Example research essay topic: Electric Motor Carbon Dioxide - 1,635 words

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Hybrid Vehicles 1 Hybrid Vehicles: (Effects on the environment) Arthur Gil Environmental Investigations Professor April 4, 2005 Hybrid Vehicles 2 As gasoline prices increase and the environment becomes unstable, people will begin to look for other modes to power their automobiles. One of those modes is know as hybrid power. A vehicle is considered a hybrid when it combines two or more sources of power. For example, a mo-ped (a motorized pedal bike) is a type of hybrid because it combines the power of a gasoline engines with the pedal power of the rider. Hybrid vehicles are an alternative being used to decrease the emissions of vehicles and to decrease the amount of fossil fuels being used. Hybrid vehicles also cost less to operate because of the decreased fuel usage.

The gasoline-electric hybrid car is a cross between a gasoline-powered car and an electric car. Hybrid vehicles are all around us. Most of the locomotives we see pulling trains are diesel-electric hybrids. According too How Cars Work, Cities like Seattle have diesel-electric buses these can draw electric power from overhead wires or run on diesel when they are away from the wires. There are two kinds of hybrids.

The parallel hybrid has a fuel tank which supplies gasoline to the engine. But it also has a set of batteries that supplies power to an electric motor. Both the engine and the electric motor can turn the transmission at the same time, and the transmission then turns the wheels. In a parallel hybrid, both the electric motor and the gas engine can provide propulsion power.

The other type is a series hybrid. In the series hybrid the gasoline engine turns a generator, and the generator can either charge the batteries or power an Hybrid Vehicles 3 electric motor that drives the transmission, so the gasoline engine never directly powers the vehicle. Hybrid vehicles have all of the parts that a normal gasoline powered car would have, with a few extra parts such as the electric motor, generator, and batteries. The electric motor on a hybrid car is very sophisticated.

Advanced electronics allow it to act as a motor as well as a generator. For example, when it needs to, it can draw energy from the batteries to accelerate the car. But acting as a generator, it can slow the car down and return energy to the batteries. The generator is similar to an electric motor, but it acts only to produce electrical power. It is used mostly on series hybrids.

The batteries in a hybrid car are the energy storage devices for the electric motor. Unlike the gasoline in the fuel tank, which can only power the gasoline engine, the electric motor on a hybrid car can put energy to batteries as well as draw energy from them. The key to a hybrid car is that the gasoline engine can be much smaller than the one in a normal gasoline powered car and makes it more efficient. According too Maggetto, this smaller engine can provide the power your car needs to keep up with the more powerful cars on the road.

Compare a car like the Chevy Camaro, with its big V- 8 engine, to the hybrid car with its small gas engine and electric motor. The engine in the Camaro has more than enough power to handle any driving situation. The engine in the hybrid car is powerful enough to move the car along on the freeway, but when it needs to get the car moving in a hurry or go up a steep hill, it needs help. That "help" comes from the Hybrid Vehicles 4 electric motor and battery this system steps in to provide the necessary extra power.

Besides a smaller, more efficient engine, hybrids use many other tricks to increase fuel efficiency. Some of those tricks will help any type of car get better mileage, and some only apply to a hybrid. According too Gottlieb (1994), To squeeze every last mile out of a gallon of gasoline, a hybrid car can: h Recover energy and store it in the battery - Whenever you step on the brake pedal in your car, you are removing energy from the car. The faster a car is going, the more kinetic energy it has. The brakes of a car remove this energy and dissipate it in the form of heat. A hybrid car can capture some of this energy and store it in the battery to use later.

It does this by using "regenerative braking. " That is, instead of just using the brakes to stop the car, the electric motor that drives the hybrid can also slow the car. In this mode, the electric motor acts as a generator and charges the batteries while the car is slowing down. h Sometimes shut off the engine - A hybrid car does not need to rely on the gasoline engine all of the time because it has an alternate power source the electric motor and batteries. So the hybrid car can sometimes turn off the gasoline engine, for example when the vehicle is stopped at a red light. h When you are driving on the freeway, most of the work your engine does goes into pushing the car through the air. This force is known as Hybrid Vehicles 5 aerodynamic drag.

