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Old 11-30-2010, 08:57 PM   #51 (permalink)
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Patents protect innovation by placing a serious financial consequence for the huge, lawyer rich, corporations who steal novel designs from real innovators.

Toyota is paying $99 per Prius for Patent infringement.

They can afford it.

I can only assume people who think Patent holders should be the victims of property theft would think differently if I moved into their house and kicked them out.

You should try getting a patent sometime, assuming you have the imagination to create something that has never been made before.

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Mech

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Old 11-30-2010, 09:34 PM   #52 (permalink)
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Variable length runners are used on many different modern cars. Yes there is a way to incorporate VLR on many cars. It may require costly re-engineering and fabrication, but certainly possible. An engineer friend of mine did an excellent job on a V-8 application.

In corporation with variable timing techniques, VLR's provide great linear power throughout the rpm range. A friend recently bought a VW 24 valve VR6. Feels almost turbo like. Which brings me to, keeping it back to efficiency improvements for the ICE, I'm copying what I wrote in an earlier thread as to why supercharging was providing better fuel economy in certain available automobile's in comparison to it's non-turbo'd counterpart.

Most all the auto manufactures in their R&D are and have utilized only turbo charging in their Ultra lean burn induction systems and engines. In terms of operating efficiencies (thermal conversion efficiencies; providing an overall higher adiabatic efficiency rate in the ice, negating the typical ice engines mechanical in-efficiencies) in ultra lean burn systems, belt driven supercharges will never be used and are not. Yes, in conventional systems, for power they work well especially picking up for compressor lag in non-lean burn turbo charged systems. However better designed and heat scavenging compressor turbine combinations have virtually no lag. (negligible anyway).

Utilized in ULB concepts with low fuel to high air ratios, compressing both the fuel and air molecules prior to the combustion chamber also allows for better homogenizing of these hydrocarbon based fuels.
In regards to conventional systems or ULB, under higher compression in the SICE, the stratified charge has a faster flame front travel/combustion speed under this environment providing a higher chemical conversion (now combusted expanding heat energy) to mechanical power transfer (which most of this heat energy is lost to materials/liquids absorption, transference and radiation to atmospheric) thus, without getting into much more complicated details, (gains through variable cam and ignition timing, etc) why higher compression engines or compressed cylinders provide, typically, higher chemical energy conversion efficiencies. Then there are the independent fuel characteristics themself.

Also other efficiency considerations/variables (most everyone here is familier with) are the vehicles CD characteristics, HP/torque to weight ratios, engines overall build efficiencies (parasitic losses, combustion chamber efficiencies), transmission of power to the wheels, etc. Also atmospheric/altitude, driving conditions and many others that will have an effect on the end MPG gain or loss. Quick example; Thus a mechanically geared/standard transmission of power vehicle (lower parasitic losses) will provide a better MPG over an hydraulically controlled/coupled automatics TofP.

Last edited by naturalextraction; 11-30-2010 at 09:47 PM..
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Old 11-30-2010, 10:33 PM   #53 (permalink)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by dcb View Post
Also, the efficiency gains assume a completely unskilled/uneducated driver. Nobody with half a clue is going to operate their engine like the graph on the left. Of course this is a problem with all hybrids, that assume technology should save us from ourselves rather than education.
The explanation was very clear, the majority of the increase in highway mileage was due to limiting engine operation to maximum efficiency with periods of engine off and restarts using the same hydraulic system.

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Old 12-01-2010, 09:38 AM   #54 (permalink)
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Mech,

There is no correlation between applying for patents and self-presumed brilliance. I've seen patents for using 3 drops of glue to put a label on a bottle, it is all about control and money, not about sharing ideas, which is presumably what this forum IS about. You make your own choices, you chose to go down the patent road, you can quit whining about your choices anytime.
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Old 12-01-2010, 09:59 AM   #55 (permalink)
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Here we go again with you trying to put words in my mouth.

Provide a quote that demonstrates "whining" on my part. You can't
Or any aspersion to self proclaimed brilliance. You can't

Maybe you should confine your mouth to statements that have a minimal basis in fact.

