Surely if large scale storage is required, the use of gigantic Hydraulic accumulators would be both more efficient and require less maintenance?

Here in Hull we were the first to have a Hydraulic power station

This from Wikipedia

"The first practical installation which supplied hydraulic power to the public was in Kingston upon Hull, in England. The Hull Hydraulic Power Company began operation in 1876. They had 2.5 miles (4.0 km) of pipes, which were up to 6 inches (150 mm) in diameter, and ran along the west bank of the River Hull from Sculcoates bridge to its junction with the Humber. The pumping station was near the north end of the pipeline, on Machell Street, near the disused Scott Street bascule bridge, which was powered hydraulically. There was an accumulator at Machell Street, and another one much nearer the Humber, on the corner of Grimsby Lane. Special provision was made where the pressure main passed under the entrance to Queens Dock.[4] By 1895, pumps rated at 250 hp (190 kW) pumped some 500,000 imperial gallons (2,300 m3) of water into the system each week, and 58 machines were connected to it. The working pressure was 700 psi (48 bar), and the water was used to operate cranes, dock gates, and a variety of other machinery connected with ships and shipbuilding. The Hull system lasted until the 1940s, when the systematic bombing of the city during the Second World War led to the destruction of much of the infrastructure,[5] and the company was wound up in 1947,[6] when Mr F J Haswell, who had been the manager and engineer since 1904, retired.[7]

Could hydraulic power make a comeback? it would certainly store a lot of power and do heavy lifting and motive jobs.

In my opinion the answer is yes. There are locations where pumped storage is a good solution. Like all civil engineering structures, it is expensive and durable. Remember in the 1870s , options were more limited.

In my opinion the answer is yes. There are locations where pumped storage is a good solution. Like all civil engineering structures, it is expensive and durable. Remember in the 1870s , options were more limited.

But their faith and willingness to take the long view (unlike today) were not, and there is still one hydraulic system operating on Bristol Docks

Bristol Harbour still has a working system, the pumping machinery of which was supplied by Fullerton, Hodgart and Barclay of Paisley, Scotland in 1907. The engine house is a grade II* listed building, constructed in 1887,fully commissioned by 1888, with a tower at one end to house the hydraulic accumulator.[35] A second accumulator was fitted outside the building (dated 1954) which enables the operation of the system to be more easily visualised.

Amazingly River water or rather thin Mud was the source for the Hull system

" In Hull, the Machell Street pumping station has been reused as a workshop. The building still supports the sectional cast-iron roof tank used to allow the silt-laden water of the River Hull to settle, "

"Silt laden?" more like a mobile swamp!

Anyone familiar with the River Hull sludge will gasp with amazement that they got away with that!

But their faith and willingness to take the long view (unlike today) were not, and there is still one hydraulic system operating on Bristol Docks

Bristol Harbour still has a working system, the pumping machinery of which was supplied by Fullerton, Hodgart and Barclay of Paisley, Scotland in 1907. The engine house is a grade II* listed building, constructed in 1887,fully commissioned by 1888, with a tower at one end to house the hydraulic accumulator.[35] A second accumulator was fitted outside the building (dated 1954) which enables the operation of the system to be more easily visualised.

Amazingly River water or rather thin Mud was the source for the Hull system

" In Hull, the Machell Street pumping station has been reused as a workshop. The building still supports the sectional cast-iron roof tank used to allow the silt-laden water of the River Hull to settle, "

"Silt laden?" more like a mobile swamp!

Anyone familiar with the River Hull sludge will gasp with amazement that they got away with that!

.. you of course forgetting tower bridge which has an ingenious hydraulic system.

Surely if large scale storage is required, the use of gigantic Hydraulic accumulators would be both more efficient and require less maintenance?

