Alternative Fuels-Weekly Progress Report-1

To devise an alternate fuel, we first attempted to understand how vehicle engines works, how torque is produced and how the fuel actually combusts to produce power. This led us to understand the mechanics of the crankshaft, the drive shaft and how the wheel is moved, how the break stops the car and how transmission works.

We considered two ways of producing torque:

1. Through combustion like in a conventional engine.

To run a combustion engine, we considered using Hydrogen as fuel. Just like the usual air+petrol mixture, hydrogen combusts and transfers power through the crankshaft.

2. Through direct rotation like in a turbine.

For direct rotation, we considered using carbon dioxide jets to produce rotation. The fuel will be inserted in dry ice form and like in gas turbines, it will rotate runner blades to produce torque. This seems viable due to the abundance of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

We also thought of integrating a water turbine into a car and then using the water for cooling purposes.