What Happens When You Cross a Gas Turbine With an Internal Combustion Engine? (topspeed.com) 158
"Here is another radical replacement for the traditional combustion engine," writes long-time Slashdot reader Inzkeeper. "Check out the Astron Aerospace H2 Starfire Omega 1... an ICE engine with a turbine configuration."
The company "is claiming that it is a viable alternative to EVs," reports TopSpeed: Astron have showcased a 3D rendering of their engine which helps to understand this extremely complicated new powerplant in all of its glory. They also showed a functioning prototype which gives us a glimpse into how the engine could potentially function... The company claims that it weighs an absolutely mind-boggling 35 pounds yet produces horsepower in the region of 160 and about 170 pound-feet of torque. These are insane figures. The Omega 1 boasts an alleged 60 percent efficiency, which is absurd if true given that piston engines rarely ever top 40 percent efficiency. On top of this, Omega 1 can run on any kind of combustible fuel, meaning that hydrogen could easily be used to reduce emissions so close to zero that it's negligible.
HotCars adds that "According to Astron Aerospace, the engine idles at 1,000 rpm and redlines at an incredible 25,000 rpm — much higher than all the other rotaries we've seen. This is thanks to the circular movement, rather than the epitrochoidal movement used for Reuleaux triangle rotaries." The awesome thing about this engine is that it is stackable, meaning two of them will make 320 hp and 340 lb-ft, three will produce 480 hp and 510 lb-ft, etc... Astron Aerospace also stated that due to the design, the engine is easily scalable for other applications — for instance, marine engines. According to them and one of their renders, a larger version can easily reach 4,500 hp...
[I]t is not only more efficient than the equivalent piston engine — 80% compared to a mere 34% — but the engine is also much smaller and lighter. This translates to better fuel economy and a lighter overall vehicle. The engine is air-cooled as well, which means there aren't any additional radiators or other cooling systems needed to keep the engine working. Air-cooled may sound a bit old-fashioned, but in this case, it simplifies the whole package. The maintenance on such an engine would also be minimal, with Astron Aerospace claiming 60,000 miles further usage over a typical piston engine before maintenance is required.
The disadvantage of this engine is that it hasn't yet been thoroughly tested in real-world conditions. Astron Aerospace has patented the engine and has a working prototype but has found no investors to begin mass testing and production. The engine needs to be worked hard to flesh out any potential weak points and new materials need to be used to cope with the internal stresses and wear.
The company "is claiming that it is a viable alternative to EVs," reports TopSpeed: Astron have showcased a 3D rendering of their engine which helps to understand this extremely complicated new powerplant in all of its glory. They also showed a functioning prototype which gives us a glimpse into how the engine could potentially function... The company claims that it weighs an absolutely mind-boggling 35 pounds yet produces horsepower in the region of 160 and about 170 pound-feet of torque. These are insane figures. The Omega 1 boasts an alleged 60 percent efficiency, which is absurd if true given that piston engines rarely ever top 40 percent efficiency. On top of this, Omega 1 can run on any kind of combustible fuel, meaning that hydrogen could easily be used to reduce emissions so close to zero that it's negligible.
HotCars adds that "According to Astron Aerospace, the engine idles at 1,000 rpm and redlines at an incredible 25,000 rpm — much higher than all the other rotaries we've seen. This is thanks to the circular movement, rather than the epitrochoidal movement used for Reuleaux triangle rotaries." The awesome thing about this engine is that it is stackable, meaning two of them will make 320 hp and 340 lb-ft, three will produce 480 hp and 510 lb-ft, etc... Astron Aerospace also stated that due to the design, the engine is easily scalable for other applications — for instance, marine engines. According to them and one of their renders, a larger version can easily reach 4,500 hp...
[I]t is not only more efficient than the equivalent piston engine — 80% compared to a mere 34% — but the engine is also much smaller and lighter. This translates to better fuel economy and a lighter overall vehicle. The engine is air-cooled as well, which means there aren't any additional radiators or other cooling systems needed to keep the engine working. Air-cooled may sound a bit old-fashioned, but in this case, it simplifies the whole package. The maintenance on such an engine would also be minimal, with Astron Aerospace claiming 60,000 miles further usage over a typical piston engine before maintenance is required.
