The SuperWheel?

This came up in my news feed today, seems like an interesting idea, I'm not an engineer but it seems from my first look to violate the first law of thermodynamics

"energy is always conserved, it cannot be created or destroyed."

I don't understand how they arrived at the claim that it can give more than a 30% energy saving compared to a normal bike. Then again as I said I'm not an engineer so I'd appreciate if someone more knowledgeable in this area could give me their opinion.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cyclingweekly.com/news/product-news/spring-powered-wheel-claims-to-be-e-bike-alternative-at-lower-cost-476421/amp

Alek

energy is always conserved, it cannot be created or destroyed

The what?

The concept reminds me of the old perpetuum mobile idea: https://www.wienerzeitung.at/_em_daten/_cache/image/1xgKsc-DerrZZelomISkx3Cas1_RvRXGAflxQf_LzhJCapELaoQMJ04E8bSgyZ4IXkC6sULXljqlSIxbG3uxTXcSf5TeSYq_TZVQ4vdDKER3TtCjb5-JzO1w/200828-1123-948-0900-287327-perpetuum-mobile.jpg

Not being an engineer myself, but it seems that the torque generated by a momentary application of weight will be followed by reaction from the springs when the wheel is unweighted - therefore the same torque will be generated in an opposite direction, effectively slowing the bike down +/- the same amount it has accelerated. Equilibrium etc.

Smells like scam to me.

energy is always conserved

Yeah, sure. Did they ever hear of entropy?

wanderer 22

Another day, another Irish perpetual motion machine - https://www.independent.ie/podcasts/the-big-tech-show/the-big-tech-show-the-steorn-story-a-cautionary-tale-of-delusion-irish-tech-and-the-search-for-a-perpetual-motion-machine-39299522.html

07Lapierre

Damn it’s ugly! Makes disc brakes look cool!

magicbastarder

'an efficiency improvement of over 30 per cent compared to a standard wheel.' - what does this actually mean? on a bike, the efficiency is not affected much at all by the wheels. even if they did somehow make the *wheel* more efficient, it's such a small part of the equation that i can't see much benefit.

tomasrojo

It did strike me as highly unlikely to make much difference, but I don't really follow how it's supposed to make much difference anyway.

It did remind me of this, to follow on the comparison of the perpetual motion machine already made (a comparison that was put to them and rejected already):

tomasrojo

Alek wrote: »

Not being an engineer myself, but it seems that the torque generated by a momentary application of weight will be followed by reaction from the springs when the wheel is unweighted - therefore the same torque will be generated in an opposite direction, effectively slowing the bike down +/- the same amount it has accelerated. Equilibrium etc.

I assume so too.

Alek wrote: »

Yeah, sure. Did they ever hear of entropy?

I think entropy doesn't entail so much the loss of energy, as much as the loss of energy that can do work. Which is relevant to this sort of application, of course.

cletus

tomasrojo wrote: »

I think entropy doesn't entail so much the loss of energy, as much as the loss of energy that can do work. Which is relevant to this sort of application, of course.

The unavailability of energy to do work, as opposed to loss of that energy.

tomasrojo

cletus wrote: »

The unavailability of energy to do work, as opposed to loss of that energy.

Yeah, sorry, I meant the conversion of energy that can do work into energy that can't

Eamonnator

Is this supposed to work like a clockwork toy, that winds itself up on downhills and then you can release the energy, whenever you want?

magicbastarder

I don't see any method for that energy storage though.

Daroxtar

I'm dying to see how the extra 10 kg will make me climb faster

crosstownk

Daroxtar wrote: »

I'm dying to see how the extra 10 kg will make me climb faster

It's a SuperWheel. Like Superman but a wheel. It can do super stuff.

Idleater

magicbastarder wrote: »

I don't see any method for that energy storage though.

I doubt this is how the wheel is built, but Williams F1 built a very interesting purely mechanical KERS system. I believe it is in use in larger vehicles like busses.

"Williams F1 KERS explained - Racecar Engineering" https://www.racecar-engineering.com/articles/f1/williams-f1-kers-explained/

blackmadra

Well they based out of Dundalk IT...Irelands answer to Harvard. Lets hope there is no tax payer money spent invested into this

Thargor

blackmadra wrote: »

Lets hope there is no tax payer money spent invested into this

Too late:

According to the Technological Higher Education Association (THEA), Chan received Enterprise Ireland Innovation Voucher funding to support his work on prototype development, plus additional support from Dundalk Institute of Technology – where Chan’s company is now based.