Showing posts with label Energy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Energy. Show all posts

Tuesday, February 20, 2018

Autonomous Vehicles Get Specific Attention In Paints & Coatings From PPG

Autonomous vehicle sensor coatings – PPG is pioneering the development of paints and related coatings that will improve vehicle and infrastructure visibility to radar and light detection and ranging (LIDAR) sensors used in autonomous driving systems. Autonomous system signals bounce off this under layer coatings and return to the sensor instead of getting absorbed. This coating leverages commercially proven technology from PPG’s aerospace business that functions in the same light and heat-reflective way. Image Credit: PPG

Autonomous Vehicles Get Specific Attention In Paints & Coatings From PPG

PPG (NYSE: PPG) today announced that Ranju Arya will become senior business director, mobility, effective immediately.

PPG has formed a new team to look exclusively at how innovations in paint and coatings can help autonomous and electric vehicles.

As cars change, so will the expectations and demands put on their coatings, said Ranju Arya, who will lead the new team as senior business director of mobility. Image Credit: PPG via BusinessWire

“The options and opportunities are limitless,” Arya told the Tribune-Review on Monday. “We just have to understand more about this space.”

Arya is based in Troy, Michigan, but his team will consist of employees from all over the world, including Pittsburgh. PPG announced the new team Monday.

PPG unveiled its work with self-driving and electric vehicles in January during the North American International Auto Show in Detroit. The company partnered with University of Michigan's Mcity, a proving ground for self-driving cars, and is testing paints that are more visible to LiDAR scanner and that are easy to clean to keep sensor and camera lenses free of debris. Arya said PPG is working on coatings that will help cars communicate and see one another and stay clean, both inside and out. For autonomous vehicles used in ride-sharing, that coatings could make sure screens and there interfaces inside the car stay smudge free from one user to the next.

“These are all things that coatings can play a part in,” Arya said.

LiDAR scanners, which reflect lasers off of surfaces to tell where objects are, have a hard time seeing some dark-painted objects, Arya said. PPG developed a dark paint that the LiDAR can see through so it reflects off of the coating below it. The easy-clean coatings change the way water and other substances stick and cling to surfaces.

For electric cars, PPG designed coatings that can store and transfer energy.

Arya said the new coatings are still being tested in-house and haven't made their ways onto public streets.
[ht: BusinessWire | Triblive-Aaron Aupperlee]

... notes from The EDJE



TAGS: PPG, Ranju Arya, Mobility, Autonomous, Paints, Coatings, Store and Transfer, Energy, LiDAR, light detection and ranging, Mcity, University of Michigan, The EDJE

Sunday, September 26, 2010

DynoValve: The Awareness - Rebirth Of The Lowly PCV Valve

Savi Corporation's DynoValve Kit Packaging - The DynoValve takes the functioning of the mechanical Positive Crankcase Valve process and brings the process evolution to its maximum effectiveness. Image Credit: Edmund Jenks (2010)

DynoValve: The Awareness - Rebirth Of The Lowly PCV Valve

MPG Track Day exhibit discovery leads to test!

Motor Press Guild's Track Day is a time each year where journalists who have a focus on transportation technology and culture come together with the major automobile manufacturers to find out what is new for the next year's (2011) selling season. Any company who believes they have something to contribute to the event and wish to gain exposure to 150 plus people who write and another 100 or so people who market transportation platforms may end up presenting their solutions as an exhibitor or sponsor to the event ... Savi Corporation was one such company.

After over a half a decade of research and development, testing, and working with various environmental agencies, Savi Corporation was able to introduce its "smart" Positive Crankcase Ventilation (PCV) valve to the world at last month’s 60th Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance ... the DynoValve. The DynoValve replaces the mechanical PCV Valve found as original manufacture on all engines and takes the functioning of this environmentally useful process to a higher, more efficient level.