The disadvantage of this engine is that it hasn't yet been thoroughly tested in real-world conditions. Astron Aerospace has patented the engine and has a working prototype but has found no investors to begin mass testing and production. The engine needs to be worked hard to flesh out any potential weak points and new materials need to be used to cope with the internal stresses and wear.
Want to test it? (Score:3)
Give it to your F1 team and let them find the flaws. Shouldn't take all that long.
That said, nowhere in the article does it say how big this engine is. Weight is given, but not length, height, or width. If these things are stackable, how much space do they take up? Can the engines be made smaller or larger to produce less or more hp?
Existing tech in tank engines? (Score:2)
Honeywell_AGT1500 [wikipedia.org]
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The Honeywell in the Abrams is a more or less traditional gas turbine. It's actually a failed design for a helicopter turbine. Failed for the helicopter role, but succeeded for the tank.
Watching the video, this is reminiscent of the rotary engine. However, more like a turbine, it has a compression cylinder, which compresses air as it spins, and a seperate cylinder that handles the compression. There's a notch that when it meets up, allows the compressed air from the compression cylinder to be transferre
Re: Existing tech in tank engines? (Score:2)
Did you miss that Hydrogen would also work?
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No, because while hydrogen might work in the engine, generating and storing the hydrogen is drastically less efficient than electricity and batteries.
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Actually, it think storing hydrogen can be done efficiently. But not for a mobile platform because of trade-offs.
Context... (Score:2)
And what context of storying hydrogen are we talking here, if not for mobile platforms? 'EV killing' makes it about vehicles, not something like a standby generator. If you can't store hydrogen efficiently in a vehicle(cost, space, density, whatever), then it isn't going to be able to kill EVs.
Plus, we still have the problem of generating and possibly shipping the hydrogen.
Hydrogen, at least "green" hydrogen generated by electrolysis and such methods using renewable energy, isn't very cost effective. At
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A hydrogen fueled IC engine will also have a tendency to emit NOx as hydrogen burns hot, which also raises the question of whether this engine would also have a tendency to produce too much NOx as efficiency often equals hot burning.
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Following your logic there would be NO zero-emissions fuels, including battery power. If you need to include all sources and transportation steps into the creation of a "fuel" then there is no fuel source that meets that criteria.
Most people think of zero emissions as meaning zero harmful emissions at the point of use. Battery, Hydrogen, Ion thrust, compressed air, etc all fit the generally accepted definition of zero emissions. Granted, none of those can be created or transported in isolation so if you
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I'm not sure it really has that much in common with a gas turbine. It's more like a Wankel engine that uses two circular chambers and round rotors instead of one rounded rectangular chamber and a triangular rotor. Because of that, it doesn't need the apex seals, which is always the weak point of a Wankel, but it should keep most of the advantages.
Yeah, that's why I said it the way I did. (Score:2)
That's pretty much why I compared it to a rotary first, only saying it has some "attributes" of a gas turbine. It's enough to say that it acts like a hybrid of the two; leaning more towards the Wankel though.
Definitely a design that I think comes from the ability to 3D print high strength metal forms with extreme accuracy.
I will straight up say that we have manufacturing techniques and alloys today that if you offered them to NASA back in the '60s they'd happily murder somebody for it, or scrounge up their
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Re:Want to test it? (Score:5, Informative)
https://www.motorsport.com/f1/... [motorsport.com]
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Racing used to be the arena for testing engine innovations like this. Since that horrifying moment in the Sixties when the first racing turbine lapped the whole Indy 500 field before succumbing to a bearing failure, the racing rules have been carefully curated to protect those big investments in dinosaur tech. If you want to innovate, log onto X and catch Elon's ear.
