Awesome Air Powered go kart. 43km/h Top speed, Electronic timing, Mechanical Clutch, Competive performance. See the project from start to finish including lots of test videos. GET MORE INFO AT: poisson.me.dal.ca
Dalhousie – Air Powered Go Kart
Tags: air, APD, car, Dalhousie, design, emissions, environment, go, go kart, Green, kart, power, project, Rotary, scuba, vehicle, Wankel, zero
May 18th, 2009
looks like a wankel rotary. cool.
May 18th, 2009
fukin seals fuk em who cares
May 18th, 2009
air powered rotary
i love you guys! can you build a air powered 4 rotor 
May 18th, 2009
That is Great!!! very nice job!
May 18th, 2009
Nice Job!..Alternative vehicles are allways interesting
May 18th, 2009
Quote “If we used a multi-stage step down with increasing rotor sizes. We could extract much more power per air vol. This multi-stage step down technology is used in steam engines in the late 1800’s”
Nope
You misunderstand compound, triple expansion etc steam engines. Multi expansion steam engines work due to superheat and exhausting to a vacuum and the efficiency increase is in the 20 to 40% range over single expansion. Does not apply to air expansion.
May 18th, 2009
Maximum of 3.5 miles if the numbers in the comments and intro are correct
May 18th, 2009
very coll great job1!!!!
May 18th, 2009
what is the range on that thing?
May 18th, 2009
Thanks!
May 18th, 2009
Still, either way…I think you did an AWESOME JOB!!!! ^_^
May 18th, 2009
We do not have the decibel rating however it would be similar to a small motorcycle. We could easily reduce this and increase the power of the engine as well. We used an old snowmobile engine for the project with one rotor. If we used a multi-stage step down with increasing rotor sizes. We could extract much more power per air vol. This multi-stage step down technology is used in steam engines in the late 1800’s. It was purely budget that kept us from doing this. We currently get about 5 min.
May 18th, 2009
I have 2 oddball questions…What’s the decibel rating on the engine and how long does it last?
Mega thanx ahead of time for your response.
^_^
P.S. Keep up the awesome work!!!
May 18th, 2009
Nice one! What’s the name of the track used at beginning of the video?
BTW did you notify Guy Negre? I am sure he’ ll love this.
May 18th, 2009
interesting.. though i still beleive theres away to get it back in at the proper psi, my mind keeps going back to the high powered hydraulic brake systems that use a storage tank and an accumulator to store i beleive about 5000psi of pressure. i will have to consult my old teacher on the system and compressed air with it. though i dont see why its not possible since mercedes was doing it with vaccum on their old 300D deisel cars.
May 18th, 2009
Its not quite that easy to get air back in the tanks. The air would have to be at higher pressure then the tanks in order to get it back in. The tanks start at 3000 psi and we run air through the engine at 145psi. This means that the exhaust can be no more then 145psi. We would have to pump the exhaust air back up to pressure. Therefore it is of no benefit to put the exhaust back in the tanks. We do use a recirculation loop. We reworked the engine to use two of the three chambers for power.
May 18th, 2009
i was thinking about this all today. if you ran a line from the exhaust to a pressure regulator with a one way check valve, when the exhaust air gets to a certain psi you could push it back into the bottle. then you would have a never ending supply of presurized air….if not then you may need to throw an accumulator into the mix. but being as the engine shouldnt remove to much psi you should be able to reuse the exhaust
May 18th, 2009
And i didnt ask abour the recirculation because of power, unlike most ricers thats not the only thing on my mind. i was thinking of longevity, you can only last so long on 2 tanks, so if it can effectivly pump the air back into the tanks you could esentially have an engine that never runs out of “fuel”. and since all engines are esentially airpumps, with a little R&D time i dont see why you cant make this engine run forever with just those two tanks constantly recirculating the air
May 18th, 2009
u stupid? or just naive? if you dont lube the seals they will seize up, then the motor will not function properly and air will rush past the seals therefore losing even greater power, why not read up on the rotary engine. the apex seals need lubrication to function properly. which is why my rx7 and every other rotor has an oil injection system. and on top of that I CARE WHAT THE FUCKING SEALS ARE LUBBED WITH
May 18th, 2009
who cares wat the fukin seals are lubbed with an i think recirculating the air would take away from the already poor horse power.. but that shit was pretty smart
i see some hybrid rotary motors in the near future
May 18th, 2009
2 things…what are you using to lubricate the seals? and how long does it last running on the 2 tanks of gas or did you figure out a way to recirculate the air for reuse?