Air Temp Nitinol

[Tom Booth]

Hi Tom Booth and welcome aboard . I need another person interested In Nitinol . I have trained My nitinol to react in just AIR temps and no water or no HOT water should be needed . (...). I have mastered  the conditioning of THIS WIRE in any range as low as -10f to as high as 175f so this is a First time for any Nitinol to actually work without water ,just normal air .
Albert
AKA
Gadget

I could be wrong but my general impression from watching videos of Nitinol transformations on YouTube and such is that Nitinol doesn't conduct heat to or from air anywhere near as quickly or effectively as from direct contact with a liquid.

Like someone blowing hot air from a hair dryer on a Nitinol spring and it rather slowly regains its original shape, by contrast, drop it in hot water and the transformation is nearly instantaneous. I have no direct experience playing with the stuff but I'm guessing that the molecules of a liquid like water, being more densely packed together than the molecules in a gas there would be more kinetic/heat energy transferred more rapidly by the liquid to metal contact than by metal to gas or air. I think the density of the liquid medium is probably a factor.

In other words, I would guess that there are more hot molecules for heat transfer to the Nitinol in a teaspoon of hot water than in a balloon full of hot air though both are at the same temperature.

In the engine design in my previous post, I was thinking that the Nitinol spring would act like the "regenerator" in a Stirling Engine.

That is, the Nitinol would absorb heat as first the Hot fluid flows through and around the spring, then when the direction of the fluid is reversed, the Nitinol would release the heat back into the fluid.

[gadgetmall]

Thats true with cold water and hot water  . But they need energy to be that way  .solar only works in the day and storage last only a few days at best . It is getting cooler in the mornings thank God . yesterday it was 52 f in the morn . I did take a few pieces out side and they immediately became bent under their own weight . took them inside 74 degrees f and the immediately straighten out , so the effect work with plain air if your cold is enough .

My Goal is simple no energy input from man . nature only . we have scorching hot summers 116+f ,twice the needed heat for my wire  and cold ass winters  15f ,thats 5 times colder than it needs to relax.   simple water underground will keep its temperature stable at 42-54f all year long . it's just a matter of the greenhouse effect on top with glass to heat the hot portion .. in the winter ..

you need to get some . it has another strange effect . if you bend it when it's in its hard state it gives off heat . as long as you stress it heat come from it . just as soon as you let the stress off it gets Very Cold /  you can test this with a piece on your upper lip . others have coated the wire with color changing liquid crystals and see the same thing.If ou get some i Highly recommend the 40foot roll for 19.95 shipping included in the us or a dollar extra for over seas . this is the Wire that can be made air temp or whatever. i tried all the other wires and they will not transform to  austenite in normal temp . they NEED high heat to transform which is what we don't want . have a look at my motor i made the wire on it ., it runs in plain air in different parts of my house .

http://youtu.be/dAmQUZDYRe8

[Tom Booth]

Thats true with cold water and hot water  . But they need energy to be that way

Well, "plain air" or ambient "needs" energy also. The atmosphere is just one big solar energy or hot air collector. Air works, or can work, it just might require more air flow across the Nitinol or a greater temperature difference I suppose.

solar only works in the day and storage last only a few days at best . It is getting cooler in the mornings thank God . yesterday it was 52 f in the morn . I did take a few pieces out side and they immediately became bent under their own weight . took them inside 74 degrees f and the immediately straighten out , so the effect work with plain air if your cold is enough .

My Goal is simple no energy input from man . nature only . we have scorching hot summers 116+f ,twice the needed heat for my wire  and cold ass winters  15f ,thats 5 times colder than it needs to relax.   simple water underground will keep its temperature stable at 42-54f all year long . it's just a matter of the greenhouse effect on top with glass to heat the hot portion .. in the winter ..

I would think that this would be possible. The problem as I see it is how to bring the cold from underground and the heat from above together in such a way that they interface with the Nitinol. A long Nitinol wire looping down into a well and up into a Greenhouse might just work but seems rather impractical to me from an engineering standpoint.

Suppose you bury a water line underground as a heat sink or cold side and use a simple solar hot water panel above ground. Then it becomes relatively easy to circulate the water so as to bring it into contact with the Nitinol engine at ground level. You could do the same thing with air but the volume of air flow would have to be greater than the volume of water to be circulated.

you need to get some . it has another strange effect . if you bend it when it's in its hard state it gives off heat . as long as you stress it heat come from it . just as soon as you let the stress off it gets Very Cold /  you can test this with a piece on your upper lip . others have coated the wire with color changing liquid crystals and see the same thing.