Re: Want to test it? (Score:2)
It's not about protecting the old tech. It's about protecting the racing series. The teams want it to be stagnant for cost, the series want themselves to be "exciting"(somewhat even field), while manufacturers lose interest since they can't build stuff to showcase their engineering.
Budget limits too exist just to keep more teams in the series and the series itself making money. Motorsports is having a boring crisis as a result on top levels. And its still too expensive since they fucked up the rules in a wa
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Racing used to be the arena for testing engine innovations like this. Since that horrifying moment in the Sixties when the first racing turbine lapped the whole Indy 500 field before succumbing to a bearing failure, the racing rules have been carefully curated to protect those big investments in dinosaur tech. If you want to innovate, log onto X and catch Elon's ear.
Formula E is painfully slow compared to Formula One. Or Formula Two. Or Formula Three for that matter. Elon has nothing to add that is better than dinosaur tech.
Re: Want to test it? (Score:2)
If by "painfully slow", you mean 10% slower, then yes.
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Grins, nicely put. It's a solidworks engine. Sure it might go round but it will eat itself at full power.
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However they claim 60% efficient so it isn't quite as absurd as you are suggesting.
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To be fair, the second article in the summary had a typo.
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Typo in the second article. The claimed efficiency is 60%
Slashvertisement (Score:2)
Stem to stern a slashvertisement.
Oh for the days when we could tag it as such.
Re:Want to test it? (Score:5, Informative)
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Apparently nobody watched the video. The engine idles at 1000 RPM, max redline RPM is 25000. There's a non-3d-rendered video of a working engine in action, clearly showing the size of it next to a live person.
I saw it. I have questions. Fascinating is that the thing claims 80 percent thermal efficiency. Does it?
Anyhow, I see no reason why the thing would not function. The TE of 80 percent though, that'll set off the skeptimeter.
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I saw it. I have questions. Fascinating is that the thing claims 80 percent thermal efficiency. Does it?
Thermodynamic efficiency is really simple, the ratio of peak absolute temperature in combustion to exhaust gas absolute temperature sets the thermodynamic efficiency. Ideally you want high combustion temperatures and absolute zero freezing exhaust. Now the way it is sometimes applied is relative process efficiency which moves up the temperature floor to ambient because that heat was taken in free of charge, under conventional thermodynamic efficiency one could make a near perpetual motion engine using
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There's a few videos about the engine and at least one I saw with the company's owner talking about it. It's a very interesting concept and doesn't feel like vaporware in this case. Go watch the videos and read up on it before spouting off about unobtainium.
holy crap that video is terrible (Score:4, Insightful)
It's got a poorly translated script read by software, it pronounced "EV" as a word instead of saying the letters.
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It's got a poorly translated script read by software, it pronounced "EV" as a word instead of saying the letters.
Yah. There is no reason that this device wouldn't work. Nothing very groundbreaking. Seems kinda a cool little engine. But that el-cheapo software voice, doesn't instill confidence, and I still get hung up on some of the claims like thermal efficiency. 80 percent is outstanding. But assuming they are using Carnot efficiency it almost certainly breaks the second law of thermodynamics. Carnot max is pretty much unobtainable. It's kind of a touchstone. But every other measurement comes up with efficiencie
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And the hotter, the more NOx emitted.
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And the hotter, the more NOx emitted.
Yup, I've seen so much BS on Youtube, and so many people that line up to believe it, that it's pretty sad.
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Here is a much better video that includes the company's owner. https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Very neat but it's not an EV killer (Score:5, Insightful)
Not only was this experimented with in the 60s [wikipedia.org] but this doesn't solve for all the inherent advantages EV's bring to passenger vehicles (quieter, charge from home, less moving parts, instant torque from 0rpm, lower center of gravity) and that's all before you get to emissions.
Also what are the article authors even talking about here at the end "While we as motoring enthusiasts hope that an engine like this would make it to the mass market to put some diversity in the landscape of dull new electric vehicles, there is still a lot to do before this can happen."
