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Moving Petrol Station

Done by:

Ali Jaber 100020225

Mohammed Al Baloushi 100031966

Date:

Jul. 27th

2011

To:

Ms. Sabina Ostrowska

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Contents

Figures .................................................................................................................................................... 3

Abstract ................................................................................................................................................... 4

Introduction ............................................................................................................................................. 5

Purpose ............................................................................................................................................... 5

Scope .................................................................................................................................................. 5

Procedure ............................................................................................................................................ 5

Problem ............................................................................................................................................... 5

Discussion ............................................................................................................................................... 6

Survey ................................................................................................................................................. 6

General description .............................................................................................................................. 7

Detailed description ............................................................................................................................. 7

Limitations and obstacles....................................................................................................................... 11

Conclusion ............................................................................................................................................ 12

References:............................................................................................................................................ 13

Appendix .............................................................................................................................................. 14

Appendix A ....................................................................................................................................... 14

Appendix B ....................................................................................................................................... 15

Appendix C ....................................................................................................................................... 16

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Figures

Figure 1: students who don’t know about moving petrol station………………………………………6

Figure 2: students who have a good idea about petrol station…………………………….……………6

Figure 3: RFID tag……...………………………………………………………………….…………...7

Figure 4: The computer in the car showing the options……………………………………..…………7

Figure 5: Salik system…………………………………………..……………………….….………….8

Figure 6: station located in the mid of a highway serving both side…………………………………..8

Figure 7: cars above the conveyor belt....................................................................................................9

Figure 8: 3 tanks connected to 3 pumps join out with one pipe ………………………………………10

Figure 9: 2 pipe with a magnetic edge connected with a spring ……………………………..………..10

Figure 10: Students obstacles………………………………………………………….……………….11

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Abstract

The reader of this article will know about an innovation of the common petrol station. In this innovation

we came up with a moving petrol station that fills cars while they are moving, so that the driver

will save time and there will be less traffic problems’ in the station. We will use an RFID system

to recognize the car, take its information about the type and amount of petrol and the payment

after re-fueling the car. So, by using the help of the conveyor belt which will be located in the

middle of the street and carrying the car with pumps until it gets refueled. Furthermore, the

conveyor belt is going to have a circular shape which will help by serving more than one car at

the same time. There will be a magnetic system that will allow the pump that helps with

refueling the car engine without linking the pumps and make sure that each pump refuels the

right car using magnetic attraction and repulsion between the pipe with electric magnetic pump

and another magnate fixed in the car.

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Introduction

Purpose

The purpose of this report is to do some investigations about refueling techniques of planes in the

air and study the feasibility of transferring these techniques to the vehicles on the ground in order

to reduce the traffic in the petrol stations

Scope

In this report we are going to talk about the moving petrol station and how it works in details. It

will talk also about the main components and the refueling process. This process is divided to

four stages which are connection, RFID, refueling and disconnection. All of these topics will be

explained in the report.

Procedure

We start the investigation by asking a mechanical engineer called Suhail Rashid Al Ketbi who

work in Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) about refueling planes in the air and the

possibility of transferring it to the ground. He said that this technique is used for military purpose

to give fighter jets longer time in the sky. About using it in the ground, he said that it will be too

dangerous to refuel the cars while they are moving just like adding oil to fire and he adds “ it’s

not impossible” made two different surveys to see the feasibility of this station and its’ effects

on the society. One for normal students who haven’t heard about the moving petrol station. The

other one was for students who read what we wrote about this innovation.

Problem

Petrol nowadays is one of the most used energy source in the world. One of the major uses of

petrol is the transportation. Increasing the transportation, especially cars, will cause an increase

in using petrol. As a result of that, it will be crowded each time we want to re-fuel the car’s tank,

unless we increase the number of petrol stations. Increasing the number of petrol stations is not

the good choice because it will increase the pollution. Moreover, raising the amount of the petrol

used in transportation field will end it faster then we need to find another source of energy. In

order to solve this problem we need to come up with another solution. Therefore, we came with a

moving petrol station that re-fuels cars while they are moving. However, this idea needs a lot of

time, money and material to be achieved. This project will pass through four stages which are

RFID, connection, re-fuel and disconnecting. We are going to explain each stage in the report.

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Discussion

Survey

There were two surveys for two groups of students. The first one was for students who don’t

know about this technology so the question was more basic like how many cars they have and

did they believe in a moving petrol station and the results is shown in Figure (1). The other

survey was aimed to a students who have a good idea about this innovation and it include

questions about the efficiently and feasibility of this station, Figure (2) presents the result.

