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  • Carbon Super Springs and escapements

    Don Ross

    Don Ross

    @don-ross-A3oedi
    Updated: Oct 23, 2024
    Views: 1.0K
    Most answers are out there you just have to look. Are you looking to answer my questions posed on this form? You must engage to succeed in your careers.

    [Adapted from “Carbon Super Springs” by Carol Livermore, for Mechanical Engineering, March 2010.]

    Timothy Havel formed a team at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 2006

    What could be done with an energy storage medium having the energy density of batteries
    and the temperature insensitivity
    and burst power capability of a spring?
    For high-power applications, springs could be released in groups; for low-power applications,
    energy could be released gradually through a ratcheting mechanism similar to the
    spring-driven escapement of a mechanical clock.


    One potential application might be portable home tools that currently run on gasoline engines.
    For example, after winding up your
    spring-powered leaf blower, you could clear leaves more quietly and cleanly than with a gas-powered blower.
    Spring-based energy
    storage may also have advantages for leak-free long-term backup power supplies.
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  • Shashank Moghe

    MemberJan 14, 2015

    The problem is - you have to input energy to compress (or wind) springs in the first place, for them to store energy that can be used later. Humans are too lazy, hence use the latent energy available in the hydrocarbon fuels. If we can find a way to compress (or wind) springs easily, we might have a solution.
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  • Don Ross

    MemberJan 14, 2015

    The intent was to mechanical or electrically wind it up. It's the controlled release of the energy that's the road block. I need very precise increments of energy at a steady rate. Hence the watch type escapement. Is there another way? MIT is advocating it's use but people especially some one emotionally invested in a project gets blinded to options once underway. Is there another form of controlling the release from a highly torqued spring?
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