I just took a ride in a friends BMW i4-M50 and it was anything but dull, it was extremely impressive. Same can be said for high end Teslas, Jaguar iPace, Audi eTron, Rivian R1T, Lucid Air. [bmwusa.com]
Really the issue with EV's is that all those vehicles are mid-to-high end luxury sport cars because it's still somewhat new. We're trying to get to a world where EV's are dull, common commuter cars.
When the article mentioned marine engines, now that makes sense, especially on the high end in that market. For passenger vehichles for 80-90% of people driving themselves around? Nah, the EV is inevitable in that market. Too many advantages.
Re:Very neat but it's not an EV killer (Score:5, Informative)
This design seems to use a pair of counterrotating rotors which cancel each others' vibration instead of a traditional turbine wheel design, so it's not quite the same tech as the recirculating gas turbine that Chrysler developed. If you can function with little enough gas flow, unlike the Chrysler turbine you might be able to solve the hot exhaust gas problem. It still doesn't mean the end of EVs, because the problems this engine will solve (if it keeps all of its promises, ha ha) are mass to output and weight to output ratios. It doesn't solve any of the other problems with liquid fuels. It's also not a logical way to use hydrogen now that there are practical hydrogen fuel cells developed through a partnership between GM and Honda. If you're going to bother with hydrogen as a motor fuel, it makes a whole lot more sense to eliminate the internal combustion step.
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If you're going to bother with hydrogen as a motor fuel
Which we aren't.
(well, maybe in ships...)
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As I understand it, ammonia is actually more likely in that case.
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The only ships I foresee using hydrogen as fuel are those big liquid hydrogen carrier ships used to bring rocket fuel to NASA. They'd burn the hydrogen that boils off the tanks while in transit since there's such difficulty in containing it. It's better to burn the hydrogen to power the ship than just dump it into the air.
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Not only was this experimented with in the 60s [wikipedia.org]
Yep: https://www.google.com/search?... [google.com]
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Nah, the EV is inevitable in that market. Too many advantages.
Agreed so far as the technology has matured to date, however sourcing of raw materials remains sketchy. But hey, that's what commodity markets were invented for, right? Mining for fossil fuel is arguably worse overall.
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You make a strong argument. To give further consideration and a reply, consumption of raw materials comes at a cost. My own earlier argument was based solely on vehicular emissions, which are very bad for everyone.
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Really the issue with EV's is that all those vehicles are mid-to-high end luxury sport cars because it's still somewhat new. We're trying to get to a world where EV's are dull, common commuter cars.
Given the amount of material required to make the battery in a BEV we are a long way from making the BEV a common commuter car.
In doing a little math I could see a market open up for a low price BEV commuter car, but this would be something that poor college students buy or a parent might buy for their teenage children to drive to and from school and events. This would not be a primary vehicle. A big problem with BEVs isn't just that the batteries take a lot of material, but that much of this material isn
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A Model S battery, a pretty big pack, contains approximately 62lbs of lithium, that works out to around $720 at todays spot prices. [dailymetalprice.com] Raw materials is not exactly the most expensive part of a battery pack but high demand [iea.org] and lack of production at scale. Every battery that rolls off a line today is already accounted for. That's why there are a dozen battery factories that have broken ground in just the US at this very moment and are going into production at the cost of hundreds of billions of dollars. Eith
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A Model S battery, a pretty big pack, contains approximately 62lbs of lithium, that works out to around $720 at todays spot prices.
I'm not sure that's accurate for battery grade lithium but I'll go with it since I can't show otherwise with a quick search. My point is more about how that price can rise with demand for lithium than where it is now. I will point out again that it is unlikely for lithium demand to be sufficient to meet demand for everyone to have a BEV, especially so if people are reluctant to use anything less than a battery with energy density that only lithium can supply.
I recall Elon Musk trying to make a similar poi
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.. in one word .. (Score:3)
"Nothing"
Has any loud anounced technological breaktrough come to pass?
-> No
This won't happen here also.
