[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by bwilson4web

I'm not having much luck with that link.

Try this one: Switched Reluctance Drives

By injecting water, I'm making the exhaust pipe into a steam boiler.

So your exhaust pipe between the exhaust valves and the turbo becomes a pressure vessel. What does the increased back pressure do to the engine?

Then the turbine can extract the additonal mechanical energy from the enhanced exhaust stream.

But there is no additional energy. All it has is the heat/pressure coming from the combustion chamber. Inject water, and you just use some of that energy for the water/steam phase change, no?

In a normal turbo installation, significant turbine power occurs when the engine is operated in high-power regions. But our Prius typically operates in low power regions with more modest gas flows and heat.

But you can only get out the energy that's in the exhaust stream. In low power operation, there's not much energy to get out.

I really do think you'd do much better to start (at least) with just the turbo/generator, without the complexity of water injection. I'd be willing to bet that you'd get as much or more energy recovery that way.