[Yahya (OP)]

The device is a clockwork with several stages, the main problem of a several-stage clockwork is solved, that is we won’t just connect gears directly, we will discharge the battery by connecting gears step by step until we discharge all the stored energy.


In this picture  http://i1096.photobucket.com/albums/g326/yahya515/mechanical%20battery_zpsomfkhody.png we have five big gears and four small gears the ratio between the big gear and the small one is 8:1 these gears are 1,2,3,4, and 5 , gear #5 can be considered as the car wheel which will touch ground to make it move long distance with little force, gear #1 is connected with very strong spring in this gear short-distance huge-force  energy is stored , the spring used is the spiral spring to store rotational energy , spring in gear #1 is the strongest , it becomes weaker in gear #2 and the weakest spring in gear #4  , gear #5 does not have a spring , No (7) is a spring while No (9) is gear with teeth in its half part rotates by an  electric motor , the reason for this gear and the spring is to make the group No (6) of gear #2 and gear #4 and other parts to move from left to right and vice versa while the gear rotates clockwise continuously . So what happens if group No (6) moves from side to side?
First , all these gears -except gear #5- will be charged and discharged to only half their full cycles, if gears are capable to store 8 cycles, only the last 4 cycles will be used, because the first 4 cycles may store very little forces up to zero.
When the group No (6) moves from right to left rod #10 will release gear #1 and at the same time small gear #2 will touch big gear #1, gear #1 will transfer some of its energy to weaker spring in gear #2, also at the same time small gear #4 will touch big gear #3, so that gear #3 will transfer some of its energy to weaker spring in gear #4.
On the other hand when the group of gears #2 and #4 moves from left to right all these happen:
1)   Rod #10 stops gear #1 to save energy.
2)   Big gear #2 will touch small gear #3 to transfer some energy to it and to be stored.
3)   Big gear #4 will touch small gear #5 to transfer its energy (without being stored).
This process happens over and over to transfer all the stored energy in gear #1 to gear #5 to move the car forward. The ordinary several-stage clockwork problem is solved because the last gear will rotate by   only 8 times the first gear angular speed. We do not need much energy to rotate it at enormous speeds as in an ordinary several-stage clockwork.
This motion is not continuous because it happens in steps, however two or more batteries of this kind will work alternately and provide continuous motion. This energy is not just for cars it can be used also to generate electricity as well. We can connect an electric motor to gear #5 to convert rotation to electricity. Gear #5 will rotate 32 cycles, gear #4 will complete 4 cycles, gear #3 0.5 cycle, gear #2 0.06 cycle, and gear #1 0.008 cycle this will happen at each step until the gear #1 releases all its energy.
So what about charging gear #1?

It’s easy to charge without these steps just by connecting all gears directly, as I said we can use low ratios to charge with very powerful motors in little time, or high ratios to charge with low power motors in longer time.
So if we put very strong spring say 200 K.N at beginning of the four cycles and 400 K.N at maximum charging point we can obtain forces from 50 N to 25 N as output force, if the input cycles are 4 in gear #1, the output cycles would be 16484 cycles in gear #5, if the last gear #5 has diameter one meter the car can go about 50 Km with only one charge.
Number of gears can be increased or decreased, the ratio can be changed, input spring strength can be changed, weight can be used instead of the spring in gear #1 to obtain more input energy, and all these changes can be done for different purposes of this mechanical battery.

this invention is protected by a patent issued under the name " the mechanical battery "

[syhprum]

I am surprised that anything can be patented in the eighteen nineties large wind up clock like mechanisms were used to power small generators for domestic lighting (it was the job of one of the grooms to wind them up).

[evan_au]

gear #5 can be considered as the car wheel which will touch ground to make it move long distance with little force.... 50 N to 25 N as output force

I agree that gear#5 will be able to apply very little force, since the gear ratio is enormous.
However, it takes a considerable force to make a motor car accelerate - or even to keep a steady speed when traveling up a hill.
If a very small car weighs 500kg and is sitting on perfectly level ground, it will take 30 seconds to accelerate to a walking pace.

If this car came to a slight hill with an angle of 0.6 degrees, it would grind to a halt. This angle is so small that a pedestrian would not even notice it!

200 K.N at beginning of the four cycles and 400 K.N

There is a problem with the units here:
- If it is a linear spring, you could measure its force in kiloNewtons, abbreviated kN
- If it is a spiral spring, producing rotation (as in this case), you would measure the torque in Newton-meters, abbreviated N.m

There is a vital piece of information missing here: How much do you have to compress the spring to achieve this force?
- This is essential to know how much energy the spring stores
- Which is essential to know the maximum speed of the car
- If it is a linear spring, how many meters do you compress it before it achieves a force of 200kN?
- If it is a spiral spring, how many rotations do you turn it before it achieves a torque of 200N.m?
- A solid block of steel (considered as a spring) can easily produce a force of 200kN, but it does so while moving over a distance of micrometers. The energy stored is microscopic.

