Energy from throttling losses
 

We all know that a lot of energy is wasted by the throttle valve in a gasoline engine. We also know that diesel engines are more efficient because they do not have throttle valves. And we know that air flows through the throttle valve.

Somebody had the idea to make use of the lost energy by replacing the throttle valve with a turbine connected to a generator, and controlling the generator load through the gas pedal to control the air flow to the engine. See patent #5,394,848 for the details. Go to Google to see the patent.

At the bottom of the page is a list of 23 other patents that build on this patent. This patent is expired, so anybody can build, use, or sell anything in it.

The only real problem is the range of pressure drops and flow rates make it impractical to completely replace the throttle valve with a turbine. Other than that, the basic concept is valid.

Very Interesting.

The link takes me to a blank Google patent search page, but seems to work for others. :confused:

Does it use a variable pitch turbine?

Same here so I just out the pat # in google search and it came up.

The energy is not wasted primarily by the act of restricting the throttle itself, which takes very little energy to actually restrict. The loss created by the restriction is primarily due to the reduction in the pressure of the air, thus the mass of that same air, entering the engine itself.

Similarly the act of restricting the flow of water in the hydroelectric plant, while not terribly energy costly, has a much larger consequence, in power generated, versus restrictive energy requirement.

Think vacuum windshield wipers.

regards
mech

What if you had a massive EGR that could send all of the exhaust back through the combustion and the throttle was actually on the EGR. Opening the throttle would reduce power and maximum power would come when the EGR "throttle" was closed.

Then you wouldn't have combustion, since almost all the oxygen would have been used the first time through :-)

All but a tiny bit, just enough to idle. Then less and less the more power you wanted to make. Sort of opposite how a normal throttle works. But if it were not in the intake side it wouldn't be wasting energy making vacuum, or much exhaust for that matter at light loads. Basically let 90% EGR turn a 2000 cc motor into a 200cc motor until it needs it. I assume this much EGR has been tried and combustion fails at some point at least when applied to current conventional bore, stroke, valves, compression, etc.

http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthrea...tem-19845.html

Every one invents that. ;)

Isn't the Atkinson cycle supposed to alleviate some of the throttling losses?