Electric Motor Driven Superchargers?

[Vettezuki]

I'm not talking about those little joke fans that do nothing. I mean using a real electric motor to drive some form of forced induction. Has anybody really experimented with this seriously. Since you have nearly infinite control over the electric motor via controller, your boost could be fully independent from engine revs. I know this isn't so practical for OEM cars, because you'd need some fairly serious current, but it's certainly not out of the question. See this for a compact DC Brushless motor.

YouTube - DC Brushless Motor Controller

[94cobra69ss396]

I'm not talking about those little joke fans that do nothing. I mean using a real electric motor to drive some form of forced induction. Has anybody really experimented with this seriously. Since you have nearly infinite control over the electric motor via controller, your boost could be fully independent from engine revs. I know this isn't so practical for OEM cars, because you'd need some fairly serious current, but it's certainly not out of the question. See this for a compact DC Brushless motor.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5Lz-AVEYMs

Someone wrote into one of the Mustang mags asking about this once. I don't remember exactly what their answer was but it was something like the size of the electric motor it would take to turn the supercharger would outway any benefit of the superchargers output.

[Vettezuki]

Someone wrote into one of the Mustang mags asking about this once. I don't remember exactly what their answer was but it was something like the size of the electric motor it would take to turn the supercharger would outway any benefit of the superchargers output.

That may have been true, even just a couple years ago. But there are some very powerful quite small motors now. Updating the charging system and what not is a different story. See the link above. That motor would practically fit in your and, is 9HP (probably big plenty for turning a blower), but it does pull like 53 amps.

[BADDASSC6]

Nope 9hp not enough. Try 30-50 hp for a procharger p-1sc on a 4.6 mod motor. 16 PSI. On a top fuel blower it's estimated to be well north of 300hp.

[Vettezuki]

Nope 9hp not enough. Try 30-50 hp for a procharger p-1sc on a 4.6 mod motor. 16 PSI. On a top fuel blower it's estimated to be well north of 300hp.

That's what they require or that's what they are simply estimated to consume.

[BADDASSC6]

It depends on how you define require and consume.

On a normal bolt on centrifugal blower package (8-10 psi) you can expect 30 crank hp to be transferred to the blower via the crank pulley. This includes the required power the compress the air and the internal losses for the blower (i.e. friction, tip losses, windage losses, transmission losses, and entropy). So it's what they consume, but worst case senerio a vortech blower is 97% efficient. Therefore there is not alot of room for improvement.

AC can trim 15 whp if it's on and there is no WOT cut offand that is a much smaller compressor.

On the flip side http://videos.streetfire.net/video/Leaf-Blower-Bolt-on-Dyno_7514.htm

Very ~10 whp gain with a leaf blower pressed into the intake:smack:.

[Vettezuki]

It depends on how you define require and consume.

On a normal bolt on centrifugal blower package (8-10 psi) you can expect 30 crank hp to be transferred to the blower via the crank pulley. This includes the required power the compress the air and the internal losses for the blower (i.e. friction, tip losses, windage losses, transmission losses, and entropy). So it's what they consume, but worst case senerio a vortech blower is 97% efficient. Therefore there is not alot of room for improvement.

AC can trim 15 whp if it's on and there is no WOT cut offand that is a much smaller compressor.

On the flip side http://videos.streetfire.net/video/Leaf-Blower-Bolt-on-Dyno_7514.htm

Very ~10 whp gain with a leaf blower pressed into the intake:smack:.


The AC compressor is a good example. On the new Prius it's being replaced with like a 1hp electric motor. I'll do a little more research on this.

[BRUTAL64]

:popcorn:

[Vettezuki]

It depends on how you define require and consume.

On a normal bolt on centrifugal blower package (8-10 psi) you can expect 30 crank hp to be transferred to the blower via the crank pulley. This includes the required power the compress the air and the internal losses for the blower (i.e. friction, tip losses, windage losses, transmission losses, and entropy). So it's what they consume . . .

Meant to ask you, how is the power consumed by a roots blower measured?

Bottom line, if it takes that much HP to turn a blower, no way you can cost effectively run one on a DC brushless motor. Curiously, I think the new Insight only uses a 15HP motor, but I guess moving that little car and passengers down the road on tires isn't that much work.

[BADDASSC6]

Meant to ask you, how is the power consumed by a roots blower measured?

Bottom line, if it takes that much HP to turn a blower, no way you can cost effectively run one on a DC brushless motor. Curiously, I think the new Insight only uses a 15HP motor, but I guess moving that little car and passengers down the road on tires isn't that much work.

OK. an air conditioning compressor take a lot less power than a blower based on size and the sheer volume of air compressed per unit time.

The power usage of a blower can be measured many ways. ATI (maker of procharger) actually runs thier blowers with a very large electric motor with an either an orifice or an actuall motor. The current and voltage are used to determine the power used.

With you can calculate an ideal 100% efficient power requirement using ST/P equations. I don't know about the insight, but if it's a tiny car and it's not direct drive then you can get away with a small motor. But that doesn't have anything to do with powering a blower for a performance car. If you want to compress air it takes power.

Again I don't know about the insight, but here is my theory (as used on modern large naval vessels):

You can use a much smaller motor that runs continously at a contanst RPM to power a generator. The power that is generated is stored chemically (i.e. battery) then direct drive electrical motors are used to drive/stop answer the variable loads. Gas/diesel engines can be designed to operate in an ideal rpm range where many of thier inefficies are minimized. Think s2000. I don't know if this is what's going on in hte insight, but it sound like you are not sure if they are using a 15hp motor.

[Vettezuki]

OK. an air conditioning compressor take a lot less power than a blower based on size and the sheer volume of air compressed per unit time.

The power usage of a blower can be measured many ways. ATI (maker of procharger) actually runs thier blowers with a very large electric motor with an either an orifice or an actuall motor. The current and voltage are used to determine the power used.

With you can calculate an ideal 100% efficient power requirement using ST/P equations. I don't know about the insight, but if it's a tiny car and it's not direct drive then you can get away with a small motor. But that doesn't have anything to do with powering a blower for a performance car. If you want to compress air it takes power.

Again I don't know about the insight, but here is my theory (as used on modern large naval vessels):

You can use a much smaller motor that runs continously at a contanst RPM to power a generator. The power that is generated is stored chemically (i.e. battery) then direct drive electrical motors are used to drive/stop answer the variable loads. Gas/diesel engines can be designed to operate in an ideal rpm range where many of thier inefficies are minimized. Think s2000. I don't know if this is what's going on in hte insight, but it sound like you are not sure if they are using a 15hp motor.

This all makes sense. I think the thing I probably stumbled over is that a blower is really a compressor, therefore, the much higher power requirements than say just a propeller. Doh.

As for the Insight, I was misguided about that too. It has a 13 HP electric motor, but it is in line for assisting the gas 1.3L gas motor, not moving the car on its own. Here's the stats of that wicked beast.

http://automobiles.honda.com/insight-hybrid/specifications.aspx