Double Zero - Air Powered Urban Mobility

Concept

The Double Zero is a low cost, pneumatic motorcycle for personal transport. It uses a 3 cylinder pneumatic radial piston engine to power it up to a top speed of 80km/h. The inspiration for the project was to re-imagine the Honda Super Cub if it was originally designed in the 21st century. It was designed to be simple and easy to fix, the chassis is based on a single extruded Aluminium profile so that it can be mass produced cheaply and efficiently recycled at the end of its life cycle.

Extruded Aluminium Chassis

The main elements of the chassis are extruded from a single, recycled Aluminium profile to facilitate mass production

Pneumatic Driveline structure

The driveline feeds pressurised air from the cylinders into a central plenum via pressure regulators at 12 psi. The plenum feeds the radial piston engine, a Huco Dynatork 3 typically used for driving conveyor belts in food processing plants. The Dynatork is modified in this application to run higher boost, this allows it to develop only 3000w of power but the 20Nm of torque at low revs ensures effortless low speed drivability.

Battery Free energy bottle swapping

Double Zero is powered by compressed air which is stored in 3 pneumatic cylinders. Pneumatic cylinders are far less harmful to the environment at the end of their life than batteries. However they have far lower energy density, so they are more suited short trips.

Suspension Design

The front suspension is a refinement of a Hossack type system. The operational advantage is that the bump to stroke ratio of the damper can be changed with a single bolt. This system was developed because the bending moments associated with a telescopic fork arrangement would require over-engineering of the extruded frame.

Innovative Tyre Concept

Research in developing countries led to the conclusion that bikes and scooters are typically used on a variety of surfaces, including tarmac, dirt, gravel and mud. Existing tyres are inherently compromised because they focus on a single surface type. To this end, Double Zero utilises a new tyre concept called Nomad. Pressurised air from the Double Zero’s air tanks allows the Nomad to adapt to any terrain without stopping. Unlike a typical tyre, the Nomad has 3 pressure chambers, a central chamber and a pair of lateral chambers. On tarmac the central chamber is inflated to a high pressure giving the Nomad the shape and performance of a road biased tyre, when the lateral chambers are inflated the tyre widens and grooves that were thin begin to expand, this increases the space between the thread blocks to improve off-road performance.

If you wish to discuss this project or need expert insight to develop one of your own, please get in touch here.