New Report of 20% milage increase by reducing viscosity of fuel - Page 2 - Fuel Economy, Hypermiling, EcoModding News and Forum

htaylor · 01-22-2009, 12:27 PM

It must have some effect, or the paper would not have gotten into the Energy and Fuel publication. If you take time to read one of their publications you will see that it is a serious publication and not and advertisement in Popular Mechanics. try reading a issue.

MetroMPG · 01-22-2009, 12:45 PM

This topic has already come up in two separate threads.

http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthrea...tion-5656.html

and

http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthrea...-c-p-6392.html

It may very well be a reputable journal, but 50% of its articles are below average quality

. This is definitely one of them.

The quality of the research is pretty poor, and the author is associated with a company (which funds the author) that is involved with some truly dubious products & marketing. See http://www.stwa.com/

ConnClark · 01-22-2009, 01:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by htaylor

It must have some effect, or the paper would not have gotten into the Energy and Fuel publication. If you take time to read one of their publications you will see that it is a serious publication and not and advertisement in Popular Mechanics. try reading a issue.

I agree Energy and Fuels is a highly regarded scientific journal however, if you read the following link (which was also published in the same journal) you will see that it should not have made it into the publication.

http://arrow.utias.utoronto.ca/~ogul...09comb_eff.pdf

It did not meet the standards for being published there. This scientist raised questions about the efficacy of the test procedure and its lack of detail so that other scientists could confirm the results. This is a basic requirement of all serious scientific trade publications. Someone dropped the ball in the editors office.

This scientist also raised serious doubts about the claims being made in regard to the laws of thermodynamics.

If R. Tao, K. Huang, H. Tang, and D. Bell wish to address and clarify the questions raised they have the opportunity to do so. If they do they can have their rebuttal published in this journal provided it meets standards. This is how peer reviewed scientific journals work.

MetroMPG · 01-22-2009, 01:15 PM

Thanks for posting that link, ConnClark. It'll be interesting to see if the original authors respond.

aerohead · 01-24-2009, 04:43 PM

On the surface it all sounds great.There is no mention of laboratory conditions nor road test environmental conditions,like temperature.Since viscosity is directly related to temperature,fuel temperature criteria would be beneficial to better appraising the research results.----------Had road -testing been accomplished during winter-into-spring-and summer,ambient temperatures, the impact to results would be remarkable.Perhaps all the data has been normalized for that.Don't know.-------- I believe that fuel is paramagnetic,so a magnetic field should not effect it,however,the presence of a high voltage potential( ie the high-voltage mesh grid) could certainly affect the fuel if even for for the short duration necessary before it makes it to the injectors.-------- Sounds plausible.

Ryland · 01-24-2009, 04:52 PM

yes, it's true that fuel only burns as a vapor and that 98% or more of the fuel is vaporized and burnt in the engine, but just like with propane injection on a diesel working by making the fuel ignite faster and burn faster, increasing the downward pressure on the piston increases torque and the power to fuel used ratio improves because there is more flame and pressure at the top of the stroke, it would be good to know how warm/thin the fuel is as it passes through the injectors, but that is hard information to gather.

ConnClark · 01-25-2009, 01:59 PM

There are far more accurate and direct ways to test the viscosity of a fluid than measuring its flow through an injector or putting it in a vehicle and measuring fuel efficiency. If gas or diesel is an Electrorheological fluid why not test it using a direct and accurate method?

Probably because the data won't show an improvement and its easier to manipulate the results if there are far more variables that can't all be accounted for.