New Gasoline Engine Prototype Claims 3X Current Engine Efficiency 377
erfnet writes "A cool new high-efficiency gasoline engine prototype has no radiator, no pistons, no valves, no transmission, and no fluids (except for the fuel). At first glance it has a few similarities with the Wankel engine, but is more advanced. The engine is only suited for hybrid-electric vehicles, but that's okay. The efficiency they are claiming: is over 3x what today's gasoline engines produce. The developers, a team at Michigan State University, hope to have this engine on the market in the next two/three years."
Let's see how this pans out (Score:2)
Some amazing claims.. I hope they'll be able to prove them..
Although I'm more hoping for huge leaps in renewable fuel technology. The more efficient petrol based fuel engines become, the less funding for other techs.
Fuel engines and taxation (Score:5, Insightful)
Although I'm more hoping for huge leaps in renewable fuel technology. The more efficient petrol based fuel engines become, the less funding for other techs.
One problem is the tax structure.
As for petrol: Production of renewable fuel for petrol vehicles (that is, ethanol fuel) isn't exactly efficient outside of perhaps Brazil. As I understand it, producing ethanol from sugarcane is more efficient than producing it from corn. But most countries that demand petrol and ethanol are , and they've enacted import tariffs and farm price supports to make the corn method artificially more attractive. This could change if researchers perfect production of ethanol from switchgrass.
As for diesel: Soy biodiesel already has a positive EROEI, and production of biodiesel from microalgae looked promising last time I checked. But diesel is more commonly used on trucks and buses than on cars. A lot of U.S. cities lack good bus transit, and apart from Volkswagen's TDI vehicles, few automakers want to try marketing diesel cars in the United States, even after the nationwide switch to ultra-low-sulfur diesel a few years ago.
Re:Fuel engines and taxation (Score:4, Insightful)
few automakers want to try marketing diesel cars in the United States, even after the nationwide switch to ultra-low-sulfur diesel a few years ago.
Easy solution: Throw out US regulations that artificially create an isolated market for vehicles and allow people to import vehicles from overseas. I've done it before they tightened up the rules protecting US dealerships. Several vehicles that I've purchased (Toyota Landcruiser, for example) are available overseas in diesel versions. I would have bought one (much better mileage than the gasoline version) had it been legal to import.
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It's not just import tariffs; Mercedes has an ultra-efficient gasoline engine that they won't import to the US because our gas (not Diesel) has too much sulfur. (link [gas2.org])
And then we have the massive resistance of USians towards Diesels in cars. Part of that is the cash-grab that the States go for by taxing the hell out of Diesel fuel, intending to get a piece of the interstate trucking money. Part of it is probably backlash from the horrible gas-to-Diesel conversions from US automakers in the 1980s.
I don't k
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Re:Fuel engines and taxation (Score:4, Informative)
In countries where automotive development is not stuck in the Fifties, diesel car engines start up without 'massive clouds of black soot'.
Mart
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OK. So my 1.3l multijet diesel that gets like 47mpg (5l/100km) in city and depending on my driving more or less outside (3.3-5.5/100km) gives out more soot then your average american car?
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The reason we all drive gasoline vehicles is because there's not much other use for the gasoline that comes from a barrel of crude. Diesel has more energy per gallon, it's inherently a better automotive fuel, but if we all drove diesel vehicles, gasoline would be free.
In the US, the trucking fleet uses the diesel fuel - leaving the gasoline leftover for everyone else. If there were suddenly no more semi-trucks, then, yes, we could introduce more diesel cars into the mix.
This balance is more the reason you
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I've read that every gallon of corn ethanol takes a gallon of gasoline to produce. It also takes about 1870 gallons of water for that amount of corn to grow. A decreasing water table has been a fact in the midwest for decades.
Ethanol is also harder on engines. And according to consumer reports, mpg is worse on the standard 0.9 gasoline 0.1 ethanol mix than if you just took the decrease amount of gas w/o ethanol. (I.e. 10 gallons of mix gas takes you less distance than 9 gallons pure gasoline.) This mea
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Corn-based ethanol is looking less and less attractive:
http://futures.tradingcharts.com/chart/CN/M [tradingcharts.com]
Too bad US politics is disproportionately influenced by the Iowa caucus. Other wise ethanol subsidies would be gone.
Re:Fuel engines and taxation (Score:4, Interesting)
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It wouldn't, the local pot growers would burn down the hemp field to protect their sensi from the hemp pollen.