Here in Hull we were the first to have a Hydraulic power station

This from Wikipedia

"The first practical installation which supplied hydraulic power to the public was in Kingston upon Hull, in England. The Hull Hydraulic Power Company began operation in 1876. They had 2.5 miles (4.0 km) of pipes, which were up to 6 inches (150 mm) in diameter, and ran along the west bank of the River Hull from Sculcoates bridge to its junction with the Humber. The pumping station was near the north end of the pipeline, on Machell Street, near the disused Scott Street bascule bridge, which was powered hydraulically. There was an accumulator at Machell Street, and another one much nearer the Humber, on the corner of Grimsby Lane. Special provision was made where the pressure main passed under the entrance to Queens Dock.[4] By 1895, pumps rated at 250 hp (190 kW) pumped some 500,000 imperial gallons (2,300 m3) of water into the system each week, and 58 machines were connected to it. The working pressure was 700 psi (48 bar), and the water was used to operate cranes, dock gates, and a variety of other machinery connected with ships and shipbuilding. The Hull system lasted until the 1940s, when the systematic bombing of the city during the Second World War led to the destruction of much of the infrastructure,[5] and the company was wound up in 1947,[6] when Mr F J Haswell, who had been the manager and engineer since 1904, retired.[7]

Could hydraulic power make a comeback? it would certainly store a lot of power and do heavy lifting and motive jobs.

 

How is hydraulic power stored,surely its springs , compressed gas or something similar...???

 

I,d guess its not the hydraulics storing energy, merely a means of transferring it.?? ( pneumatics are different) ???

Hydraulics by nature can not be compressed,hence cant store energy??? An accumulator must have a medium capable of storing energy seperate to the oil.(ie bend a spring, compress a gas or raise a weight) The hydraulics surely are simply an energy transfer mechanism.Not a storage.

Mechanical energy storage is not very dense. Compressed gas for example needs 11 times the volume as petrol / diesel and about double best batteries.( at least)

Edited July 30, 20178 yr by Zlatan

Hydraulics by nature can not be compressed,hence cant store energy??? An accumulator must have a medium capable of storing energy seperate to the oil.( or whatever)

 

potential energy.

 

you pump water to a higher tank, gravity releases the potential energy when required.

.. you of course forgetting tower bridge which has an ingenious hydraulic system.

No, actually, that was another Armstrong installation originally pumped pressure to the accumulators was supplier for many years by two double tandem compound steam engines, powered by four Lancashire boilers. In addition, two hydraulic accumulators boosted power when the bridge had to be opened. The high pressure water went out to the river piers, which housed the hydraulic motors.

I am an avid fan of the work of Lord Armstrong as you may have gathered already!

How is hydraulic power stored,surely its springs , compressed gas or something similar...???

 

I,d guess its not the hydraulics storing energy, merely a means of transferring it.?? ( pneumatics are different) ???

Hydraulics by nature can not be compressed,hence cant store energy??? An accumulator must have a medium capable of storing energy seperate to the oil.(ie bend a spring, compress a gas or raise a weight) The hydraulics surely are simply an energy transfer mechanism.Not a storage.

Mechanical energy storage is not very dense. Compressed gas for example needs 11 times the volume as petrol / diesel and about double best batteries.( at least)

Liquids can be compressed and can therefore store energy. . But the easiest way is to use height of liquid. As a diver you will be familiar with pressure rising by 1 bar per 10 m of water.

Yep but there are plenty of newer technologies .. carbon and glass fibre for tension and dense materials for the peripheral structure.

 

Indeed, I remember seeing later developments of flywheels resembling childrens spinning tops in shape. The outer periphery very thin but tapering inwards towards top and bottom with most of the mass increasing inboard. Seemed counter-intuitive, but they were designed to run at jet turbine speeds, typically between 20 and 25,000 rpm, so the design avoided the internal material stresses that promote breakup.

.

How is hydraulic power stored,surely its springs , compressed gas or something similar...???

 

I,d guess its not the hydraulics storing energy, merely a means of transferring it.?? ( pneumatics are different) ???

Hydraulics by nature can not be compressed,hence cant store energy??? An accumulator must have a medium capable of storing energy seperate to the oil.(ie bend a spring, compress a gas or raise a weight) The hydraulics surely are simply an energy transfer mechanism.Not a storage.

Mechanical energy storage is not very dense. Compressed gas for example needs 11 times the volume as petrol / diesel and about double best batteries.( at least)

Basically the simplest accumulator consisted of a very large weighted piston lifted by hydraulic pressure, which when released allowed the weight to fall pressurising the system, a spring, gas pocket and many other devices have been utilised.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydraulic_accumulator

Theoretically you could pressurise anything to act against the hydraulic medium or even (Theoretically)make an accumulator the size of a Gasometer with hundreds of feeds into and out of it if you wished.