21%

27%

52%

Do you believe in a moving station?

Yes

No

Not sure

Figure 1: Students who don’t know about moving petrol station.

64%

36%

Moving station vs. Static station

Moving

Statics

Figure 2 : Students have a good idea about petrol station

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General description

Moving petrol station doesn’t mean that the whole station is moving. Actually the main idea of

the moving petrol station is to re-fuel cars while they are moving and from this comes the name

“moving petrol station”. Initially the refueling process required a connection between three

members in the station. The first connection will be between the car and the server in the station.

When the car connects to the server, the server will show to the driver two options. What type of

petrol the driver wants to use and how much petrol the driver

needs. The payment will be using RFID tags see Figure 3 that

contain a balance and connect to the tag reader. When the driver

specifies the costs then the computer will tell the tag reader to

take this cost from the balance in the tag. When the car completes

these steps it will stand above a roller that will move at a certain

speed. Then the hose from a pump will stick to the tank by an

electric magnet and start filling it. That pump will be able to

move with the car roller by putting a rail under it and the rail

will be shaped as a ring to go back when it disconnects with any car to serve another one. When

the car gets enough petrol then the electrical magnet will shut down and the car will be free to

move again.

Detailed description

As we said before there will be four stages in refueling process starting with the connection

between a computer in the

vehicle and the server in the

station. After the connection

success a new window will

appears in the screen of the

vehicles’ computer for the

driver to insert his or her needs

of petrol like which type they

want and how much they are

Figure 4: The computer in the car showing the options

Figure 3: RFID tag

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going to pay for similar to Figure 4 below. Then these

data will be sent to the server in the station and the first

stage ends. The second stage starts when the server

sends the information to an RFID gate that will be in the

entrance of the station. There are two types of Radio

Frequency Identification (RFID) which are the near

field and the far field. We are going to use the near filed

RFID [1]. The main purpose of using an RFID gate is

for the payments. This method had been used by an

Emirates company called Salik. This company simply

uses a similar gate that can get some fees from a small

tag with a balance. This tag is attached on the front window of the car. If there’s no tag then fees

will turn to ticket. Figure 5 explain how salik system works. Similarly to Salik system, each car

that wants to use the moving petrol station should have tags that contain a balance and are stuck

on the front glass of the car. When the server

takes the orders from the driver it will send the

cost to the RFID gate and tell it to take off the

costs from the tag. After paying the cost, the gate

will give the station the green light to start the

refueling process. The next stage is the refueling

and it is divided to two parts which are: the

conveyor belt and the pump.

In case there’s no tag or enough balance then the

gate will send to the server that the payment

process failed and send it the reason. Then, the server will send these comments to the driver and

ask him or her either to input the costs or re-charge the tag otherwise the pump won’t activate.

The station contains many components like the car conveyor belt, the pumps and the magnetic

connection. When a car passes the RFID gate it will find the conveyor belt directly. After that the

driver should get upon the conveyor belt and turn his engine of for safety [2]. The conveyor belt

will be moving at constant speed of 10 km/h, whenever the car is full it doesn’t have to wait till

the end of the street, it can get of the conveyor belt by driving on a street beside the conveyor

Figure 5: Salik system

Figure 6 : The station located in the mid of a highway

serving both side and showing the motion of conveyor belt

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belt so it can be back to the main street .That allows the station to fill many cars at a time so they

don’t need to wait anymore. Since the station is designed with many pumps, each car will have

its own pump that will serve it till it is filled. When the car is refueled it will go back of the street

as shown in Figure 6. In the meanwhile the

pump starts moving with the conveyor belt

till it reaches the other side of the road to

find another car to be refueled. The idea of

the cars’ conveyor belt came because the

cars in the station should be moving in a

specific speed and it needs to make sure that

the speed of the cars will be constant as

shown in Figure 7. Nevertheless the second

important reason is the safety. Cars are not

allowed to keep their engine turned on

because it is dangerous and it’s not safe. The

car conveyor belt needs to be caring the car for a specific time till it refills the tank of the cars.

According to the car having the biggest tank which is Nissan Petrol with 235 L [3], the distance

should be measured so it can be covered by the car conveyor belt for that car, found that it takes

5 minutes as a maximum time to refill an empty tank, so we applied the formula of the speed =

distance / time, and we specified the speed of the conveyor belt to be 10 km/h and the result was

0.3 km.

V=d/t d=v*t t =5 min v=10 km/h

So d= (10000 m / 360 s)*(300 s) = 833 m= 0.8 km

Distance of 0.8 km is too long for a station so the idea of the car conveyor belt is to have in

circular shape so we can put a station in the middle of a highway and serve the two sides of the

street. Thus, we have one station instead of two as shown in Figure 6.