We used to call the cops on wild hemp fields. Kept them busy and out of trouble and kept the seeds out of our crops.
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The efficiency seems too high for a heat engine (Score:3, Insightful)
skeptical ... (Score:3)
They're claiming 60% efficiency? It's still a heat engine, so their absolute maximum efficiency is based on how hot they can get things and how cold it is outside, and I'm skeptical that they can get it hot enough for 60% efficiency from gasoline. (Actually, I don't think they said gasoline -- I don't think they said any specific fuel.)
And what's this thing about "the engine is only suited for hybrid-electric vehicles, but that's okay. " ... what does THAT mean?
Somehow I doubt this is going to pan out quite like they say it will.
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"what does THAT mean"
I believe the engine runs best at constant speed making if suited for electric generation, not powering stop & start driving.
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We already have an efficient engine type that fits those exact characteristics, the stirling engine. (Maybe this new one is much lighter).
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And what's this thing about "the engine is only suited for hybrid-electric vehicles, but that's okay. " ... what does THAT mean?
I think it means the engine can only go at a single speed, unlike a standard engine that can change speed as you accelerate. So instead of driving the wheels from this single-speed motor, you charge a battery, and use the battery to drive the wheels at different speeds.
Re:skeptical ... (Score:5, Insightful)
And what's this thing about "the engine is only suited for hybrid-electric vehicles, but that's okay. " ... what does THAT mean?
Most likely it means that the engine has terrible spin up/down times and/or is inefficient at doing them. Its best operated at constant speed, generating electricity for an electric motor which actually pushes you forward.
Re:skeptical ... (Score:4, Interesting)
And what's this thing about "the engine is only suited for hybrid-electric vehicles, but that's okay. " ... what does THAT mean?
Most likely it means that the engine has terrible spin up/down times and/or is inefficient at doing them. Its best operated at constant speed, generating electricity for an electric motor which actually pushes you forward.
That would be my guess too.
But that could be handled with a CV transmission too.
Perhaps it can't be throttled down easily, so it's always putting out full power, so it either needs to be charging a battery or powering the car or shut off if neither is needed?
But even so, if it's 60% efficient, that's huge -- more efficient than our large turbines that power power plants, ships, etc. -- these things would easily tolerate an engine that takes a long time to spin up or down, or could only be run at full power or speed. It's not just hybrids.
Re:skeptical ... (Score:4, Interesting)
The only concrete spec I could find that could be tied to this was the 25 kw (33 hp) power max. That might be enough to have somewhat more-than-required power at unambitious cruising speeds, but would absolutely not be able to deliver sufficient acceleration and therefore need to save up excess capacity (when available) in a battery and delivered via an electric motor.
Also, hypothetically, if the spin-up time was ludicrously slow, a CV would not help a car go from a stopped position up to highway speed.
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Also, hypothetically, if the spin-up time was ludicrously slow, a CV would not help a car go from a stopped position up to highway speed.
The only reason I can think of to have a ludicrously slow spin-up speed would be if it was really heavy -- but they explicitly say it's light.
But even if it takes a minute to speed up, they could just run it at full speed all the time and modulate the power it emits to whatever is needed to maintain speed. I do imagine that this would hurt efficiency somewhat. Perhaps put two or three in a car and shut 1 or 2 down when not needed? Unless it's always working at full power at full speed, of course.
Personal
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Most likely it means that the engine has terrible spin up/down times and/or is inefficient at doing them. Its best operated at constant speed, generating electricity for an electric motor which actually pushes you forward.
Much like modern trains except they have diesel engines.
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And what's this thing about "the engine is only suited for hybrid-electric vehicles, but that's okay. " ... what does THAT mean?
My guess is that it wont handle rapid speed changes well and is most efficient at a constant speed, so running a generator is about the only thing it will do well. Just like any other turbine.
So: it doesn't add up. (Score:3)
Now, modern variable vane turbocharged Diesels
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That usually means it can't produce high impulse power, like accelerating from a stop. It uses the batteries to buffer power production and recharges this during lower consumption, uses regenerative braking, etc.
That brings up the worry that it has a low average impulse output, which becomes a problem when you need continuous higher output, such as when out on the highway. It may
Not a problem with hybrids, actually (Score:4, Informative)
The difficulty with this thing is that it is NOT suitable (if you read the article) for a hybrid. That's because the engine is unsuited for use as the baseload prime mover. It is only suitable for a full electric transmission with battery storage. Full electric transmissions are expensive and inefficient and, as I note in another post, probably can't compete with plain old Diesel.