 

An accumulator can hold energy for the length of time the valves are closed it is indeed both a transfer of energy and storage, as that energy can be released at a time of your choosing,

 

Since they can theoretically be made on such a large scale (but much more likely of a smaller size in a matrix) and are completely reliable efficiency isn't such a critical factor.

 

No battery technology can hope to store the amount of energy that a Matrix of accumulators that equal the capacity of a Gasometer sized Hydraulic accumulator can retain, can it?

 

And the stored energy can be released and controlled very simply with no environmental impact, in the case of the Hull Hydraulic power station the water passed though the three cylinder engines, and of course the hydraulic rams where they were used and back into the River Hull

Liquids can be compressed and can therefore store energy. . But the easiest way is to use height of liquid. As a diver you will be familiar with pressure rising by 1 bar per 10 m of water.

 

 

The pressure rises but the density remains constant. ( Until extreme pressures ,water compresses minute amounts but not until 1000's of bar are attained) Under that level any work done compressing the fluid would be waisted. Fluids can not be compressed, as a means of energy storage.They can only store energy (PE) by being raised above a datum.point.

 

When pressure vessels are tested they are put under load with fluid ( sometimes oil, sometimes water) then if vessel fails there is no release of energy. ( ie an explosion)

 

OG and Woosh..yep see that.

Edited July 30, 20178 yr by Zlatan

Liquids can be compressed and can therefore store energy. . But the easiest way is to use height of liquid. As a diver you will be familiar with pressure rising by 1 bar per 10 m of water.

Back to Electric Mountain again!

But where you don't have a handy mountain, or want to to build mile high towers, Accumulators serve quite nicely for most purposes.

But the easiest way is to use height of liquid. As a diver you will be familiar with pressure rising by 1 bar per 10 m of water.

 

Here's thought provoking suggestion, pertinent to our current weather. How about using the atmospheric pressure changes as highs and lows pass over us all the time to pump the water up.

 

Only as a supplementary of course, but like the tides it's free.

.

When pressure vessels are tested they are put under load with fluid ( sometimes oil, sometimes water) then if vessel fails there is no release of energy. ( ie an explosion)

I knew there was something fundamentally wrong with the laws of physics when we were in the testing phase of making the first wall hung boilers.

We were using a new monolithic casting technique for the boiler casings.

We used to slowly pump water into them

When we reached around a thousand PSI they always made a loud bang , shattered and blew pieces in all directions.

What were we doing wrong?

Here's thought provoking suggestion, pertinent to our current weather. How about using the atmospheric pressure changes as highs and lows pass over us all the time to pump the water up.

 

Only as a supplementary of course, but like the tides it's free.

.

Don't say this out loud flecc, but I reckon Apple will have patented that already

Here's thought provoking suggestion, pertinent to our current weather. How about using the atmospheric pressure changes as highs and lows pass over us all the time to pump the water up.

 

Only as a supplementary of course, but like the tides it's free.

.

... Yeah, we could do that by putting some kind of propellers in the way and use the fact that as the atmospheric pressure changes it make the air move, this could get those propellers to rotate .... Oh!

I knew there was something fundamentally wrong with the laws of physics when we were in the testing phase of making the first wall hung boilers.

We were using a new monolithic casting technique for the boiler casings.

We used to slowly pump water into them

When we reached around a thousand PSI they always made a loud bang , shattered and blew pieces in all directions.

What were we doing wrong?

 

Should have tried it with air, would have been loads more interesting, but perhaps you might not be able to tell us story now..

The pressure rises but the density remains constant. ( Until extreme pressures ,water compresses minute amounts but not until 1000's of bar are attained) Under that level any work done compressing the fluid would be waisted. Fluids can not be compressed, as a means of energy storage.They can only store energy (PE) by being raised above a datum.point.

 

When pressure vessels are tested they are put under load with fluid ( sometimes oil, sometimes water) then if vessel fails there is no release of energy. ( ie an explosion)

 

OG and Woosh..yep see that.

Agree that at a pressure of 1000 bar, the compression is about 5% .for water.