This drag force can be reduced in a variety of ways. One sure way is to reduce the frontal area of the car. Think of how a big SUV has to push a much greater area through the air than a tiny sports car. h Reducing disturbances around objects that stick out from the car or eliminating them altogether can also help to improve the aerodynamics.

For example, covers over the wheel housings smooth the airflow and reduce drag. And sometimes, mirrors are replaced with small cameras. h Use low-rolling resistance tires - The tires on most cars are optimized to give a smooth ride, minimize noise, and provide good traction in a variety of weather conditions. But they are rarely optimized for efficiency. In fact, the tires cause a surprising amount of drag while you are driving. Hybrid cars use special tires that are both stiffer and inflated to a higher pressure than conventional tires.

The result is that they cause about half the drag of regular tires. h Use lightweight materials - Reducing the overall weight of a car is one easy way to increase the mileage. A lighter vehicle uses less energy each time you accelerate or drive up a hill. Composite materials like carbon fiber or lightweight metals like aluminum and magnesium can be used to reduce weight. Hybrid Vehicles 6 All of these things help make the hybrid car more efficient than gasoline powered vehicles. A big reason that automakers are now making hybrid cars is because of emissions tests and regulations that some states have.

One of these states is California. California emissions standards dictate how much of each type of pollution a car is allowed to emit in California. According too the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, The amount is usually specified in grams per mile (g/MI). For example, the low emissions vehicle (LEV) standard allows 3. 4 g/MI of carbon monoxide. The amount of pollution allowed does not depend on the mileage a car gets, but a car that burns twice as much gas to go a mile will create approximately twice as much pollution. That pollution is removed by the emissions control equipment on the car.

So by lowering the fuel usage of the car is one of the best ways to decrease emissions. Current hybrid cars can get up to 60 miles to the gallon on the highway. Aside from increased fuel mileage, hybrids have lower emissions than gasoline powered cars. According to Maggetto, In the near future hybrid cars are expected to get fuel mileage as high as 190 miles per gallon. Environmentalists see hybrid cars as a solution to today's pollution problems. Carbon dioxide is another type of pollution a car produces.

The U. S. government does not regulate it, but scientists feel that it contributes to global warming. Since it is not regulated, a car does not remove carbon dioxide from the Hybrid Vehicles 7 exhaust, so a car that burns twice as much gas adds twice as much carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. Automakers in the U.

S. have another reason to improve mileage. They are required by law to meet Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards. According to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics (2003), The current standards require that the average mileage of all the new cars sold by an automaker should be 27. 5 mpg (8. 55 liters per 100 km). This means that if an automaker sells one hybrid car that gets 60 mpg (3. 92 liters per 100 km), it can then sell four big, expensive luxury cars that only get 20 mpg (11. 76 liters per 100 km). Hybrid cars help everyone.

The automakers benefit because sales will increase as the public learns the pros to having the new hybrid cars. The consumer will also benefit because they will not be spending as much money on gas for their vehicle. The environment will also benefit because the emissions will be lower and the greenhouse effect will be slowed. I feel that these hybrid cars are the cars of the future. As people begin to understand the importance of protecting our environment they will begin to use the hybrid technology. Hybrid Vehicles 8 References 1 Bureau of Transportation Statistics.

Transportation in the United States, a review. 2003 How Cars Work. Electric Vehicles. < web > 1 Maggetto, G. Electric And Electric Hybrid Vehicle Technology: A Survey. Vrije Universiteit Brussel. Gottlieb, Irving. Electric Motors and Control Techniques.

McGraw Hill, 1994

Research essay sample on Electric Motor Carbon Dioxide