I've been looking at full electric transmission for my next boat design, using a constant speed generator Diesel to run a large alternator with direct drive to the motors and auxiliary battery to enable short term high power (i.e. twice the generator output for an hour.) So I have been doing the maths...and it doesn't add up. It is more efficient and cheaper to have a small Diesel prime mover topping out at 2400rpm, and an auxiliary electric motor to boost shaft speed to 3000 for short periods(owing to the cube law, both motors have the same power.) I'm just confirming what Toyota and others already found out - hybrid is the most efficient.
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Why bother with transmissions, crankshafts, axels, and so on? Just extra weight to haul around. Hubless eletric motors on all wheels.
Re:Not a problem with hybrids, actually (Score:4, Informative)
Why bother with transmissions, crankshafts, axels, and so on? Just extra weight to haul around. Hubless eletric motors on all wheels.
The added weight makes them horribly inefficient for anything except very smooth streets. Super heavy wheels tend to be a bad thing. This concept has worked well for some things, such as city buses where the city has well paved streets.
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Carnot efficiency doesn't enter into it; gasoline easily burns hot enough to do 60% efficiency with a room temperature cold reservoir.
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Yes, but what do you hold the burning gasoline in? Common steels lose their strength at a few hundred C, limiting your Carnot efficiency quite a bit. Even the high-temperature alloys [haynesintl.com] used to make aircraft turbines start to get a little soft at the necessary temperatures. Turbine engines solve that problem by limiting the stress on the turbine blades, but this engine must e
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They're claiming 60% efficiency?
No, TFA is bullshit. 60% is the theoretical maximum, which is the same as a steam/gas tubbine. Is this one?
They don't say what the prototype achieves. Diesel can be 35%, which is the current choice for a series hybrid, e.g. locomotives.
"the engine is only suited for hybrid-electric vehicles, but that's okay. " ... what does THAT mean?
It probably means the engine is constant speed. Maybe useful in parallel hybrid with CV gearbox?
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http://www.blogcdn.com/green.autoblog.com/media/2011/04/wave-disk.jpg [blogcdn.com]
seems like they have basically nailed a (improved?) wankel in front of a generator.
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It means... (Score:4, Informative)
You didn't read the flippin' article.
If you had, you would have likely watched the youtube vid that explained the concept.
This engine is not an engine that directly propels a vehicle as a standard internal combustion engine does. Such engines are very inefficient, as much of the energy exerted is converted to heat, not to mention the additional energy that's used just to propel the weight of the engine itself. If there was a way to reduce the heat generated, and/or create a smaller and/or lighter engine that significantly reduces its mass, you would significantly improve energy efficiency. (Example: When engine blocks moved from cast iron to aluminum, it not only reduced the weight of the engine, but also allowed quicker transfer of heat energy out of the engine. Significant improvement of engine efficiency.)
This new engine has only one purpose: to spin a generator which charges the motor's batteries. With only that purpose in mind, this particular engine only has to run at a single speed to generate the RPM necessary to spin a generator. There's no need for lots of torque to propel the car forward at low speeds, plus one single RPM means that no drive train is necessary, plus one single RPM means that you can really simplify the design of the engine so that a minimal amount of cooling is required. All-in-all, you cut probably 90% off the weight of the engine, no longer require a radiator, and can transfer most of the energy generated directly to the generator, resulting in a much more efficient car.
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I did read the article. I didn't watch the video.
It could directly propel a vehicle if it wanted. It's probably as others have said -- it either takes a long time to spin up, or must always be run at full speed and/or power. Which could easily propel many vehicles, it's just poorly suited to cars -- *including* hybrids, I might add. (Though adding multiple smaller engines that are switched off as needed could help make it work for a hybrid car.)
As for a minimal amount of cooling being needed, that's les
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And what's this thing about "the engine is only suited for hybrid-electric vehicles, but that's okay. " ... what does THAT mean?
Somehow I doubt this is going to pan out quite like they say it will.
Well, my guess is that it has very little torque but high RPM, like a turbine. A piston engine has a torque curve like a distorted parabola. Where the vertical axis is torque and the horizontal axis is RPM. The wider the torque curve, the better performance the engine has, allowing you to "stay in gear" longer. A turbine tends to have a torque curve shaped more like a positive slope with an abrupt end. Requiring a different type of transmission.
