New Fuel Economy Information site

[mpgmike]

May I suggest you review what has already been posted and ask specific questions. My whole intent is to show ways to improve fuel economy by increasing engine efficiency -- stuff that isn't readily obvious. If you ask specific questions, I can zero in on specific answers (based on my personal experience & research, of course).

[RealityRacer]

Let's start with the first question.
Engines are 20% efficient. Why aren't OEMs able to improve this and what makes you think we can?

[freebeard]

ecomodder.com/forum/showthread.php/x-prize-sonata-40234.html#post668275

No need to spread the questions over multiple threads.

First question: OEMs have improved efficiency, they are constrained by Return On Investment. Individuals are not.

[RealityRacer]

Thanks for that. So with room for 80% improvement which would bring us to an impossible 100% efficiency, what are we not focused on engine efficiency? Even if we improve combustion to 40% efficiency, we can double MPG. Why aren't we doing this?

[redpoint5]

Originally Posted by RealityRacer

Thanks for that. So with room for 80% improvement which would bring us to an impossible 100% efficiency, what are we not focused on engine efficiency? Even if we improve combustion to 40% efficiency, we can double MPG. Why aren't we doing this?

Read the comment above, it answers your question.

Engine efficiency has continually been improved for over a century. The low hanging fruit (the easy stuff) has already been done, meaning every subsequent improvement is much more difficult. As an aside, combustion efficiency is somewhere around 40% now.

Diminishing returns applies to absolutely everything in the universe. Training to reduce a mile run from 20 minutes down to 10 minutes is relatively easy. Cutting it in half again to 5 minutes is extremely difficult and saves even less overall time in the process. It's 10x harder and yields half as much improvement.

"There are no solutions, only trade-offs" -Sowell

[freebeard]

I scanned the first page of duckduckgo.com/?q=thermal+eficiency+piston+engine+vs+turbine&ia=w eb.

It appears diesel ship engines approach 50%, but piston engines scale down more favorably [compared to a turbine]. So ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I'm more interested in duckduckgo.com/?q=solar+cell+100%25+efficient&ia=web

https://intivation.nl › solar-cell-with-100-efficiency
Solar cell with 100% efficiency - Intivation, developing ...
Solar cell with 100% efficiency Engadget reports today that scientists have discovered a way to produce solar cells that can capture 100% of the energy contained in the sunlight that reached them: Researchers over at the National Renewable Energy Lab have reportedly made the first solar cell with an external quantum efficiency over 100 percent.

Nanoscale quantum dot metamaterials make it happen.

edit:
In my youth I ran a mile in 5:15 in combat boots. And that with a deviated septum.

[mpgmike]

Curiously, I am VERY interested in EVs, electric conversions, solar, power supplies, battery/super cap efficiencies, and so forth. In fact I do much professional research and development into these fields. However, I spent ~40 years learning about ICEs, and it's obvious they're going to be around for another couple of decades, so why waste the knowledge & experience?

I got to board a coal ship in China and see the engine. It was a 6 cylinder, and about 2 stories tall! I was told it redlined at around 450 RPM. That gives a lot more time to harness the thermal-to-pressure-to-kinecic energy conversions than we see in automobiles. Oh, and the primary fuel is bunker oil (called #6 oil in the US). Even in summer temperatures it is still a solid it's that heavy.

BTW, my best mile was 4:38 the summer between 10th and 11th grade. Now (at 55 years of age) I'd be lucky to pull off that 20 minute mile you mentioned.

[freebeard]

The good news here is that I can do a mile.... eventually.

By the 1980s I was convinced that the key to energy efficiency is to push the technology down to the nano-scale.

There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom
"There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom: An Invitation to Enter a New Field of Physics" was a lecture given by physicist Richard Feynman at the annual American Physical Society meeting at Caltech on December 29, 1959.Wikipedia

Put the heating and cooling in the window glass and stop paying bills.

https://phys.org/nanotech-news/ is where to keep one ear to the ground.

[redpoint5]

I'm still waiting for nanotech and micromachines to change everything.

Michael Crichton's last book was called "Micro". It started fantastic, but I feel that I can locate where in the book he died (did not complete the rest).

[mpgmike]

I suppose now might be a good time to introduce my take on Ignition systems. I played with MSD and numerous brands of spark plugs. I found a neat trick on the internet (years ago) where you cup the center electrode and drill a small hole in the outer electrode. I call them "Magic Spark Plugs". The drilling turns the spark plug into a blow torch that directs a flame out into the combustion chamber not all that differently than the CVCC pre-chamber. Of course there are way more lessons learned, especially with PDI!