3980 posts and 117 thanks dcb
831 posts and 76 thanks mech

Have you posted a single piece of relevant information on this thread.

The OP was interested in engine developments, something I have watched and continue to watch, I posted my observations. You accused me of promoting falsehoods (forum rules violation).

I provided evidence to support my statements, corroborated by others. You attack the fuel source. When your postion fails due to lack of supporting evidence you switch to personal attacks and character assasination (forum rules violation).

Powertrain developments and engine developments are both parts of the same system and are interrelated. Certain engine designs are specifically configured for certain powertrain designs.

Instead of this thread being informative to others it degrades into you poor attemps to make me and my pursuit seem irrelevant to others. Truly a sad situation on your part.

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Old 12-01-2010, 10:13 AM   #56 (permalink)
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why do you keep bringing up patent stuff in engineering discussions? It is besides the point. Some of us share our ideas freely and don't give a rats arse.
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Old 12-01-2010, 07:56 PM   #57 (permalink)
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dcb,
I dont know why you cant accept others choices as their own. Your arguments remind me of a guy that I know. He often makes a claim that I just care tooooo much about money, while on the other hand, he doesnt. He doesnt have ANYTHING to show for his position in life, and he is constantly out of work and looking for favors and to borrow money. But, of course, money doesnt matter that much to him. I on the other hand have made good decisions financially and employment wise, should I be persecuted for this because he is "doesnt care about money"?

Before you accuse me of cute fables that dont belong in engineering.... Maybe you should start providing positive contributions to the discussion.
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Old 12-01-2010, 08:22 PM   #58 (permalink)
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I would love to but every dang efficient engine discussion gets Mechs whirlygig brought into it.

I would like to know, based on one of the main positive aspects of the wheeliebob design, what the losses are for reciprocating pistons, say at 2000 rpm for a 1.5 liter 4cyl car. Any guesses?
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Old 12-01-2010, 09:13 PM   #59 (permalink)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by NeilBlanchard View Post
I have a couple of questions about piston ICE's:

How much pressure could be developed in the combustion chamber *just* from fuel burning? If there was no compression of the intake air (with only a turbocharger in place) would the resulting pressure from the burning fuel be enough to get decent torque? Particularly, if you did not have to "do the work" of compressing the air with the piston -- which uses the momentum of the flywheel, then would the net pressure gain be the same?

Do diesels get all their additional efficiency from the higher compression? Or, are other factors contributing?
Basically the pressure on the piston during the power stroke is the combination of compression and the expanding volume of the heated fuel air mixture. Lets say you have a piston surface area of 10 square inches. Compression ratio is 10 to 1.

Compression pressure will be 147 pounds on the top of the piston. Combustion expands the mixture by about 7 fold. Remember the heat measurement of the air is in Kelvin from the point of the atmosphere being a solid at very low temps to the point of peak pressure at about 3200 degrees.
So your 147 pounds of compression pressure is multiplied by 7 to create 1029 pounds of pressure on the piston surface.

Under the most perfect conditions (not realistic) you must spend the energy to create compression in order to gain the pressure from expansion. Higher compression creates a greater difference in pressures. Higher energy content in the fuel creates greater expansion. Both increase the pressure differential and therefore more useful work is performed.

If you remove (theoretically) all mass and friction from the engine (as a hypothetical situation) then your ideal efficiency would be the difference in the work to compress and the work from expansion. It gets a whole lot more complicated if you consider all factors involved but this is an easier scenario to understand using theoretical absolutes (again not realistic).

Not exactly sure how you are going to make power without compression Neil, but without compression the pressure created from expansion alone would have to be a heck of a lot greater to produce the same amount of work.

Pumping losses, friction, poor mechanical leverage, reciprocating masses, and other factors reduce the efficiency further from the ideal (again not realistic) difference between the energy necessary to compress the mixture and the energy released from combustion.

