Article: Ultra-Efficient Gas Engine Passes Test

[cfg83]

Hello -

While reading DIM's thread I stumbled on this :

Technology Review: Ultra-Efficient Gas Engine Passes Test

Transonic Combustion, a startup based in Camarillo, CA, has developed a fuel-injection system it says can improve the efficiency of gasoline engines by more than 50 percent. A test vehicle equipped with the technology gets 64 miles per gallon in highway driving, which is far better than more costly gas-electric hybrids, such as the Prius, which gets 48 miles per gallon on the highway.
The key is heating and pressurizing gasoline before injecting it into the combustion chamber, says Mike Rocke, Transonic's vice president of business development. This puts it into a supercritical state that allows for very fast and clean combustion, which in turn decreases the amount of fuel needed to propel a vehicle. The company also treats the gasoline with a catalyst that "activates" it, partially oxidizing it to enhance combustion.

Fuel heater + more pressure?

Here's the company :

Transonic Combustion | Ultra-high Efficiency Fuel Injection Systems

CarloSW2

[robertwb70]

I wonder how hot and how much pressure it takes to make a difference? and how much heat can conventional injectors handle without damage?

Seems like it would be easy to heat the fuel with the exhaust, electric fuel pumps are available for 100+ PSI but re-tuning the ECU would be the real work involved but even that can be done.

[mwebb]

since the mass of the fuel is about 1/15th the mass of the air
in the air fuel mixture prior to combustion

it would seem that air temperature would be far more critical and have a much Larger impact than
fuel temperature

and there has been no small amount of testing and experimentation regarding WAI
which does NOT yield similar test results claimed by this company ....

[mcrews]

Gotta say, I just checked out the Board of Directors.....Robert Lutz just got on and Ray Rothrock (who has a VERY impressive Venture Capital background) is also on.

This is no Telsar Motors.

[Frank Lee]

Oh please

50+%?!?

How complete is the combustion event now? 99%?

[NeilBlanchard]

Yeah, I suspect that increasing by 50% means that they decreased what is not completely burned by 50% -- so it went from 99% to 99.5%?

[Ryland]

A big problem with leaning out the fuel air mix is getting a complete burn, that is why Honda's CVCC engine of the early '80's got better mileage is the rich mix that was needed for ignition was next to the spark plug, the rest of the combustion chamber was a very lean mix that would otherwise not ignite from a spark and the over all mix was leaner then normal.
I think it's the same idea as direct injection, have the fuel ignite without fully depending on a spark.

[TheEnemy]

They are talking about engine efficiency, not burn efficiency.

A few things to note:
1. its direct injection.
2. uses compression ignition
3. No throttle plate (lean burn)
4. They are still not sure of long term durability
5. Gassoline at temperatures and pressures to be in a super critical state is a little scary.

[Frank Lee]

Oh- HCCI or some variant thereof?

Homogeneous charge compression ignition - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[JasonG]

Sooooo........
They took a diesel,
Lowered the compression,
And fed it gasoline........
Hasn't this been tried many times before???
Maybe with new 3D fuel map computers it will work this time.