This report is 'as is' from the school. The owners of this site were unaware the project was taking place.

Can four 12 year old boys help make a significant reduction to the high CO2 levels in the UK?

We think the answer is YES
We are members of the Newland House School Eco Engineering Club and for the last year we have been investigating the effect of tyre pressure on the CO2 produced by existing cars and commercial vehicles.

These were our research findings

70-90% of cars in the UK have incorrectly inflated tyres. (6 References)
A 20% under inflation leads to a 3-4% increase in fuel consumption. (4 References)
Under inflation causes a 15-30% reduction in tyre life. (5 References)
Under inflation is the cause of a large number of fatal accidents each year. (5 references)

The size of the problem

If one driver starts checking their tyres regularly:

• This would result in a fuel saving of on average 3.5%.
  
• An average UK motorist drives 10,000 Miles per year Average fuel consumption of a car is 30M.P.G.
  
• Fuel used 10,000/30 = 333 Gallons per year. Annual saving  333 X 3.5% =11.7 Gallons (53 Litres )
  
• At 2011 prices (£1.30/Litre) this leads to a cost saving of 53x£1.30=£69 per car
  
• For each Litre of fuel burnt, 2.3 KG of CO2 is produced 53 Litres of petrol produces 2.3 x 53 = 122 KG CO2
  
• There are 34 Million cars on the UK roads 34Million x 53= 1,802 Million Litres of fuel could be saved.
  
• 1,802 Million x2.3= 4145 Million KG of CO2 could be saved.

If everyone ran their tyres at the correct pressure there would be a dramatic reduction in CO2 both through petrol saving and increased tyre life.
Can we convince the whole country to check their tyres regularly?

NO!

What effect has the Governments Multi million pound acts on CO2 campaign had?

NOT ENOUGH!!

Can we do any better?

CAN WE SAVE A FUEL TANKER OF FUEL??

A typical petrol tanker holds 19,000 LITRES RETAILING AT £24,700.
This would save 43,700 kg of CO2 being pumped into the atmosphere and also save a valuable natural resource as well as saving on the drivers fuel bill.

Our target

385 car drivers all driving their vehicles with tyres at the correct pressure would give a fuel saving of 19,000 litres, a full fuel tanker per year!!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Two years ago a team at our School designed and built an alarm that could be fixed to the car dashboard and reminded the driver monthly to check their tyres.  The system worked, but if the motorist found the pressures to be ok for a couple of months, he or she soon started to ignore the alarm.

Our current research has highlighted the following:  

Tyre Pressure monitoring systems

All new cars from 2012 by law will have a sophisticated tyre pressure monitoring system fitted as standard. This will give a continuous indication as to the tyre pressure of each tyre.
This system will add a considerable amount to the cost of a new car.  It is possible for older cars to have them fitted but would cost around £300 this would be considered too expensive by most people for older cars.

A simple alternative is a device that replaces the dust cap on the tyre valve and gives a visual indication of pressure on each tyre.

COULD THIS BE A CHEAP ALTERNATIVE?

Valve cap pressure monitoring systems.

We researched all the available systems and felt that they had real potential for use on older cars.
They were cheap and easy to install but did they work? Were they reliable? How could we tell?
We bought samples and attempted to try them out on a small sample of cars, but it was soon found to be difficult to conduct a fair test and therefore a test rig was designed and built by the team.

Test rig specification

The rig must copy the following sequence and be made by year 7 pupils:

1. Pump tyre to correct pressure.
2. Fit pressure caps to valve enabling high pressure air to flow the cap.
3. Allow tyre pressure to drop slowly.
4. Monitor pressure drop on a pressure gauge and compare with action of the cap being tested.
5. Remove cap to release pressure on the cap.
6. Record number of test cycles.
7. Repeat process.
8. To be able to test for up to 500 repeat cycles.

Our Test Rig

From our research we found that the vast majority of drivers never checked their tyres.  It is a dirty and often frustrating job especially when no action was required. However nearly all drivers would pump their tyres up quickly if they knew action was required. We are delighted with our test rig.  It has shown us which are the most reliable and effective pressure caps available.

Test results

All of the available pressure cap systems were tested for 4000 cycles.

The following were the results

	Pressure Guard	Tyre Pressure LED	Accu-pressure
Price?	£13.99	£29.99	£21
Passed life test?	Yes	Yes	Yes
Universal Tyre Pressure?	Yes	Yes	No
Clear Visual Indication?	No difficult to read	Yes very clear indication	Yes Fairly clear
Battery Powered?	No	Yes	No
Battery Life?	n/a	Not flashing: 2-3 years Flashing: 3 weeks	n/a
Semi theft proof?	No	Yes*	No

*Needs a key to unscrew but you can buy fully theft-proof versions.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our team are now able to recommend the Tyre pressure LED system. It is a cost effective, reliable and user-friendly method to ensure that vehicle tyre pressures are always within 4 psi of that required.

We have spent a considerable amount of time arriving at the above conclusion.  We are now going to publicise our findings and encourage drivers to adopt our recommendations.  We intend to do this by contacting parents at our school and hopefully other local senior schools we have the potential of in the region of 2000 possible contacts.  We also intend displaying our test rig at public events to promote our findings.
As well as our local initiatives we will be following up contacts we already have with the following;  the Mayor of London (Air Quality), Secretary of State for Transport, Shadow minister for energy and Industry, Department for Transport, The Consumer association.

Can four 12 year olds help make a significant difference to the high CO2 levels in the UK?

WE think we can!!

Hector Kelly, Max Evans, Patrick Bamforth, Jaydon Softly. (12 year old Pupils)
Barry McGovern, Head of Design Technology.  Newland House School Twickenham

 

 

 

Get4me Ltd is a registered company in England and Wales with company number 7449187 and VAT number 997981328.

Registered Office :
145/157 St John St
London
EC1V 4PY

   

Recently a large Haulier purchased this device to try and said - "MPG’s increased from 9.53 to 9.84, the product showed any air loss in the tyre, we had a slow puncture on one of the tyres and the product highlighted this, which saved us a breakdown / call out. Overall the product does what it says on the label "Air Alert". - Nov'09