Energy is force over time, and engine power is measured as to
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I guess it will work better once thte Republican Congress repeals the Laws of Thermodynamics
Re:skeptical ... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:skeptical ... (Score:4, Informative)
I think he's using the Chambadal-Novikov efficiency, not the Carnot efficiency. C-N better models practical engines, but it's not an absolute limit.
Good luck with that... (Score:3)
wait and see (Score:2)
still waiting to see a working model that will run for a minute or two.
also, they talk about reducing the weight by eliminating the transmission, but do they talk about the weight of the generators or electric motors?
Oh dear (Score:2)
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BTW, there have been wave engines and pulse engines for decades just like there were hydrogen powered fuel cells for decades. So when you see lots of theory and no measured data from real prototype
The guy in the TFV doesn't seem very confident. (Score:2)
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I smell a snake.
LoB
New gas Saves 1000 pounds, but "no transmission*" (Score:2)
Even if it never makes it into a car (Score:3)
Imagine an emergency generator 4 times more efficient than current models...
Yes the military would be very much interested in generators that only require 1/4 as much fuel especially
considering the cost transporting fuel to combat areas as would hospitals, the red cross, FEMA.
RadMax engine is much further along (Score:2)
and also rotary-based. They're claiming 125hp from a 10-inch, 66 cu-in, 100 lb engine
http://www.regtech.com/Radmax_Technology/ [regtech.com]
http://www.regtech.com/download/radmaxbrochure_trifold.pdf [regtech.com]
The Mighty engine is basically finished (Score:2)
Angel Labs homepage [angellabsllc.com]
MYT demonstration at SJSU [youtube.com] - youtube videos
MYT is a swing-piston engine that can be scaled to basically any size you want, from lawnmowers to semi trailers. The 14" prototype is appropriate for replacing a large diesel engine.
It was developed on a shoestring budget. At one point the prototype was running on diesel, but they switched it to run on compressed air for development and demonstration purposes.
It's basically a swing-piston engine. The inventor doesn't want to sell out, and has be
Not New, Nor Even Newish (Score:5, Interesting)
The same video shown in the linked article is from UTube, uploaded Oct. 29, 2009.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uf_-IMgla34 [youtube.com]
The concept of a detonation-wave engine is not new either. I remember reading about one in Popular Mechanics or one of its clones in the fifties or early sixties of the past century.
Seems like PR fluff to me. And that's not new, either.
Re:Not New, Nor Even Newish (Score:5, Interesting)
I have a bit of experience with Wankel rotary motors, having been a crew chief for a racing team that ran one, a 13B Mazda peripheral port which reportedly developed more than 300 bhp at 8700 rpm. I dunno 'bout that, but it was geared for 173 mph at that rpm and it got there right quick. It got 1 lpg (lap per gallon -- about 2.5 miles).
The efficiency problem in ICEs is thermal loss. The rotaries had, of course, a rotating combustion chamber, meaning the much of the heat of combustion was lost heating the cases instead of driving the wheels. Otherwise, rotaries would be perfect for diesel-cycle use.
Which brings me to the motor in question. It seems to use shock waves to start combustion instead of spark or, in a diesel, compression itself. But it seems to have the same heat-loss problems the Wankel design has. To me anyway. And without "lubricant", what will keep it from packing up after a few minutes like steam engines did before Watt's improvements?
Color me skeptical, At best.
A link to the actual paper: (Score:5, Informative)
Some text to shut up the "lameness filter": No, it isn't anything like a Wankel.
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I read the paper.
I didn't see any claim of 60% efficiency. On page 4 first paragraph they claim a 34% improvement for small turbines, 25% for large turbines. Since diesels are already more efficient that turbines (for non-heat recovery turbines), that probably puts this in the same range, maybe a bit better, but not the factor of 3 that was claimed above.
Since internal combustion engines are a multi-hundred billion dollar business, I'm very skeptical about any claim of a 3X improvement, especially one that
Re:A link to the actual paper: (Score:4, Informative)
The gas turbine takes in air continuously and produces smooth power. This one has some kind of of ring that closes incoming air. Once it is spun and if the inlet is closed it is going to create very interesting airflow, and that is some how harnessed into self ignite the fuel air mixture. It will probably have a very narrow range of operating rpm. Starting would require us to spin this up to the operating rpm before it would produce power. So forget about low end torque or any such thing. It will produce power only at one speed and at one rate. In a gas turbine you could indirectly control speed/power by controlling the fuel flow rate. This one might not work at any other rpm or even fuel flow rate. Run it, charge the batteries and shut off, is going to be the mode of operation.
