Ring Power Multiplier?? - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / projects

author: jmole
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: December 09, 2014, 05:07:09 pm
content: Anyone heard of this?http://www.prweb.com/releases/RingPowerMultiplier/Texzon/prweb11509651.htmSmells like fish to me, but I'm too lazy (and don't have the proper background) to read and fully understand the patent. Would love to hear your opinions.They've tested a prototype at NASA, but something tells me that scaling this down to 50/60Hz is a lot more difficult than the 400Hz they used at NASA.

author: richard.cs
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 09, 2014, 06:00:55 pm
content: http://www.google.com/patents/US8638182I like this bit:Quotewhen it's talking about using power multiplying waveguides of the microwave design at 60 Hz.It then goes on to suggest using conventional pylon and cable structures as the transmission line:QuoteAnd moved on to the actual invention, the same thing implimented as lumped elements.QuoteNote that it is a *power* multiplier not an *energy* multipler. You should imaging this device as being the no-moving-parts equivilent of a synchronous motor with a huge flywheel attached. There is energy stored (in the flywheel or as "multiplied input power" circulating in the loop of transmission line) and it's tied to the grid in such a way that it tries to prop it up (using its store of internal circulating energy) when demand suddenly increases.While they waffle on a bit about times of peak load it's really useful for a few hundred mains cycles so far as I can tell, maybe it'll do a bit more but I can't see how the internal losses can be made low enough to store energy for long periods. It looks like it'll buy a few extra seconds after a power station trips to kick the local aluminium smelter off the grid or wind open a valve at a hydro plant, I don't see it riding through the minutes needed to start up a gas turbine or the hours needed to spreak peak demand around the day.Still, I didn't understand all of it so if anyone else has a better understanding please fire away.

author: johansen
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 09, 2014, 09:23:52 pm
content: http://www.google.com/patents/US8638182There is a lot more going on here than simply storing the energy in a transmission line, but ultimately the energy is stored in an LC network, which means dollars per joule is very high.The impedance of the power grid is already very low on the user end.. however it is on the order of 10-20% on the generating end, the reason for that is simply leakage inductance scales to the fourth power but power density following the 4/3rds power, with volume following the third power.For example a 2 gigawatt 2 pole 60hz generator*, can operate on a high enough power density such that if there is a fault internal to the generator, you liquify the copper and steel at the rate of many tons per second. -but the impedance of the generator is on the order of 10%, meaning short circuit current is on the order of 10 times full load current.Being able to reduce the impedance of the power grid with some kind of energy storage network is certainly interesting but its not without other problems.The only reason they don't need to soft start large transformers is due to the high impedance of the power grid and the transformer.A small 1 amp toroidal transformer can pull 100 amps when it turns on, but only for perhaps 10 cycles.A gigawatt transformer can take 5 minutes for the dc bias of the core to disappear.. but it certainly doesn't pull 100 times its normal full load current during this condition.. such a situation would blackout the entire grid.So its interesting to be able to arbitrarily decrease the impedance of the grid, but i think it causes more problems than its worth.installing hundreds of 2% impedance energy storage networks is interesting, the power companies certainly want to be able to do it.. but they want to use your hybrid car battery for this purpose because they have no intention of paying you the 25 cents per kilowatt hour life cycle cost of the battery.--if they did, they would build their own battery storage higher up the food chain, where they would get 10% better efficiency.superconducting inductance energy storage devices are already too expensive.. this power multiplying coil will be even more so.*presently it appears the largest is 1.4GW, matching the largest steam turbine presently available.