Because we have: "Claims claims claims and claims"
When you have the breakthrough you just demonstrate it, you don't just announce it and tell as cons "Requires Extensive Testing, Longevity Of Internal Components Not Yet Known, Materials May ost the Manufacturer"
btw. this is cute //Materials "may" cost the manufacturer// .. a fortune.
viable alternative to EVs? (Score:2)
To be a viable alternative to EVs, it should be compared to EVs and not to ICE. First, it cannot compare to EV unless it uses a carbon-free fuel source and it doesn't consume oil. For those old enough to recall, the dealbreaker for rotary engines was oil seals and oil consumption.
Even if it can truly compare to EV on zero-emissions, hydrogen fuels cells also boast 60% efficiency and would use, presumably, the same fuel source. They also benefit from the tremendous power band that electric motors provide.
Re: viable alternative to EVs? (Score:2)
Electric vehicles donâ(TM)t solve much as they need electricity stored in a huge battery which also requires a lot of additional energy to be mined. This thing would be highly efficient and just need hydrogen. I donâ(TM)t see a problem with EVs but when I plug mine I know the electricity is coming from a nuclear generator.
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This is a totally wrong use case for this engine. It should be fsr more interesting for general aviation than for vehicles
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To be a viable alternative to EVs, it should be compared to EVs and not to ICE. First, it cannot compare to EV unless it uses a carbon-free fuel source and it doesn't consume oil.
In most markets grid EVs are charged from burns hydrocarbons in order to generate power required to charge EV batteries. To be comparable on the basis of carbon it need only produce less carbon than the carbon emitted by charging an EV from the grid.
60% efficiency is on par with state of the art gas turbines BEFORE added EV specific overhead of the chain of grid transmission losses, AC to DC losses, DC to battery loses, battery to AC losses and AC to motor losses.
Even if it can truly compare to EV on zero-emissions, hydrogen fuels cells also boast 60% efficiency and would use, presumably, the same fuel source.
Hydrogen is not a fuel.
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Even in slow markets, like the USA where the grid is still powered mostly by dirty sources, operating an BEV is still cleaner. Then look at more advanced countries, such as here in New Zealand, where our grid is already 83% clean and on path to be 100%. Given time even places like the USA will catch up.
Investment (Score:2)
A perennial problem in investors:
An engine with double the efficiency, cleaner emissions, light and compact? Meh.
You say you can deliver randomly chosen vegetables in only a few hours for only twice the store price? SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY!
What they have is a (Score:3)
Near-zero friction? Almost impossible. At those speeds air friction alone is an issue that’s you can’t get away from. 80% efficiency? Beyond skeptical. A best-in-class combined cycle power plant maxes out around 65% efficiency, and burns nearly as hot. At those temperartures you’re limited by the materials, not the combustion itself. Unless they invented some brand new record-shattering material (hint - no they haven’t) they’re limited to around 1500C.
I wish them luck and success. I really do. But a LOT of smart people have been working to improve ICEs for a full century. “Highly skeptical” would be an understatement.
Here is their team:
https://astronaerospace.com/te... [astronaerospace.com]
Looks like they’ve got a few people that might actually have some real industry chops (assuming the website is truthful), but they’ve got more business and marketing types. For a product that hasn’t even jumped out of Solidworks? Sorry if I come across as elitist, but doing something brand-new to a turbine design is phd-level shizzle. Where’s the supersonic CFD? Where’s the prototype?
They’ll get investors, I’m sure. In all likelihood, they’ll all pull some nice salaries for a few years and quietly fold up shop. I hope I’m wrong.
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I can tell you didn't read or see anything - literally a working prototype next to a live human is in a video in the article.
Go back to school until you learn how to read.
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I can tell you didn't read or see anything - literally a working prototype next to a live human is in a video in the article.
Go back to school until you learn how to read.
Now tell us about the 80 percent thermal efficiency claimed.
They are close if not violated the second law of thermodynamics, and that engine they built is not running at 80 percent TE. To even get close, the fuel input needs to be as hot as possible, and the output needs to be as cold as possible.