Figure 7: cars above the conveyor belt

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At the beginning, the pump gets the order to fill a

car from the station to serve the car with the

amount and the type of the petrol needed. In fact,

there will be more than one kind of fuel pumps.

For example, there is the special fuel for the

normal cars and there will be the super fuel for

the sport cars, and according to each car it will be

available for it as. Each pump is connected to a

tank according to the type as shown in Figure 8.

In the other side, all type pumps into the same pipe which is better instead of having a pipe for

each as shown in Figure 8 and Figure 9. At the edge of the pipe there will be an electrical

magnetic connected to the computer of the station and there will be another magnet fixed to the

car having a circular shape. A magnet in the car will be half negative and half positive and the

one in the pipe will be controlled so that when the car is going to get the petrol it should activate

in a opposite way of the one in the car to attract with each other. When the car is filled up, it will

reverse so that the negative will face the negative and the positive will face the positive causing

repel for the two magnets. In the center of the magnet there is a pipe which will be an extension

so that it will guaranty that there will be no petrol leak. Furthermore, there will be a spring that

will take the pipe away from the car when the magnates are reversed, and it will stay stable till

the other car comes nearby.

A problem might face us were cars do not have

the petrol hole in the same side so there will be

another pipe located above the car as shown in

Figure 9. Moreover, there will be a switch in

the pipe to switch the flow of the petrol

depending on the side of the petrol hole of the

car which there will be a computer that tells you

where the switch is. The computer knows the side

of the petrol hole by knowing the model of the car. In addition, all of that information will be

taken from the RFID system. As a result, there will be one worker in each side of the station to

bring the pipe to the car till the magnet is activated.

Figure 9 : 2 pipe with a magnetic edge connected with a spring

Figure 8 : 3 tanks connected to 3 pumps join out with one pipe

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Limitations and obstacles

We make a survey for students attend the

presentation to see the obstacles that they

will write and the result was in five

obstacles and limitations. As you see in

Figure 10 that most of the students agreed

in the costs to be the highest rate between

the other obstacles recording 34%. The

area was the second with 30% and the

least obstacle was the energy sources with

only 8%. One of the limitations was in the

conveyor belt ; it may not enough distance

for the trucks to be filled. In order to solve

this problem we may exclude trucks from

this station or determine a time for these trucks and slowdown the conveyor belt from the server.

The other limitation is the distance between the roads in the UAE is small comparing to this

station however we solved this problem by making constructions in the roads to increase the

distance to be suitable for the station.

Students obstacles

Costs

Area

Safety

Energy source

System errors

Figure 10: Students obstacles

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Conclusion

After a lot of research we found that the feasibility of building a moving petrol station is too low

because the large required area and the high costs of its components such as the length of the

conveyor belt , the server, and the RFID gate. However, in case that this station is done, it will

save time and reduce the traffic in the petrol stations. The idea of this project is divided to four

stages which are connection, RFID, refueling and disconnection. The problem is whether we

have the time to achieve this station before the petrol vanishes or we jump to other sources of

energy. On the other hand, if we focus on the advantages there are many of them in this station

beside saving time and power. For example, depending on the computer instead of the laboures

will increase the accuracy in the station. In addition, the RFID paying system is better than the

cash system.

In the UAE the number of the cars is increasing because it becomes an important aspect of life

similar to food and home. Therefore if we compare the number of cars and the total area of the

UAE we will find that the density is too high. According to Abu Dhabi Urban Planning Council

that number of the car is increasing more than the population by 7.6% and it reaches to 820000

cars [4] As a result, this country will need this innovation more than other countries in the

Middle East.

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References:

1. 2003. Tutorial overview of inductively coupled RFID Systems. UPM article.

Available: http://www.mobiusconsulting.com/papers/rfidsystems.pdf

2. 2009. Gas Station Safety. Explosion Victim Resource Center. Available:

http://www.explosionvictimresourcecenter.org/articles/gas-station-safety/

3. 1998. Fuel Tanks. 4WD Systems. Available:

http://www.4wdsystems.com.au/index.php?id=25

4. 2003. Number of cars in UAE is increasing. Available:

http://www.ameinfo.com/ar-12218.html

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Appendix

Appendix A

64%

36%

Moving station vs. Static station

Moving

Statics

21%

27%

52%

Do you believe in a moving station?

Yes

No

Not sure

Student's obstacles

Costs

Area

Safety

Energy source

System errors

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Appendix B

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Appendix C