Quote:
Originally Posted by UFO
It matters not what is assumed. The physics don't care.
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This allows me to work within its bounds.
This is why I am willing to do a buildup and presentation. That way you can peruse the application of HHO as I implement it. If it doesn't work at all to a positive gain, you get to denigrate me in front of the world. If it works . . . well . . . I knew coming into this I had to run the gauntlet of criticism. So I did my homework beforehand. Only a fool walks into his enemies den unprepared. And, foolish the man who baits an opponent without measure.
The NASA paper you so religiously refer to is somewhere in my notes from my underclassman lab studies back in the late 70's. Mimeographed. Very faded. I had to download a PDF so I could read it again. I know it quite well. They hold RPM and load steady at a singular point and vary fuel mix and timing. It is an excellent study, often referred to in later studies. But, it is hardly complete.
They do not add to the enthalpy of the reaction via heat addition to the intake air and fuel. They use a relatively sluggish combustion engine design - in comparison to high turbulence modern applications. Turbulence also adds enthalpy. This high enthalpy provides the energy to rapidly produce the radicals which often are endothermic. Throw in high compression ( the engine the study used had a relatively good 10:1 compression ratio if I recall ) and increased time to react ( lowered RPM ) and you can extend the lean limit well past the lambda they achieved.
Does this sound familiar? It should. Several people over the decades have created high enthalpy engines using recirculated engine heat and turbocharging. Modern engines such as the Honda lean burn touch on some of this.
But, at a certain point, the lean limit is reached. For the Honda engines and it's ilk, it is somewhere approaching 24:1 AFR ( air/fuel ratio ). The performance becomes sluggish as the increasingly slow burn is extended via early ignition and late combustion. It is easy to see this early ignition as "negative work" as combustion is initiated as early as 45 degrees or more before top dead center (TDC). Also, the flame front becomes increasingly erratic causing a loss of power and an increase in unburned fuel.
This is where the small amounts off HHO can be beneficial. Yes, the 140 watts expended in an electrolysis cell will not produce copious amounts of HHO, but it can provide a useful amount.
If you look at a chart of Heats of Formation for the fuel/oxidizer family we are working with (hydrocarbon and air ) you will see them commonly ordered top to bottom, high to low. At the very top is the carbon atom with it's massive +717 KJ/mol reflecting it's tremendous bond energy. Much lower down is monatomic hydrogen with it's relatively paltry 218 KJ/mol rating. Just above the diatomic H2 and O2 which have a zero value, is the OH- radical with it's miniscule 39 KJ/mol. This low rating is important because it means the HHO added easily dissociates and forms OH- ( assuming O2 from the air is also used ) if we have added sufficient enthalpy ( heat, in simplicity ) to cause this endothermic reaction. As in aqueous solutions, the OH- radical is highly reactive and disruptive. I postulate that, as it collides and interacts with the hydrocarbon fuel, subspecies are formed ( acetylene, benzene, hydrazine, etc. ) along with more free hydrogen which quickly forms more OH- radicals. All of this is done pre-flame front initiation. These reactions occur in the nano second time scale. Engine operation can be timed in the milli second scale. It is easy to see how a small number of OH- radicals can become numerous ( by orders of magnitude ) in only a few degrees of engine operation - given the right enthalpy boost. By the time combustion is initiated, the fuel mix is "primed and ready" and the burn rate can be more concentrated in the effective crank angle range to derive more positive work from the combusted fuel.
The above describes spark ignited engines - diesels have a somewhat different mechanism.
As you can see from the description above, we are not just adding HHO, we have to juggle other parameters. But, it does result in a net energy gain via reduction of lost work.