So the efficiency is not going to be three fold increase. That claim comes by including the gains made by reducing the engine + transmission weight. But there is going to be electric motors and batteries added. So the claims are a little over stated. On the other hand it does not depend on any intricate seals like Wankel engines or other unknown things. Gas turbines are well known since WW II. So it is a good promising technology, but it is not likely to be any better than many other unusual engines people are fiddling with. A better picture: http://green.autoblog.com/2011/04/08/wave-disk-generator-engine-wave-of-future-video/ [autoblog.com]
Has trappings of snake oil. (Score:2)
They are using 15% as their baseline automotive number to inflate their ridiculous 3.5x efficiency claim. That should set off alarm bells right there. This is clearly an attempt to exaggerate the impact across the board here.
I suspect the 60% efficiency number is purely theoretical and likely compounded by errors or even fabrications given the snake oil like claim.
I don't see anything credible going on here.
This appears to be some kind of micro-turbine, they best of which rarely top 30% efficiency.
I certain
Link quite skimpy on details, but basically (Score:5, Interesting)
So despite the prof looking like Indiana Jones, what he is saying and showing is plausible. What is going to make or break this technology would be the weight of the battery pack needed to store all that extra energy to provide surge and low end torque. Prius has a very tiny battery, relatively, just enough to propel the car for about 2 miles. We might need a battery midway between Prius and Chevy Volt/Nissan Leaf for this technology to work. Of course, the fine tolerance manufacturing, durability of the engine and seals (the bugaboo of Wankel) and other issues might crop up.
But the basic idea is plausible. Giving it one and half (guarded) thumbs up.
Re:Link quite skimpy on details, but basically (Score:4, Insightful)
What is going to make or break this technology would be the weight of the battery pack needed to store all that extra energy to provide surge and low end torque. Prius has a very tiny battery, relatively, just enough to propel the car for about 2 miles. We might need a battery midway between Prius and Chevy Volt/Nissan Leaf for this technology to work. Of course, the fine tolerance manufacturing, durability of the engine and seals (the bugaboo of Wankel) and other issues might crop up.
But the basic idea is plausible. Giving it one and half (guarded) thumbs up.
The article also mentioned shedding 1000lbs by using this motor.
That's a free half-ton for more batteries which should cover the surge and low-end torque problems you mentioned.
Home and portable Generators (Score:3)
When to Revisit (Score:3)
They're hoping to make 33.5 hp production version (Score:3)
This is indeed an engineering breakthrough, but what we need in conjunction with is either a change in human nature or some radical mandates on maximum vehicle weight. That obviously can't happen over night because no one wants to be in the smaller car when there is a collision. No one wants to unilaterally disarm on vehicle weight. What would need to happen is to have a max car and SUV size of say 4000 lbs and then reduce the maximum allowed weight by 100 lbs a year. Keep going until the maximum allowable car size is 500 lbs.
Unlike copyrights, patents expire (Score:5, Interesting)
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Most tea partiers just want less government spending. Considering that 1997's entire US federal budget equals 2011's deficit, I'd say they have good reasons.
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In fairness, what they actually seem to want is more government services (Medicare, defense) but less government spending, and simultaneously, lower taxes.
That's why we're not going to get any of it.
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Then why aren't they cutting defense spending, shelving the TSA or defunding the FBI? Yep, because the want more of specific government services, and less of others. It just so happens not everyone agrees with their specific distribution of service reduction. Nice try demonizing the opposition though.
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Where does the Constitution allow having an Air Force? Even a standing Army is barely constitutional, defence was supposed to be mainly by militia (and navy) which was one of the main reasons for the second amendment.
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They want less government services for everyone else, and more for themselves. And not to pay for it.
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German tech is alive again for the next generation of US scientists. Back to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrysler_Turbine_Car [wikipedia.org] soon
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It does sound a little bit like the V1.
At about :36, he states that the cycle is the P{something}-humphrey cycle. I wasn't able to hear what that first word was, as he mumbles through it like Bruce Campbell in Army of Darkness, but the humphrey cycle in my brief skimming of google scholar, does in fact appear to be a pulse-detonation cycle.