Are you saying that - for example, if you bend it so that it gets hot and then clamp the ends in a vice or something to keep it bent it will stay hot - indefinitely ? or do you have to keep flexing it ? If kept bent, will it not cool off eventually ? Or if you bend it and then dunk it in ice water what happens ? If it actually stays hot or continues to give off heat just by keeping it bent that would seem to be some kind of spontaneous creation of heat and a potential source of energy in itself.

have a look at my motor i made the wire on it ., it runs in plain air in different parts of my house .

http://youtu.be/dAmQUZDYRe8

I watched the video, forgive my skepticism but it appears you keep spinning it with your finger. I would have to assume some slight temperature difference. Residual heat from you finger warming up the brass wheel slightly or some air movement or draft in different parts of the house or something, but if it can run on just such a slight temperature difference it is still rather astounding. On the other hand, if the wire gives off or creates heat and cold just from the stress of being bent, perhaps to some degree it is creating its own temperature differential just from flexing and unflexing due to being bent around the wheels. But if so, it would appear that this only continues for a short time and then it needs another nudge from your finger to get it going again.

I was also thinking that, at least in the summer, it might be possible to make an Ambient heat engine with Nitinol using plain Ambient air as a heat source and simple evaporative cooling as a heat sink. Here is a video of a guy running a Stirling Low Temperature Differential engine on nothing more than Ambient Heat and the evaporative cooling from a wet piece of paper.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ARD3ctp80ac

There is a very interesting article by Nikola Tesla:

http://www.tfcbooks.com/tesla/1900-06-00.htm

He seems to have believed that there is a kind of loophole in the Second Law of Thermodynamics.

If you create an artificial heat sink, he reasoned, then the heat in the atmosphere would flow into it and the energy from that ambient heat could be harnessed with some kind of heat engine. What he said was that since the heat used by the heat engine is CONVERTED to some other form of energy other than heat, electricity for instance, the heat thus converted does not actually get to the heat sink.

In other words, taking your idea of using a deep hole in the ground as a heat sink for ambient heat to run a heat engine, It would be supposed that the heat flowing in, driving the engine would eventually in one way or another of necessity, get into the hole and heat up the hole and the temperature difference would be lost and the engine would stop. Eventually you would have to refrigerate the hole to keep it cold or something or dig another hole. But Tesla's reasoning was that since the heat is CONVERTED to electricity before it gets into the hole the heat, or only a fraction of the heat ever actually reaches the sink and so does not have to be removed as heat. Instead the heat is removed from the hole or kept out of it altogether by being converted to another form. The heat coming in goes out as electricity and so doesn't need to be removed. As a consequence the hole never warms up and so the heat engine running on Ambient heat can continue to operate indefinitely, or at least until the parts wear out.

[gadgetmall]

Hi Tom . Lots of questions . I won't answer all of them now because of time constraints . on bending the wire while it is in austenite phase . Yes it stays hot . . and as i said others have done test on it with Color changing liquid crystals(the kind you see in plastic strips that stick on thermometer and the mood ring stuff) and verified the effect .this is because you are trying to force the crystal lattice atoms pattern of the wires programmed state  in Austenite stage are tightly packed and the wire is fighting back so to speak and the result is heat while in that stress position. When the stress is released the wire gives a sigh with a burst of Colder than ambient and then becomes ambient . This is not your ordinary wire. It wont break if you bend it millions of times within its parameters like steel wire will . In fact just the oppisite . It gets much stronger with each bend Thus Training Nitinol makes it Stronger . This stuff has a life of its own .

the other question i think is My thermobile . You didn't get it or kind of got it . YES it runs from my finger heat and the difference from my hand heat and the room temp . you get it? no one has ever done this before . The thermobile came with standard  high temperature wire that needs extreme heat on the brass from the sun focused on it for several minuets or a very hot torch until the brass gets really hot  and only then will it turn .i replaced it with my wire so i showed a motor that turns only with slight body heat and the cool air of about 75-76 degrees inside my house . so the motor runs from 98.6 to 76f . well within air temperatures and if there was a way to put 98.6 on that brass it would continue to spin in the house . I was showing a brief exposure to hand and finger heat only . As far as it generating its own heat that is a possibility that may help . the point is Ambient temps that do not require energy . it is free energy their for the taking . how water from a panel is not free . It cost for the panel and it cost to circulate it . Ice is not free either unless its winter . so is Born Air temp Nitinol.. .Unfortunately the thermobile is not sold since the early 70's 80's and i wouldn't sell mine for a 1000 dollars because it is an antique.

and as far as using water YES i will use ground water underground and long loops about 2 feet . I only need less than an inch or so to contact the end surface of the ground pulleys . This will work as cool in the summer and hot in the winter . It is the temperature differential i am after of between 25 to 35 degree difference. the higher the difference the faster it turns .It does not matter which end is cold or hot . Works both ways . As i stated and some one drew up some diagrams . three sets of pulleys on shafted bearings . The upper pulleys will be exposed to the elements under glass and have magnets attached around them and energy captured from copper air coils to an electronic circuit for power Lights batterys radio etc..  . the lower chamber will be underground and insulated from above. underground water pool remains same temperature .. If its 15 degrees F outside then under ground its warmer . If its 100 f outside then underground it's cooler . get it "?  My thermobile proved that point and if i were to dunk part of it in water the cool side it would have ran much faster .

