

And then there is student pilot who "leans mixture" instead of "adding carburetor heat" when landing with owner of school as his instructor. I understand they are adjacent in a Piper Cub. ex-Student is reported to have lived ;)

Yes, but also the fuel quality counts. I once bought the more expensive fuel (diesel) from a branded petrol station and noticed my car drove better. After keeping track of the km/l figure it turned out the expensive fuel was actually 3% cheaper to use.

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That is more likely for Diesel than for gasoline. With gasolir, the higher the octane rating, the lower the energy per gallon. The extra efficiency made possible by higher compression ratios (o to some extent advanced timing) more than makes up for the difference.

Jerry

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Engineering is the art of making what you want from things you can get.
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Richard Henry wrote: (snip)

And the windows were closed both ways?

Try windows open and AC off at 65 mi/h.

There is also an effect on engine efficiency due to incoming air temperature. It should be smaller than the difference you note.

-- glen

(snip)

There was an article, I believe in Popular Science some years ago on running car engines on hydrogen. They put water through the carburetor. (That was in the days before fuel injection was popular.)

With all the talk about a hydrogen economy and fuel cells I haven't heard anything lately about hydrogen in internal combustion engines.

-- glen

I usually keep the lights on during the day when I am on two lane roads, especially winding ones, but otherwise off.

There was a road I used to drive on (I believe it is 152 between 101 and Interstate 5 in the central valley of California) which has a section called "daylight test section" where you are supposed to keep your lights on. I don't know that anyone is actually doing the statistics, but that would seem to be the suggestion.

-- glen

I doubt it would be really worthwhile, especially for larger vehicles which are *really* the problem. 1/4 to 1 HP is minuscule. Good driving habits, possibly augmented by realtime fuel economy gauges, would probably save much more. Convincing most people to buy a second highly economical vehicle and use it for most transportation needs would save the most.

As pointed out elsewhere, many other engine systems use a lot of power. If most of those could be powered by a more efficient electric motor, it would probably reduce the engine load by several HP. The alternator could be "supersized" and probably a separate battery would be needed. I think this approach might be able to boost fuel economy by 10-20%, especially for vehicles with power steering and air conditioning. Both units could probably be modified to run off of an electric motor / generator with the same type belts and pulleys.

An even more efficient method would be to couple the motor/generator to the driveshaft, so that the fuel motor could actually be mechanically decoupled from the drivetrain and turned off during long downhill stretches. This would be easier to do with a rear wheel drive vehicle. Even better might be a four wheel drive vehicle where the rear drive could be made independent from the front, and the motor/generator could be used for moderate propulsion as well as regeneration. Another way to implement a hybrid conversion.

Paul

AIUI Volvo did the original statistics on accidents in Sweden.

Regards Ian

LED)

have

fuel

8 -

to

One other thing I noticed is that the idle fuel consumption and driving at

50 km an hour in steady state conditions burned fuel at about the same rate (based on time)!

Very excessive highway (not likely steady state condtions) speed burned about 1.28 l per minute, which gave an economy of 30L per 100 km.

(with

over

overcome

That doesn't sound terribly likely actually !

They haven't forgotten but it's a truly daft idea.

Graham

[snip]

What brand of car?

Two possibilities, GM product with crap meter or, undersized engine.

...Jim Thompson

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|  James E.Thompson, P.E.                           |    mens     |
|  Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      |
|  Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC\'s and Discrete Systems  |    manus    |
|  Phoenix, Arizona            Voice:(480)460-2350  |             |
|  E-mail Address at Website     Fax:(480)460-2142  |  Brass Rat  |
|       http://www.analog-innovations.com           |    1962     |
             
I love to cook with wine.      Sometimes I even put it in the food.

Mercedes-Benz. I'm not sure of the model (E-350?). She gave me her old C-280, which with 212,000 miles is the most-traveled and second-best of our cars.

After passing Corona heading south, I played with various settings trying to figure out how the mpg meter works. If I reset the trip odometer, the mpg goes to 22.7 and slowly returns to the previous reading in about 5 minutes. I was able to get up to 36 mpg on some of the long downhills on I-15 in San Diego County. I'm not supposed to drive it while she is gone (it's only for business), but I took a short trip the other day to check the in-town mileage. At 45mph on level ground, after several miles the reading was about 23-24 mpg.

I read the link but missed the hydrogen content.

Sorry, wrong link. Both included references to buses

Graham

Well I suppose my main point is that modulating the charging of the battery based on the driving conditions would make some difference, maybe half of the battery charging could be done using using energy from going down hills, and the only cost of implementing it might well be just a few lines of code, depending on exactly how the battery charging is regulated in the car already. So basically I am not saying that it would make a huge difference but it would be incredibly cheap to do, (if it is not already being done, which it may be I suppose).

Chris

It certainly works for motorcycles, why wouldn't it work for cars? SOme motorcycle riders don' tlike cars with lights on, since it makes them look similar.

In NY (and other states FWIG) one is required to have the headlights on whenever the wipers are on. It's a good idea, IMO.

--
  Keith

California since the first of the year. It has raised the question in my mind as to how "on" the wipers have to be before the law applies. Here in the desert we regularly get little sprinkles that require a swipe or two to clear the speckles. Is that "on"?

There are such sections in numerous places in Cal. It would be interesting to see the statistics. Anybody have a Calran contact?

[And what does this have to do with DSP?]