To delay the peak pressure to a point where the leverage is better (as you referred to previously) the present evolution seems to be towards multiple injections, using direct injection, with a small injection to begin combustion and several more injections to spread out the pressure peak and push the piston with a longer pressure duration. Precision control of multiple injections and high pressure direct injection, allow significantly higher compression ratios without the possibility of detonation even on regular gasoline.

Direct injection at pressures many times higher than peak combustion chamber pressures from fuel ignition make this possible. Mazda has just come out with a gasoline engine that has 14 to 1 compression, using the above mentioned multiple injections per combustion event.

As far as supercharging and running leaner mixtures than normal. I will require something like the Transonic type of injectors at this point in time, but rest assured there are many R&D efforts in process with the goal of true HCCI where the mixture is as close to perfectly distributed during combustion. If this can be accomplished outside of a laboratory then the byproducts of combustion will be reduced to the point where after treatment may not be necessary.

As far as supercharging i like the idea of electric supercharging (just my opinion) because it can be configured to be available when necessary without any continuous operation of either a supercharger or turbocharger. This will allow downsizing of the engine to increase BSFC during normal low load operation.

Idle elimination and any operation outside of best BSFC, as demonstrated in the INNAS design can be accomplished by capacitive storage and release of energy, but it requires an IVT of some configuration to apply power from a reserve that is never in the same state of energy storage. In other words to apply energy at a steady power level from a diminishing storage state, you have to be able to constantly adjust the rate of release.

Such a system could also be used in an electric vehicle to be a "load leveler" for stabilizing battery discharge rates avoiding high discharge rates and allowing recharging to occur at lower sustained rates over longer periods of time.

The manufacturers will always try (as long as they can get away with it) to avoid any more than incremental steps in improvement in their designs, because they don't want to make last years models obsolete as well as prior years to a certain extent, until about 7 years into the life cycle of the cars in service.

Although I advocate elimination of reciprocation altogether (already discussed) there are methods to minimize the penalty of energy losses due to reciprocation by incorporating better design and materials in pistons, and connecting rods. Titanium is one example, but probably not yet cost effective. Investment casting of intricately designed geometric configurations to reduce the weight of reciprocating components could make a difference.

Variable compression is another way to improve efficiency, but it will only be effective if you have less that peak BSFC loads applied on the engine which should be avoided in the first place.

Throttle control should also be eliminated, and in some designs coming to market now this has been done. Honda has gone in a different direction with their ISDI engine reverting back to a 2 valve configuration with dual spark plugs. They claim they can reach efficiency levels of the old lean burn Civic engine without the NOX issues, but that is older tech compared to the newer direct injection combustion strategies.

I think there is a future in 2 cycle engines, but the stigma of the old designs is a hard prejudice to overcome. The cost of compression could be reduced by injecting the fuel and air into the engine in a homogenized state with no valves and exhaust ports at BDC to allow combustion by products to escape with a significant amount of residual byproducts for the purpose of EGR.

Some of these suggestions are ways to make what exists better, while others will require a complete reconfiguration of the commonly known IC engine. When the new configurations have been worked out and perfected, I think you will find there is a lot of life left in the IC engine, at least until the cost of liquid fuels become exorbitant. Much will depend on the future of many different technological pathways, a better battery, better electrolysis, better synthetic fuels, better fuel cells, whichever becomes practical reliable and cost effective will shift the pathway of future development.

Personally I thin you will see vans of the size of the Dodge Sprinter (Mercedes) achieving 40-50 MPG averages within the next 10-15 years.

These are all my observations and opinions. If you have a better one I would like to read it as a post with some links to back up the post.

regards
Mech
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Old 12-01-2010, 09:18 PM   #60 (permalink)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by dcb View Post
I would love to but every dang efficient engine discussion gets Mechs whirlygig brought into it.

I would like to know, based on one of the main positive aspects of the wheeliebob design, what the losses are for reciprocating pistons, say at 2000 rpm for a 1.5 liter 4cyl car. Any guesses?
Do a coast down test of a vehicle.

In high gear with standard engine. Highest loss
In neutral. No loss related to engine
Pull the plugs to eliminate the compression.
Pull the head to eliminate valve train losses.

You would have to push the car to speed in tha last two tests.

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