The Chrysler Patriot hybrid drive Le Mans racer from the mid-90s
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The Audi R10 and Peugeot 908 have garnered an enormous amount of attention for their diesel powered efforts at Le Mans in the last two years but they are by no means the first attempts at alternative power-trains for race cars. One of the more interesting if ultimately unsuccessful ideas came in the form of the Chrysler Patriot. Chrysler announced the Patriot in 1993 and development begun in earnest later that year and into 1994. The Patriot chassis was designed and built by now defunct race car manufacturer Reynard to the rules of the World Sports Car class and was intended to run at Le Mans beginning in 1995.
Find out what made the Patriot drive-train unique after the jump.
Although the car itself looked pretty conventional for the time and wasn't radically different from other early nineties WSC cars, the intended power-train was unique. Chrysler has a history of trying to get turbines working in cars going back to at least the early sixties. The Patriot was intended to have a natural gas-fueled two-stage turbine driving a pair of alternators providing juice to a 525V AC induction motor making this essentially a series hybrid.
The turbines could provide decent power from compact package but didn't really have the transient response needed for this type of application. Unlike the current series hybrids from Ford and General Motors, the Patriot was not designed to use a battery for storing energy since no practical type was available for a racing application at that time.
Instead, Chrysler wanted to use a flywheel to store energy that would be available for bursts of power for acceleration when needed. The flywheel system was designed to spin at 58,000 rpm in a vacuum housing made of carbon fiber. Unfortunately, dynamometer testing of the system proved it to be unworkable for an automotive application. After two catastrophic failures of the flywheel they decided they could adequately shield the driver and canceled the project. The Patriot never ran with the full drive-train system and now sits in the basement of the Walter Chrysler museum in Auburn Hills, Michigan.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Jason Jungreis 1:24PM (8/08/2007)
I believe this series hybrid concept of a turbine/ICE genset with flywheel power storage and some battery energy storage remains the best design for the efficient use of fuel (or as a PHEV: just add more batteries). Given more recent advances in flywheel magnetic bearings, composites, and controllers there is no reason this propulsion system cannot be inexpensively mass-produced as it uses no exotic materials (as the Rosen brothers tried to point out). It is certainly the most efficient means to recapture brake energy and provide superior acceleration, and it is relatively light and compact and extremely low maintenance. Sadly, it seems only a couple of DARPA projects may currently be working toward development of this system, although perhaps Formula One's kenetic energy recapture rule adoption may spur practical applications.
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Bob_Sheaves 4:44PM (8/08/2007)
Practical? Nope-just ask the families of the people killed in the 2 flywheel explosions at Chrysler. Simple physics place this half-baked idea into the "perpetual motion machine" catagory.
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Ian 12:46AM (8/26/2007)
As the originator of this concept vehicle I can assure that no one was killed at Chrysler. Mr Sheaves was not involved in the project at the time and his information is incorrect. I cannot understand why he would make such a ridiculous statement. I believe (but I cannot substansiate) that BMW had an unfortunate incident but that was due to some technicians not following some rudimentary safety steps. The original proposal to use an Allied Signal APU unit, Sea Wolf electric motor, Unique Mobility Flyheel, Cryogenic LNG, Goodyear, etc stemmed from the Government wishing to introduce advanced technology to the Auto Industry. All these seperate units were in production except for the flywheel. The project was eventually given to a group of Chrysler Engineers that had no equity in the project and did not come from a racing background. This project could have been successful but was ultimately a failure due to internal Chrysler politics and Ego's at the time.
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