To accelerate this small car to 60km/h for a residential street, you need at least 70kJ (ignoring wind resistance).
Since there seems to be no mechanism to recover the kinetic energy while braking, you will need another 70kJ after the next stop sign.

This is why electronics is far more flexible than mechanical gears, because a computer can smoothly change from "delivering power from battery to the wheels" (acceleration) to "deliver power from the wheels to the battery" (deceleration).

Smoothly changing the gear ratio on toothed gears is a very difficult problem!

[Yahya (OP)]

I forgot to mention that the forces apply on the gears edge , that means 200 K.N is actually 100 KN.m for gear of 0.5 m radius
the number of rotations is supposed to be 8 , 100 KN.m after 4 cycles and 200 KN.m after 8 cycles, I will not use the first 4 cycles for their little amount of torque.
I agree that the 50 N force at the edge of gear #5 is slight , my problem about this machine is I do not know if it can bear high torque at gear #5? say 3 meganewton.meter ? then the output torque would be considerable . if it bears high torque gear stages can be increased instead of 50 Km it can go thousands kilometers!

[evan_au]

3 meganewton.meter ?

This is an immense torque - I agree it is likely to break gear teeth!

But by itself, torque does not tell you how much energy is stored in the spring. You also need to know the distance it can be compressed.
Look up a catalogue of springs, and see how much force they can withstand before they are squashed, and what distance it takes to squash them down.

You could consider a solid diamond to be a "spring", and it could withstand 6 MegaNewtons at a radius of 0.5m from the axle = 3MN.m.
But the distance over which this force can be applied is probably nanometers, so the energy stored is small.
And it is energy that you need to get the car up to cruising speed.

if it bears high torque gear stages can be increased instead of 50 Km it can go thousands kilometers!

50km starts to be a practical distance for a small-city commuter.

I suspect that this clockwork mechanism might be able to power a toy car - and maybe a kid's car, but not a real car for city commuting with lots of stop/start traffic.

[Yahya (OP)]

 perhaps multiple batteries of this kind ? I think multiple batteries can provide much energy and long distances .

[Yahya (OP)]

if this clockwork design worked it would solve climate change problem by replacing petrol engines with cheap clean clockwork , and it could be used as energy storage for solar panels for houses electricity supply  .

[syhprum]

I think that patents have already been taken out for a clockwork car I recall seeing an illustration in Arthur Mees children's encyclopedia you are in effect storing energy by compressing steel and it can easily be shown that in terms of Joules stored per kilogram this is a pretty pore storage medium.
I think the best medium to store energy by compression is Helium gas and this has been used in some weapons all this talk about gear ratios is pretty irrelevant

http://www.douglas-self.com/MUSEUM/POWER/clockwork/clockwork.htm

[Yahya (OP)]

I think that patents have already been taken out for a clockwork car I recall seeing an illustration in Arthur Mees children's encyclopedia you are in effect storing energy by compressing steel and it can easily be shown that in terms of Joules stored per kilogram this is a pretty pore storage medium.
I think the best medium to store energy by compression is Helium gas and this has been used in some weapons all this talk about gear ratios is pretty irrelevant

http://www.douglas-self.com/MUSEUM/POWER/clockwork/clockwork.htm

my design is  an unlimited stage solution , the designs linked are whether few stages  or they are imaginary and do not work , the only solution for an unlimited stage clockwork is the solution stated in my invention. think of a clockwork of only one stage and very high ratio , you will end up with a gear of say 1 Km long!! which is not practical or a clockwork with many stages each stage is of small ratio , this won't move and will need ultra high energy. a clockwork of small ratio or few stages is useless, how long it will move a car ? 1 Km ? if it is used for energy storage, how long it will take to discharge completely , 1 minute ? an unlimited stage clockwork can last very long , and can move a car very long distances, and can replace petrol engines for a cleaner world.

[Yahya (OP)]

could this clockwork replace batteries ? I think batteries can not be used in power plants for high voltage , a clockwork fixed to it a generator could be used for high voltage ?

[syhprum]

Storing energy in compressed steel is rather like storing electrical energy in a capacitor which has the problem that the rate at which the energy can be recovered varies with the quantity of energy remaining (as the capacitor is discharged the voltage drops) This is not such a problem with electrical energy as the capacitor can feed into Variable pulse width PSU that can output a constant voltage.
This problem was overcome by the makers of mechanical chronometers by a device called a Fusse which was in effect a continuous variable gear but more weight and complication for your car.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusee_(horology)

[Yahya (OP)]

I do not think this is a big problem because I will use the last cycles to prevent small torque.

