Efficiency Improvements for Internal Combustion Engines

[Patrick]

"The lightest, most efficient & powerful hybrid engine in the modern world.
This is a ceramic rotary engine with much tighter area-contact seals, with its perfectly utilized rotor the only major moving assembly, with much greater percentage of working volume to the total engine volume partially due to double-acting wall configuration, with far greater horsepower per pound (surpassing the gas guzzling jet engine even if it has full-throttled afterburners), yet far more efficient than diesel engine due to its hybrid thermodynamic cycle (two-stage intake stroke similar to miller cycle due to supercharging effect of centrifugal action of the ported compressor rotor; realized ideal constant volume combustion process by using pre-chamber formed by the concave cavity of the expander rotor on which the accumulated pressure is stored temporarily throughout complete combustion and instantaneously released at TDC when the unique rotor position instantaneously make the immovable rotor pre-chamber wall into being movable, assuring transfer of torque from absolute zero to 100% at TDC, unlike the common engine wherein the combustion advance have negative torque before TDC; complete expansion adiabatic process due to longer expansion ceramic rotor segment with no cooling system; no valve/port overlap that would compromise the thermodynamic cycle, due to dedicated compression and expansion rotor segments; very minimal fluid turbulence in suction and exhaust strokes due to moving porting configuration located in the rotor, unlike the conventional engines which have stationary ports located in housing wall; very minimal energy-depleting formation of Nitrogen Oxides due to exhaust-gas recirculation provided by the pre-chamber wall cavity in the expander rotor mentioned above) and higher compression ratio attainable due to more surface area sealing at TDC, yet simplest by far than Wankel engine as shown by the simplicity of the components and its kinematics. This unique hybrid propulsion uses a newer hydraulic drive system configuration without the use of any propeller shaft and conventional hydraulic pump, instead utilizing the middle segment of the rotor as rotary hydraulic pump. Due to its compact design than engines in equivalent horsepower, it can achieve even higher rpm, thus achieving an even more attainable power. It has a neat utilitarian rectangular package with air filters and catalytic converters tucked-in with their respective opposing inner-rotor chambers. This unique hydraulic drive system has matching hydraulic wheel motors designed after the effective basic configuration of the rotary engine.
Thus, the car would be very efficient as the compactness of the drive-train without flywheel, transmission and propeller shaft, and instead with powerful engine and hydraulic system, translate or have a snowball effect to its overall structure with much lighter, robust and more responsive structural-frame components, and drive and suspension systems. Then, the car can accelerate fast and have smaller regenerative hydraulic braking components that are required to capture the lower kinetic energy of lighter inertial mass—this tends to lessen also any energy loss of the propulsion and brake systems. The next logical step would be, when the necessity arises to save fuel, flying the car straightforwardly with its ducted lifting fans, avoiding the more energy-consuming winding road ahead."

Halfbakery: Perfect Engine for Automotive X PRIZE

Sorry, I found this and couldn't resist posting it here.

[RobertSmalls]

From the halfbakery comments:

Thanks, [xenzag]. Well, that configuration has no half-baked features, friend, but probably half-baked illustrations, descriptions, renderings, accounts, etc. (maybe mostly attributed to me). Perhaps, that is why I employ the superlative terminologies (It is just simply superior). No offence here. Don’t worry, I like (to tease) the likes of [MisterQED]. I might pop my eyes out laughing, figuring how they mess or miss the yeasts and ruined the whole batch of dough, leaving our party here with bones and cartilages from dried fish to nibble, forcing each individual intuition to a more contemplative fasting. :-)
— rotary, Mar 31 2008


wordy fellow.

btw rotary, have you applied for a patent on this thing?
— dentworth, Mar 31 2008


You lost me at hydraulics. Way too lossy. A quantum leap has to happen in hydraulics efficiencies before they will be invited to play at X-prize games.
— elhigh, Mar 31 2008

[Patrick]

Look at the size of those connecting rods!

Bill Gates Backs EcoMotors’ New OPOC Engine With .5 Million Investment - Green Car Reports

[gone-ot]

...the "Opposed Pistion/Cylinder" was developed a l-o-n-g time ago, and proven infeasable.

...wonder what's "new" about this design?

[Patrick]

Originally Posted by Old Tele man

...the "Opposed Pistion/Cylinder" was developed a l-o-n-g time ago, and proven infeasable.

...wonder what's "new" about this design?

I don't know, other than Bill Gates supposedly dumped a bunch of money into it. It seems like an overly-complicated two-stroke engine to me. They say it "cuts the number of parts in half," but they have twice as many pistons, con rods, pins, and crank lobes as a conventional two-stroke.

But Bill has money to burn (some of it mine).

[RobertSmalls]

Originally Posted by Old Tele man

...the "Opposed Pistion/Cylinder" was developed a l-o-n-g time ago, and proven infeasable.

...wonder what's "new" about this design?

Three main bearings.

[NeilBlanchard]

Here are some other rotary engines:

Green Car Congress: UK LowCVP Launches ?Technology Challenge? to Accelerate Low Carbon Vehicle Innovation; Libralato Engines First Registrant

Green Car Congress: Concept Engines

[Patrick]

Originally Posted by NeilBlanchard

Here are some other rotary engines:

Green Car Congress: UK LowCVP Launches ?Technology Challenge? to Accelerate Low Carbon Vehicle Innovation; Libralato Engines First Registrant

Green Car Congress: Concept Engines

Wow that Garric engine looks absolutely magical. The compressed gas suddenly moves from one side of the piston to the other before it's ignited. And what are they using to control the gates? The forces on those must be incredible since the gasses are compressed against them. And how are they sealing it? It's a cool animation, though. GARRIC Engines - The future of internal combustion engine design

[NeilBlanchard]

Here's a PDF on the Garric engine:

http://garric-engines.com/Inside_the_GARRIC_Engine.pdf

I think I understand the basics, but I'm unclear on some of the details. I have the same sorts of questions and Patrick.

[NeilBlanchard]

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?