Morgondagens motorteknik under dina fötter
Want to help making the world a better place? Do it with HypOCycle!HypOCycle is a bachelor thesis that started in September 2007. The project is owned byLars-Johan Hjertz and Erik Westerlund.HypOCycle is probably the only bike in the world that has a linear pedal movement. Themovement comes from a new engine technique that hasn?t even been brought to themarket yet. The motion is called hypocycloid, hence the name.In today?s engines there is a lot of problem because of a phenomenon called piston bank.This emerges when the piston?s linear motion is being transformed to a rotating motiontrough the connecting rod that is going to drive the crankshaft around. When theconnecting rod is creating a rotating motion it is creating side forces up in the cylinder.These forces are creating friction and wear on the piston and the cylinder. Today?sengines have an efficiency loss in total of 70%. 30 % is lost in the cylinder. Solving thisproblem could result in a heavy increasing of the efficiency.The group has under this project solved this problem with a hypOCycloid motion. Afterpresenting the idea to ALMI the group received a scholarship that was used to haveAWA patent make a news search for us. Caroline Isaksson at AWA patent found similarpatents concerning the hypocycloid. Fortunately the patent concerns only one cylinder.Test has been made on these models and they show that the fuel consumption hasdecreased with 50%.The group had ideas concerning several cylinders. After discussing these ideas withWärtsilä among others the group realized that these kinds of project would cost too muchand be too advanced to proceed with at this stage without a company backing us up.The group took the decision to continue developing this motion and illustrate it on abicycle. The bike has at linear pedal motion and therefore the pedals can be resembled aspistons.HypOCycle is now the only bike of its kind and we are very proud of our result.