[Yahya (OP)]

how springs are efficient ? how many charges and discharge a spring will bear until it looses some of its elasticity ?

[evan_au]

Rather than fantasize about enormous gear ratios, I decided to put some real numbers on how much energy could be realistically stored in a real spring.

I picked one of the beefier Chevy truck springs from this website (selected at random by Google; many other vendors are available):
- Model: moog-6560s
- Unloaded length: 13.5 inches
- Steel thickness: 0.9 inches
- Number of turns: 8 (ie 7.2 inches of the length is steel)
- at a resting load of 3,788 pounds (17kN), the length compresses to 11 inches (ie 2.5 inches compression)
- Since the Force (in Pounds or Newtons) is proportional to compression (in inches or meters), I estimate that at a load of 10,000 pounds (42kN) it will be steel-on-steel, at 6.3 inches (0.16 m) compression.

The Energy stored in the spring = Force (in Newtons) x Compression (in meters).
- Since the Force changes with compression distance, you have to do an integration, not a straight multiplication
- If my maths hasn't got too rusty:
- At the design load, this beefy truck spring will store 0.5kJ
- At maximum compression, this massive spring will store 3kJ
- That is enough to get our very light car (500kg) up to a maximum speed of 3.7m/s, or 13 km/h (typical residential speed limit is 50km/h)
- It would be quickly brought to a standstill by air resistance, or the slightest of hills
- So ideas of 50km range (or a thousand km range) are totally unrealistic.

Unfortunately, the website doesn't advise the weight of the springs, but I suspect that the energy density would not be that great.

[alancalverd]

Beware of any single-step gear ratios greater than 10:1. The torque imbalance can lead to stripping and jamming. Use multi-step trains (like a mechanical clock) to achieve large ratios. Unfortunately this increases the frictional losses. 

[evan_au]

I suspect that the energy density would not be that great

There is enough on the geometry of the spring to estimate that the spring would take up a volume of 5 liters, have a unrolled length of 3m and a mass of 9.5kg (if I've done the calculations correctly!).

Assuming you always squashed the spring down as far as it would go (storing 3400J):
- The specific energy is around 360 J/kg, which is much less than:
       - The rechargeable Lithium-ion battery in your smartphone, at around 500,000 J/kg.
       - The non-renewable petroleum in your car, at around 46,000,000 J/kg.
- The energy density is around 660 J/liter, which is much less than:
       -  The Lithium-ion battery in your smartphone, at around 1,000,000 J/liter.
       - Petroleum in your car, at around 34,000,000 J/liter.

Of course, the petroleum in you car is only half an energy source, and doesn't function at all without the oxygen in the air, which has far greater mass, and enormously greater volume than the liquid petrol in your "gas tank". And, naturally, a sink for the enormous volume of CO₂ produced during combustion. 

So I don't see this clockwork mechanism replacing electric (or petroleum-fueled) cars in the near future, nor solving our greenhouse gas emission problems.

Clockwork mechanisms should stay in their current niche in toy cars, where they are cheap and effective. 

See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_density#Energy_densities_of_common_energy_storage_materials

[syhprum]

I think the designers of clockwork cars had all this worked out 100 years ago and abandoned their projects, this was before magical gearboxes were discovered with efficiencies of 10000%

PS the famous windup radios were quickly redesigned to incorporate batteries, the only success story for windup motors was for gramophone turntables where they were in use for about 80 years.

[Yahya (OP)]

Clockwork mechanisms should stay in their current niche in toy cars, where they are cheap and effective. 

I found a super spring which is carbon nano-tube spring it has large energy density close or equal to a Li-ion battery.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_nanotube_springs

[Yahya (OP)]

this link shows the reduction in price of carbon nano-tube , I qoute " As of 2016 the retail price of as-produced 75% by weight SWNTs were $2 per gram, cheap enough for widespread use." as its energy density is 10 times li-ion battery  for my above car to obtain 4.8 MJ I will need only 1.04 K.g which costs $2080 ." as this energy density comparison is between volumes the actual carbon nantube should be 2.1 MJ/kg  (i think) , then I will need 2.2kg which costs $4400.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_nanotube
energy density for li-ion battery :
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_density_Extended_Reference_Table

[syhprum]

"what about using weight at high heights instead of spring"
As I pointed out in an earlier post some domestic lighting systems used this method of power storage in the 1890,s.
I am glad you found a chart listing the energy storage capacity of various substances with steel springs right at the bottom , perhaps if you had found this earlier you would not have embarked on developing a spring powered car
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_density_Extended_Reference_Table