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Typo, should be 60% efficiency, which might be doable.
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Typo, should be 60% efficiency, which might be doable.
Quite the typo! 8^) 60 percent just might be possible, but it'll be a breakthrough of huge proportions. But yeah, I see they have both numbers in the story.
I do have to say though, that video is a slog to get through. Placing irrelevant info like jet turbines and a few other things kinda makes sussing out the technology a bit hard. In there defense though, they are looking for "change the world" votes. But I did get a bit of concept of the thing. It's closer to a wankel than a turbine.
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Yes, it seems closer to a Wankel, which when first developed was considered a game changer. Neighbour had one, huge blue cloud when he fired it up in the morning. Always pesky problems like seals that last.
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Solidworks model and a bunch of claims that are damn close to “we broke ALL the physics”.
Honestly, the claims read a lot like Tesla's Turbine. [wikipedia.org]
Which would have worked great if we had materials that we could spin at like a million RPM under load with significant disk radius.
Oddly enough, we still use the design today, but like how many electric motors can also be electric generators, if you manually spin a Tesla Turbine, it becomes a pump rather than a generator. So in some uses it is very useful as a pump. In this case, it's a good pump because it handles "liquid with solid shit* in it" very w
Alternative to EVs (Score:2)
Not dependent on a cable for a 1 hour charge that some meth addict has just cut off for the copper.
I'd say "job done".
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Meth addict, or MAGA denialist?
Re:Alternative to EVs (Score:5, Funny)
You say that like those are different things.
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I have used a BEV as primary transport for 4 years now and do monthly 6 hour trips in it. I typically have a single 15 to 20 minute stop, never 1 hour. For daily loc
And even MORE incredible: (Score:3)
It poops out solid gold raisins, which means operating costs are in negative numbers!
Hydrogen is NOT a zero emission fuel (Score:2)
If you are using air as the oxidizer (~80% Nitrogen), you get emissions- NOX- the levels depending on the combustion temperature. They are touting higher compression, so higher temperatures.
Re: Hydrogen is NOT a zero emission fuel (Score:2)
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There is additional information available that explains the belief that NOX emissions will be low and that oil consumption will not be a problem. What is clear is that this engine has a narrow power band which makes it unsuitable as a replacement for ICE or BEV. As a power source in a serial hybrid, maybe...
I'm skeptical (Score:2)
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American efforts to drum up a new cold war are maybe working too well. Astron Aerospace is a Kansas company made up of pretty much all American white guys except for the intern (asian-American) and an Indian dude who seems to be a professional VP-Asia for different companies.
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Crossing a gas turbine with an ICE? (Score:2)
Regardless of the theoretical merits if this engine, we've been doing it since at least the 40s anyway.
It's called a turbocharger.
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If by "it" you mean turbocharging, then yeah. But this is turbocharging only when you ignore the "theoretical merits", if fact ignore everything.
Slashvertisement for vaporware. (Score:3)
Parent article poorly done.
So how's it compare to "Liquid Piston"? (Score:3)
There seem to be a LOT of moving parts still, even if fewer and simpler than a reciprocating engine.
I'd like to see an expert doing a comparison between this design and the Liquid Piston engine [liquidpiston.com] (no pistons made of liquid involved...). The latter:
- Two moving parts.
- Is extremly simple, low part count, and lighweight elsewhere.
- Uses a highly efficient (nearly ideal) thermodynamic cycle (related to the atkinson but with higher compression like diesel and otto).
- Scales easily between 1 and 1,000 HP.
Liquid Piston is only claiming 2 HP per pound vs, Astron's claim of 4 2/3, But the Omega 1 is lopsided, they're talking a minimum of 30ish pounds in a productin model, and looks like it needs a cooling system. A 4-pound, 8-horse air-cooled Liquid Piston engine would be a small finned pancake with a shaft in the center that you can mount on the end of an alternator, giving you a fuel-driven 5ish kW generator-set just a tad larger than the generator part itself.