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"Port-Humphrey" according to the transcript. You can find it here:
http://news.msu.edu/story/7036/ [msu.edu]
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Let's just hope it will be a little more quiet than a JB-2 (American copy of a V1's engine) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8Q9oAPrvZo [youtube.com]
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Germans seem to have designed or had a major hand in the majority of major combustion engines:
Nikolaus Otto - (4 stroke)
Otto Diesel
Felix Wankel
Hopefully, Norbert Mueller's engine is actually good enough to be added to this list:) Time will tell.
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When re-use of a device is impossible, you don't design for multiple uses...
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I don't think he will be 'dissaspeared' for 'inventing' the gas turbine.
Re:Get ready to read another.... (Score:4, Interesting)
It's not really a new invention... and the car companies really don't care. My grandfather spent the last 30 years of his life developping what's essentially a combustion-powered hydraulic motor... his plan was to use the hydraulic pressure in large industrial applications (think power generation), but the math showed that it would still be far more efficient than traditional ICE's in cars and trucks. He had a working model in 1982, and a car on the road driven by it in 1984. GM offered him $1million for it, with the explicit promise that they'd sweep it under the rug and never develop it further... being ethical, my grandfather told them to stuff it, and ended up never selling the design.
Car companies won't make him disappear, they just won't care and won't buy his product. If they do buy his product it'll be with the expressed promise that they won't do anything with it. That's not going to change until the car companies are forced to sell off their interests in the oil companies.
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I had a grandfather who invented cold fusion and anti-gravity propulsion, but the goddamn feds confiscated all his plans and then used their mind -control satellites to make him never speak of it again. The bastards!
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Luxury (Score:3)
I had a grandfather that invented a time machine. But he went back in time and killed himself. Now he's gone.
Luxury
I had a grand father who went back and killed his father now both of us dont exist.
$%^&*(NO CARRIER
I call bull (Score:5, Insightful)
As someone consulting in the auto industry at the time, I can tell you that the auto company engineering departments at the time - including the upper executives - were DESPERATE for ANYTHING that would give them another MPG within the emission and performance constraints. The federal regulations were draconian and tightening while the Japanese competition was whipping their butts - especially on the west coast and among they new generation which was setting its lifetime car-buying preferences.
If your granddad had something that would give it to them - even if it meant redesigning the power train and retiring an engine production line - they'd have been on it like a shot. It would have been in the labs and undergoing testing. If it proved even marginal it would have been in a "concept car" prototype at auto shows. And if it had performed well enough to be a significant improvement, manufacturable at reasonable cost, and causing a car to perform well enough that it would sell, they'd have put it on the market to see if the public would accept it.
The problem is that there are a HOST of constraints, besides raw efficiency, on what ends up in cars. You can't have a car that accelerates so poorly that it gets rear-ended by road-raged drivers. You can't have one that only gets good MPG at some particular speed range. You can't have one that stalls about a car length after a stop sign. You can't have one that doesn't run when the temperature is below 10 degrees farenheit. you can't have one that needs an engine replacement every 20,000 miles. And I could go on for pages. There was a BUNCH of stuff they knew at the time would be fantastic - like hybrids for instance. Batteries weren't up to it but flywheels were. But it couldn't be done reliably until control and extreme power electronics was good enough to do the job - and were just getting there now.
And it has to be buildable, reliably, for an affordable price. Have you ANY IDEA what a tiny cost difference means when you are making millions of units? Figuring out how to eliminate a single screw that costs five cents to buy and install, at the cost of living at the time, would pay for TWO FULL TIME ENGINEERS to figure out how to do it. A big-three company spent many millions developing a flash-boiler steam engine during that period. If they could have gotten the construction cost down to $75 per unit it would have been their new power plant. They could only get it down to about twice that, so it only saw a racing car and a handful of prototypes.
So I call bull.
If it's real, the patent has expired by now. Give us the patent number. If it's still enough of an improvement over modern engines, and the patent attorneys didn't totally obfuscate some "secret sauce", a power plant like that could still be worth pursuing and could be engineered from the patent description. And there are a lot of applications BESIDES the US big-three ... two ... one car companies who could use it.
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GM offered him $1million for it, with the explicit promise that they'd sweep it under the rug and never develop it further... being ethical, my grandfather told them to stuff it, and ended up never selling the design.
