Energy generation through weight machines w/ compressed air

[nikwan]

Hello! My name is Nick and I am an industrial engineering student at Cal Poly SLO and had an idea for my senior project. This is my first post so I was just looking for some feedback..

Here it goes...Pretty much, instead of using weights as resistance, a person would set the dial of an air canister and the person would push that air. (Hydraulic resistance machines) Air would be compressed in canisters with pneumatic cylinders from the force of the user, and that electrical energy would somehow be converted into electrical energy.

One possible and seemingly terribly inefficient way of doing so would be to send this pressurized air into a small cylinder, increasing the speed, rotating some type of blades on a fan...

Another huge issue is how would the compressed air be recycled? Using a compressor would defeat the purpose I guess ha.

Let me know what you guys think! Thanks!

 

[JimB]

My best suggestion would be to have a day off, do something completely different, nothing to do with engineering, alcohol or other chemical substances which may or may not be illegal in your area.

Then, re-read your post, see if you can understand it, even better, consider if someone else could understand it.

Then perhaps re-write it.

JimB

 

[alec_t]

Nicely said jimB.

 

[nikwan]

Ha ha bad explanation...

https://www.livestrong.com/article/...that-use-compressed-air-to-create-resistance/

long story short...transfer mech energy of a person working out into electrical energy and store it in a battery/send it to the grid

 

[tcmtech]

Start with the fact that a good healthy person can only put out around 75 watts continuous and work your numbers out from there.

On a cost VS energy produced people don't make good power sources for anything practical.

 

[Mr RB]

Compressing air is terrible for renergy storage as the compressing process produces heat as waste which is lost forever to the environment. So it's a really lossy way to "store" energy...

 

[alec_t]

As tcmtech points out, there's not much energy to start with. Any energy conversion method will be inefficient and waste energy, so you'll be left with even less electrical energy. IMO the most efficient conversion method would be for a person to operate an electrical alternator/dynamo via suitable gearing. Bicycle and dynamo?

 

[nikwan]

The original idea came from this company and similar projects some EE students are working on...

http://rerev.com/

They convert mechanical energy generated from ellipticals/bikes and convert them to DC, then convert it to AC back to the grid

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

The original idea came from this company and similar projects some EE students are working on...

http://rerev.com/

They convert mechanical energy generated from ellipticals/bikes and convert them to DC, then convert it to AC back to the grid

No problem with that, and pretty common - it's the compressed air idea that's nonsense.

 

[bhakti_dinar]

Compressing air is terrible for renergy storage as the compressing process produces heat as waste which is lost forever to the environment.

 

[KJ6EAD]

Maybe the best that can be hoped for is to charge your own MP3 player or phone as you work out.