Am more interested in how to benefit a bike with the aid of thermal energy recovery. The pipes just waste massive amount of heat energy into the atmosphere. If an efficient system can be designed and implemented, the energy gained from the exhaust system could potentially be used in several ways, i.e. charge a secondary motor which could delivery additional drive when required... when racing and you would like a bit more say between a particular rev range, or provide assisted drive when motorway cruising and in turn saving on fuel etc etc
An efficient enough system could potentially replace the need of the stator making an engine lighter with less rotating parts and reducing friction and 'reduced masses' (a term that relates to a general
increase of an objects weight due to its motion) increasing engine efficiency and everything that goes along with that.
Obviously, it's just theoretical jibba jabba at the moment, I plan to start doing some research and calculations next week and developing my proposal to present to the lecturers as soon as possible.
I'm not trying to change bikes in any way (but doing a motorcycle BEng, dissertation needs to be bike related) but thinking about what field of study could potentially benefit my career prospects once I finish the final year. There seems to be quite a few places that like candidates to have an understanding of thermodynamics and with there being more and more interest in renewable energy sources and us having heat in abundance, well, for the next couple of billion years at least, I think thermodynamics is a good route to explore.
This year, I think F1 are using two systems, KERS (Kinetic Energy Recovery System) and HERS (Heat E R S). Would be nice to have a look at their heat recovery system but doubt they'll just happily let me walk in and ask their engineers a squillion questions
I'm not death to power tools... If it breaks, it's obviously NOT a power tool!!!