This is obviously not true. Car companies have no vested interest in reducing fuel economy. In 1984 GM was struggling to meet consumer demand for the big, comfortable cars Americans want, while also meeting ever-stricter emissions and fuel economy rules. Since GM really didn't know how to make cars that were both small and good, they were stuck with a stable of large, underpowered cars and small, unpopular ones, and losing market share every year. A technology like you describe would have allowed them t
This is why patent reform must outlaw suppression (Score:4, Insightful)
This is why suppression must be outlawed in any real patent reform.
Charging too much to license the patent is defacto suppression also. If you take out a patent, you must be willing to submit to regulatory action on your pricing scheme.
If you don't like regulation from the government, then don't seek monopolies from the government.
Re:Get ready to read another.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Have you ever noticed that *everyone* has a grandfather who invented a miracle engine that was repressed by Big Auto? This is at least the tenth time I've heard a story along these lines.
I'm sure your grandpa was an amazing engineer, but the "200 MPG engine" was the cold fusion / room-temperature superconductor of the mid-20th century. Maybe somebody's grandpa really had the answer, and maybe somebody's grandpa did get hushed up by GM ... but maybe a lot of peoples' grandpas like telling stories to their grandkids.
As for the specific engine in this story: I don't see an engine. I see a nicely machined chunk of steel and a piece of lucite on a bearing, some heavy handwaving, and an efficiency claim which can only be achieved [wikipedia.org] if the engine operates at a temperature high enough that steel is as useful a construction material as pudding.
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Re:Get ready to read another.... (Score:4, Interesting)
And if you actually read the post in question, you would have noticed two very important things:
1. nowhere in my post did I make any claims as to actual mileage in a car. in fact, the device was never designed with auto in mind, it was just a side note to the original industrial design for it
2. it wasn't suppressed by big auto, it was never bought by them in the first place, specifically because of the promise of it being suppressed. In the early 1980's.
It would not have been a miraculous invention or a 200mpg engine. It wasn't even a traditional ICE design... again, if you'd actually *read* the post, you would have noticed that I didn't talk about mechanical power being generated, but about hydraulic power being generated. There's also no argument that a lot has changed since the early 1980s, and such an engine wouldn't be more efficient than a modern hybrid, but compared against a 1970's or 1980's car? Absolutely more efficient.
Again, though, had you actually *read* what was said, you would have realized that the initial design had nothing to do with automobiles, and was chiefly intended for industrial use. And as far as my grandfather's credentials... he worked for Rolls Royce during WWII on both the Merlin and the Griffon engines, and then went on to work for Pratt & Whitney Canada after emmigrating in 1954... among his credentials there, he worked on the GG4 engine which is still in use in marine settings today. So unlike the kooks you're so fond of mocking, he actually did have the experience and background to know what the hell he was doing.
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Sorry that you got your feathers ruffled, but I had the same exact first impression. "Not another story about a grandfather who solved xyz but was suppressed by big bad corp abc." It sounds like your granddad was the real deal - but the odds weren't good that he was. That's the drawback of the internet: when anyone can be everyone, you really don't know who anyone is or who is lying and who isn't.
Efficiency (Score:3)
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I agree with the tall claims on efficiency gain: the article states that current ICEs only get 15% thermal efficiency, which is only true at certain operating conditions. In cruise, a modern ICE can get better than 30%. Unfortunately, press releases are always short on technical details.
That said, the video has more detail, but what's interesting is it's not claiming higher engine efficiency so much as higher system efficiency: in fact, much like a turbine it sounds like this engine has very poor efficienc
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If what he's holding is the engine, it looks nothing like a Wankel.
It's circular. That's the cause of any very superficial resemblance.
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Raising Tc kills your efficiency, though...
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Pshaw. I predict we'll be buying Chinese knock-offs of it within 2 years!
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Pretty sure they solved the apex seal problem well before introducing the RX-8 almost a decade ago.....
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Re:Red Herring. (Score:4, Informative)
I loved my RX-7's. Damn fun car to drive, dead simple to work on, and remarkably reliable. Back then I didn't mind the oil consumption. It was more like a quart every 600 or so miles (1000kms +/-) But they were gas guzzlers. I think I use to get ~ 15MPG even when I was not driving aggressively.
Now I drive a Honda S2000, enjoy better efficiency (but not great), and have an equally exciting drive. Ah, progress
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