Pictured - The DynoValve computer-controlled valve on top with the mechanical PCV valve on bottom. Image Credit: Edmund Jenks (2010)

This excerpted and edited from Wikipedia -

As an engine operates, high-pressure gases are contained within the combustion chamber and prevented from passing into the crankcase (containing the crankshaft and other parts) between the side of the piston and the cylinder bore by piston rings which seal against the cylinder. However, some amount of gas always leaks past the piston rings into the crankcase. This amount is very small in a new or properly rebuilt engine, provided that the piston rings and cylinder walls are correctly "broken in", and increases as the engine wears. Scratches on the cylinder walls or piston rings, such as those caused by foreign objects entering the engine, can cause large amounts of leakage. This leaked gas is known as blow-by because the pressure within the cylinders blows it by the piston rings. If this blow-by gas could not escape then pressure would build up within the crankcase.

Before the invention of crankcase ventilation in 1928, the engine oil seals were designed to withstand this pressure, oil leaking to the road surface was accepted, and the dipstick was screwed in. The hydrocarbon rich gas would then diffuse through the oil in the seals into the atmosphere. Subsequently, it became an emissions requirement as well as a functional necessity that the crankcase have a ventilation system. This [system] must maintain the crankcase at slightly less than atmospheric pressure under light load conditions and recycle the blow-by gas back into the engine intake.

However, due to the constant circulation of the oil within the engine, along with the high speed movement of the crankshaft, an oil mist is also passed through the PCV system and into the intake. The oil is then either burned during combustion, or settles along the intake tract, causing a gradual build-up of residue inside the inlet path. For this reason many engine tuners choose to replace the PCV system with an oil catch can and breather filter which vents the blow-by gases directly to atmosphere and retains the oil in a small tank (or returns it to the sump), although this technically fails to meet most engine emission legislation.
Reference Here>>

The DynoValve takes the functioning of the mechanical Positive Crankcase Valve process from a spring loaded plug, door, or flap that is opened and closed through the variance in pressure from one side of the door to the other and regulates the opening and closing based upon electronic signals and computer commands that even out the performance and brings the process evolution to its maximum effectiveness.

Many claims as to the benefits of this computerized DynoValve system process center around two major areas. It is GREEN and it makes one's vehicle more fuel efficient.

The DynoValve is GREEN because it allows for a greater, more complete burning of the fuel and other materials in the cylinder of the engine due to the increased breath-ability of the engine itself. The carbon particulate matter from the fuel and the gasses from the crankcase being more effectively burned, along with the catalytic converter, knocks the emissions to a nearly un-measurable level.

The GREEN and fuel efficient Hummer H2 stretch limousine with DynoValve. Image Credit: Edmund Jenks (2010)

The DynoValve is more fuel efficient due to the fact the fuel is being burned more thoroughly because of the computerized DynoValve system process, a greater level of power is delivered by the engine so the performance is enhanced and less gas pedal is required to achieve the same performance results. An increase in the vehicle's gas consumption performance in miles per gallon of 30% is not unrealistic. One limousine company has documented an increase in MPG performance by as much as 300% under some specific driving conditions and a 200% increase is common.

This begs the question "Can this be tested and an article be developed by one of the journalists who became aware of the DynoValve at MPG Track Day to show the results one might be able to achieve on an everyday pick-up truck?"

The F250 "test-bed". Image Credit: Edmund Jenks (2010)

The installation happened yesterday on a 1995 Ford F250 XLT, 7.5 litre/460 cubic inch V8 powered pick-up that had 55,488.6 original miles on it at the time of install. The truck pretty much averages 10 miles per gallon and there had been times the truck did achieve 12 mpg but these were times where one was traveling out of the San Bernardino Mountains and traveled on the freeway at reduced speeds.

It was discovered during the install procedure that there was a couple of breeches in the truck's vacuum hose array which had the pressure measuring around 17 lbs. (normal pressure is about 20 lbs.). After installation of the DynoValve and the replacement of the compromised hoses, the operation of the truck's PCV vacuum system was restored back to 20 lbs. (full slideshow here).

Installed DynoValve. Image Credit: Edmund Jenks (2010)

This posting will be the first of a series of articles spawned from the testing of Savi Corporation's computerized DynoValve system process installed on this writer's 1995 Ford F250 XLT, 7.5 liter/460 cubic inch V8 powered pick-up truck.

... notes from The EDJE