Basically the simplest accumulator consisted of a very large weighted piston lifted by hydraulic pressure, which when released allowed the weight to fall pressurising the system, a spring, gas pocket and many other devices have been utilised.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydraulic_accumulator

Theoretically you could pressurise anything to act against the hydraulic medium or even (Theoretically)make an accumulator the size of a Gasometer with hundreds of feeds into and out of it if you wished.

 

An accumulator can hold energy for the length of time the valves are closed it is indeed both a transfer of energy and storage, as that energy can be released at a time of your choosing,

 

Since they can theoretically be made on such a large scale (but much more likely of a smaller size in a matrix) and are completely reliable efficiency isn't such a critical factor.

 

No battery technology can hope to store the amount of energy that a Matrix of accumulators that equal the capacity of a Gasometer sized Hydraulic accumulator can retain, can it?

 

And the stored energy can be released and controlled very simply with no environmental impact, in the case of the Hull Hydraulic power station the water passed though the three cylinder engines, and of course the hydraulic rams where they were used and back into the River Hull

Manchester had a whole hydraulic system, even wound the clock.

 

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Agree that at a pressure of 1000 bar, the compression is about 5% .for water.

 

That's more than I,d have guessed..rather different to a gas though !

I knew there was something fundamentally wrong with the laws of physics when we were in the testing phase of making the first wall hung boilers.

We were using a new monolithic casting technique for the boiler casings.

We used to slowly pump water into them

When we reached around a thousand PSI they always made a loud bang , shattered and blew pieces in all directions.

What were we doing wrong?

Air bags under water were being tested in Scotland recently for energy accumulation.

 

 

Sent from my Lenovo YT3-850F using Tapatalk

Air bags under water were being tested in Scotland recently for energy accumulation.

 

 

Sent from my Lenovo YT3-850F using Tapatalk

 

Come on explain !

Coming back to Brexit....if a UK person falls in love with a EU person and brings that person back to the UK and gets married,then surely the EU person would automatically be a UK citizen,with a British passport and a EU passport.

And if that couple have children in the UK ,those children would automatically be UK citizens,with British passports and because one of their parents is an EU person also be entitled to a EU passport.

There must already be millions in this position,so many UK persons have already married EU persons.

The point I am making is that any attempt to control EU immigration is doomed to failure because so much inter marriage already exists and will continue in the future.

Maybe I have misunderstood and happy to be corrected?

KudosDave

Come on explain !

.. this one is obvious. . Under a head of water, even a plastic bag can become a reservoir. Pumping air in under pressure, stores it.

 

There was also a suggestion of pumping air into big bags at very low pressure, probably 0.5 bar, and allowing the tide to compress them and then at high tide expell the now pressurised air. The problem with this as an energy capture method is that there is only one pulse of energy twice per day.

.. this one is obvious. . Under a head of water, even a plastic bag can become a reservoir. Pumping air in under pressure, stores it.

 

There was also a suggestion of pumping air into big bags at very low pressure, probably 0.5 bar, and allowing the tide to compress them and then at high tide expell the now pressurised air. The problem with this as an energy capture method is that there is only one pulse of energy twice per day.

 

Yes,I realise all that. I,m asking about the mechanics of getting the energy out the bags...and are bags simoly pulled deeper to store more energy, or filled more ??? Bags under water covers a lot of scope for various systems / concepts..

 

One of easier large energy storage systems is already used in many Hydroelectric plants..Its cost effective to keep generation at a fairly high and constant level. At low demand time electric pumps simply pump the water back up from where water has just fallen.At moderate demand times the electricity is diverted from pumps to griid. Its a proven system, perhaps they could build one at Fraisthorpe ??? Just need a big hill, a reservoir at top.??? We could use all that spare electricity around there to fill reservoir at top..???

Coming back to Brexit....if a UK person falls in love with a EU person and brings that person back to the UK and gets married,then surely the EU person would automatically be a UK citizen,with a British passport and a EU passport.

And if that couple have children in the UK ,those children would automatically be UK citizens,with British passports and because one of their parents is an EU person also be entitled to a EU passport.

There must already be millions in this position,so many UK persons have already married EU persons.

The point I am making is that any attempt to control EU immigration is doomed to failure because so much inter marriage already exists and will continue in the future.

Maybe I have misunderstood and happy to be corrected?

KudosDave

. The bit about children of UK citizens and EU citizens seems to be up in the air.