Convert your Honda Accord to run on trash

Step 15: Solid Fuel Auger - Not Used In Current Design

Originally we wanted to have the hopper alongside the GEK reactor to hold the biomass fuel. It had the advantage of a more compact form factor, plus the GEK heat could help dry the fuel to allow using wetter fuels. But, it requires a way to transport the solid biomass fuel up and over to load the GEK reactor

We built several solid fuel augers, but soon discovered that it is a difficult engineering problem when you want to run an auger up from horizontal, or in our case, about 45 degrees. We currently run the vehicle with the typical top-mounted gravity-fed GEK hopper, which is simple and reliable. We hope to get the auger working eventually but for now you can refer to our prototypes and hopefully learn something about all the ways that auger can not work.

We built and tested 2 different auger designs. Generally, they would work for certain fuel size and shape, but when the particulars changed, they would either jam or fail to move/lift the fuel. The GEK reactor will run on a wide range of solid biomass as long as it is chipped or chopped into chunky bits from about 3/8" to 1.5". All diagnoal designs we tested were much more fuel sensitive than the gasifier itself.

Here's a video of one of them running:

Comments

[Pignanelli]

I think what you need is TWO screws, turning against each other (that is, a left-hand screw and a right-hand screw, both moving the material up, and turning in opposite directions). Am I crazy?

[skaar]

two flat rubber belts on a funnel shaped form would do the job pretty well.

[Demascus]

you might look at the wood pellet stoves they use Augers and hoppers. Granted the fuel it consistent, but you will see those that work being very reliable. You may want to consider what they use to use in old flour mills that being a belt with with little cups on them gravity feed to the bottom with the cups scooping up the bits as they come around the pully. Works on assorted sized grains and might be better for this application

[gidian]

would it be possible to incorporate the exhaust from the engine around the auger or hopper in order to save that excess energy by drying the fuel? or perhaps if their is some way to use the CO continually in the GEK process it could prove beneficial? i'm just in high school and i have plenty of metal fab experience, so when i stumbled upon these designs i was instantly absorbed and fascinated. i am trying to design a Gasifier to turn a single cab s-10 into one of these bio-cars, and im pretty low budget so everything counts