The last sentence... (Score:2)
The engine needs to be worked hard to flesh out any potential weak points...
That's fair enough - it's called "testing" and I expect they'll need to do quite a lot of it.
...and new materials need to be used to cope with the internal stresses and wear.
And there it is - "New Technology Will Change The World Once Source Of Unobtanium Found."
Not quite the same thing, but (Score:2)
Chrysler made and road-tested a jet car [wikipedia.org] decades ago. It's a shame they had to destroy most due odd contract arrangements. Some employees who watched them being crushed are said to have cried.
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Their fuel economy was crap even by 1960's standards
Does it blow a lot of smoke? (Score:2)
Waitaminute... (Score:2)
Too good to be true (Score:3)
Almost all thermal plants around the world have less than 50% efficiency. Even the fully sealed nuclear power plant rarely exceed 40%. So 60% thermal efficiency in car seems almost impossible. If such a thing can work, its first app would be powering trains, ships, power plants and so on. Not cars and airplanes. If they are talking about cars and planes, then I smell something fishy. Cars are rapidly moving to EV tech, which offers many others benefit apart from lower fuel consumption (silent, vibration free, fewer moving parts, reliability, higher life, no idle running, and so on).
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Even the fully sealed nuclear power plant rarely exceed 40%.
There's a reason for this. Most nuclear power plants are either PWR or BWR, and that requires keeping the water liquid. Even at incredible pressures, there's a limit to how hot you can get and keep it liquid.
Thus, you run right into carnot cycle limitations.
That's why experimental reactors that use alternative cooling systems can be more efficient. Whether that be using helium gas, liquid salt, liquid metal, whatever.
"Porsche is working on synthetic fuels" (Score:2)
There's mention of hydrogen as a fuel in the fine article but that's just not likely. If we have a cheap and "green" source of hydrogen then I expect that to be used to synthesize carbon neutral hydrocarbon fuels. Hydrogen is a very difficult fuel to deal with, so much so that even with the deep pockets of people in the rocket industry there's diminishing interest in using hydrogen as a fuel. The US Navy has been working on this for some time, though the carbon neutral part is mostly coincidental to the
Sparks. (Score:2)
Then a fire followed by an explosion. These questions are getting pretty easy. I don't want "might", "could", or "if". I want "does".
Still want to know why Ballard gave up on theirs (Score:2)
I still want to know why Ballard gave up on their automotive turbine engines.
25,000RPM? (Score:2)
Why not both? (Score:2)
Why not have a serial hybrid, like the BMW EVs and use this engine for the range extender? The small size and light weight would be perfect for this use because a range extender... i.e. a generator can run in a narrow power band. With the high RPM from the generator, the generator can be a two pole model and still put out a decent DC current which can be bucked/boosted to what the battery bank needs.
Something like this would make EVs a no-brainer. People worried about range anxiety or who live in an area
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I hope it will come with a manual transmission (Score:2)
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2007 called, they want their idea back (Score:2)
In January 2007, GM unveiled the Chevy Volt concept car, the one you may recall looking like a Camaro. Because the range-extending gas generator allowed the gas engine to be decoupled from the wheels, GM said that the range extender could be any kind of engine, *including turbine*. The enthusiastic response to that concept car led to GM greenlighting the car for production, and then they got serious about the design. Rather quickly they determined that a turbine engine actually SUCKS (ha) for this applic
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removal of NoX from exhaust has existing tech and some new things in the works. Sounds like engineering problem
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073... [mdpi.com]
Get your figures straight, folks (Score:2)
From TFS: "The Omega 1 boasts an alleged 60 percent efficiency... piston engines rarely ever top 40 percent efficiency."
Also from TFS: "[I]t is not only more efficient than the equivalent piston engine — 80% compared to a mere 34%..."
So which is it, 60% vs 40%, or 80% vs 34%, or some other set of numbers?
Gas turbine? (Score:2)
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It's got a very distinctive whine.
One of these engines spinning up to 25000 RPM will beat it!
Re: (Score:2)