collab: hydraulic gravity engine

[Cherryman]

Here is my version..

I will use mechanical valves activated by position of the bucket and to get the cilinder back up i will use the power of floatation while the weight buckets content flows downwards into the cylinder.

[Cherryman]

Update1:

First experiment was to see if the piston would rise up again if water was added. It works. I added some foam undernead the piston. A one way valve and an airintake will make it able to go up again by itself. When you pour water on top of the piston. It will transfer automaitcally trough the piston head and the whole thing is in starting position again.

I did this to see if the floating would overcome the resistance from the watertight seals, so far ..so good.

Not there yet. I still need to see if this also works when i balance the whole thing out.

My setup is experimental so it goes very slow.. But i'm just testing the concept.


Next stept is to see what the minium weight/pressure is to rise the water to a point above the cylinder.

I'm aiming to balance the piston so that 1 kg will make the difference. ( = 1 liter )

[Cherryman]

I made a little movie of the floating cilinder

YouTube - Float1

[Naboo]

Cherryman, great animation!
I also the saw the videoclip, so we see that the force of buoyancy can overcome the static friction of the seal. I wonder if adding a lubricant could decrease the resistance further and still make it watertight?

So "in essence" you have simplified the first design I made, as instead of using a long cylinder for both chambers you connected them with a pipe, thereby making the components more accessible for normal people.

I'm not sure if this is correct, but isn't the number of valves you would need here 3, one at the red dot, one in the piston and one somewhere in the return pipe, to keep the pressure of the water column from flowing in when the piston valve is open?


Purely by guessing, since you are using the force of the water's weight to push the long column of water up, you won't probably need that much of a weight to overcome the hydrostatic pressure, since you need something like 11 meters of water just to create 1 bar, or double atmosphere.

Btw I like your design ;D
Julian

[Cherryman]

Naboo. Tnx for commenting.

About the seals. Less friction would be good.
Maybe a pressure seal is even better.. only closed when on pressure, fully open on the way up.

I tried some some weight on the cylinder, to see at how much weight the the water is forced up high enough. So far no good.. A few kilo's did not do it. I have to built a more stable setup.

I'm afraid it will need a some dead ballast, problem is that dead ballest has to go back up also..

I share youre idears, still think you might get some usable hydraulic power out of using the water as a liquid weight


Tnx for youre comments.

[Naboo]

Oh man, its so long ago since I wrote here last time....

As always, my view on certain things have changed according to how much I try to understand them.

I believe the Hero fountain will not work OU, just as the four frames I supplied will not work either, because it is only based on hydrostatics and leverage.

If you place a tube in a pond, the the water will not suddenly spurt out of the tube. Yet, there is air pressure of approximately one kilogram for every square centimeter pushing on the water, and surface difference between the pond and the tube should give an incredible gain, but...... no, they balance out.

(as long as we are dealing with hydrostatic pressure only we are limited to its exceptional ability of self-balancing and equalizing)


But, I think cherryman followed the right lead, if it can work.
Large weight with leverage give a force pushing against the hydrostatic force.

-Around ten meters of water height give about one atmosphere of pressure.
-To balance this out, you would need 1 kg of weight times the ratio of leverage (the surface area difference).
-Add further weight and you might overcome the friction and cause the seal to move.
-Finally when the water runs back into the container above the piston, the piston will increase its power as it continually gets more weight.

I hope it isn't a problem with these big pictures showing the operation
(although the previous animation was great!):