BTW - using loops produces more energy for motors of ambient temperatures . I also have made springs as you might have see my example video of those . They are vEry STRONG and can be made to push or pull or lift and drop but how to get them to cycle is another matter .I do own two very large 4 X 8 foot commercial solar hot water panels . these panes create steam in minuets when the bottom pipe is closed and water poured in the top pipe. they get so hot they melt the strongest Pvc . which is why i have not used them except to show off the sun power to a very few in the winter . They need pumps and metal pipe to connect them. rubber car hose might work  but only if a powered circulation pump is running . . with plain wire loops its just the surface of one side of the  pulley that needs to stay one temperature to cycle .

L8r . I am a single dad and time for my Daughter (10) to get home ..

gadget

[Tom Booth]

Hi Tom . Lots of questions . I won't answer all of them now because of time constraints . on bending the wire while it is in austenite phase . Yes it stays hot . . and as i said others have done test on it with Color changing liquid crystals(the kind you see in plastic strips that stick on thermometer and the mood ring stuff) and verified the effect .this is because you are trying to force the crystal lattice atoms pattern of the wires programmed state  in Austenite stage are tightly packed and the wire is fighting back so to speak and the result is heat while in that stress position. When the stress is released the wire gives a sigh with a burst of Colder than ambient and then becomes ambient . This is not your ordinary wire.

I saw this demonstrated in the lecture about Nitinol you posted at the beginning of this topic. The demonstration was brief but the girl volunteer confirmed the effect. What I find hard to believe is that the bent Nitinol, put under stress could STAY hot. I would assume it doesn't give up the heat generated easily but if it just stays hot from being bent,... why not just bend some Nitinol wire, lock it in that position and put this Nitinol "heating unit" under a Stirling Engine ?

the other question i think is My thermobile . You didn't get it or kind of got it . YES it runs from my finger heat and the difference from my hand heat and the room temp . you get it? no one has ever done this before . .

Yes. That certainly is rather remarkable, that you can train the Nitinol to respond  with such a slight temperature difference.

... the point is Ambient temps that do not require energy . it is free energy their for the taking . hot water from a panel is not free . It cost for the panel and it cost to circulate it . Ice is not free either unless its winter . so is Born Air temp Nitinol..

Well. not to be a "wet blanket" but Nitinol isn't exactly free either. "Ambient" isn't at a stable temperature from day to night, summer to winter or even due to a passing cloud from one moment to the next. A given piece of Nitinol has a rather narrow operating range or transformation temperature. You wouldn't really need a hot water solar collector that gets hot enough to melt PVC pipe, but I would think that it would be easier to keep temperatures within certain parameters or operating range with water as a buffer. Even water just sitting in a tank at Ambient. The temperature of the water would remain much more stable than the air which would tend to change with the direction of the wind.

I like the idea of using Ambient heat as a free energy source, but you need to make or somehow get or maintain cold to get a temperature differential.

I've had a lot of debates with thermodynamics people about this. But I think it should be easier to maintain a "sink" with a heat pump by pumping out excess heat if necessary and use Ambient as a heat source than using ambient as the sink. As you say the ambient heat is free and virtually limitless. If you have or make some sort of "sink" and your engine converts the heat to some other form of energy then, as Tesla pointed out in his article, there will be less excess heat reaching the sink. The heat pump would have little work to do to maintain the sink.

But whatever, what I'm curious about at this point is,... if a bent piece of Nitinol gives off heat CONTINUALLY so long as it is kept bent, scrap all the other stuff and just run a heat engine off that. Why not ? Bend some Nitinol, lock it in that position and use it as a heating element to heat hot water or whatever. I still need convincing that the Nitinol will just STAY HOT. That seems unlikely if not impossible to me. If true then it seems to me it would have to be generating heat and would constitute a "free energy" source in itself.

If you are bending it in your hands then there would be some continual flexing as it would be impossible to hold perfectly still. That could account for some generation of heat, but if you bend it and clamp it in a vice so it can't move at all ?

This is giving me all kinds of ideas of ways to utilize this, you could turn wave motion on a boat into hot and cold by having the waves flex some nitinol. A solid state air-conditioner. Flex the nitinol one way for heat and let it go for cold...