Now the question I have is its application outside of a typical hybrid vehicle. Could you say put this in a 4x4 truck and get your towing power etc but also improve your fuel efficiency by 3X? I mean a truck/SUV getting 50-60 mpg would be awesome.

Check out 2 guys named Charles Pogue and Tom Ogle re; increasing miles per gallon.

It would if it was a hybrid. The problem with this engine is similar to the early 60's motorcycle two strokes, the power band was at a very narrow band of rpm; hence no low end torque. However electric motors have full torque at zero rpm so it would be great in an suv hybrid.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wankel_engine

http://auto.howstuffworks.com/rotary-engine.htm

The Wankel engine has been around for decades and works on the normal combustion cycle of gasoline engines,i.e., intake compression, combustion, and exhaust. It works at the same fuel ratios, combustion pressures and temperatures as as a four stroke piston engine except in a unique rotary fashion. It got somewhat less gas mileage than your typical piston engine unless driven hard at which time it got really bad mileage.

The new engine is nothing like a Wankel other than rotating on a shaft.

The new engine works on the pressure wave from exploding (detonation) of fuel as opposed to burning fuel. The fuel produces an extremely brief blast of expanding gas which acts on a rotor vane with an 's' shape to absorb impulse. The impulses follow each other quickly so much torque is applied to the rotor.(see diagram)

The heat and pressure of a blast wave is several times that of "burning" fuel but of much shorter duration. The new engine takes advantage of the short duration by only needing a short duration for the pressure wave to act on the rotor. The efficiency is therefore a function of the difference between active and passive (combustion and exhaust) temperatures with an EXTREMELY small amount of heat energy being absorbed into the system.

The highest difference in temps (so far) has been with a rocket engine which can reach 70% efficiency.

Actually to answer my own question I watched the video and he said it could up full efficiency of SUV/truck type vehicles by up to 5 times. Sweet

Exactly, and a sister technology you see everyday is at work on the nation's railroads. All modern Diesel locomotive powertrains are hybrids. The engineering that went into systems like the General Electric Dash 8 is truly impressive!

One possible disadvantage I see to this new propulsion system is that it might be difficult to adapt to an ethanol-based energy strategy. Since ethanol has a significantly higher equivalent octane rating than conventional hydrocarbon fuels, thus not lending itself quite so readily to a detonation-mode engine.

Still, there might be a workaround for that too, waiting to be discovered or invented.

Imagine what room-temperature superconductor tech could add to hybrid system design. Although I doubt I'll live to see it, I think the next hundred years will see us developing superior ways to move ourselves and wares from place to place without enriching the usual suspects that are making the world a miserable place.

Interesting thread, thanks for posting it!


-Kerry O.

Despite shifting into higher gear within the consumer's green conscience, hybrid vehicles are still tethered to the gas pump via a fuel-thirsty 100-year-old invention: the internal combustion engine.

However, researchers at Michigan State University have built a prototype gasoline engine that requires no transmission, crankshaft, pistons, valves, fuel compression, cooling systems or fluids. Their so-called Wave Disk Generator could greatly improve the efficiency of gas-electric hybrid automobiles and potentially decrease auto emissions up to 90 percent when compared with conventional combustion engines.

The engine has a rotor that's equipped with wave-like channels that trap and mix oxygen and fuel as the rotor spins. These central inlets are blocked off, building pressure within the chamber, causing a shock wave that ignites the compressed air and fuel to transmit energy.

The Wave Disk Generator uses 60 percent of its fuel for propulsion; standard car engines use just 15 percent. As a result, the generator is 3.5 times more fuel efficient than typical combustion engines.

Researchers estimate the new model could shave almost 1,000 pounds off a car's weight currently taken up by conventional engine systems.

Last week, the prototype was presented to the energy division of the Advanced Research Projects Agency, which is backing the Michigan State University Engine Research Laboratory with $2.5 million in funding.

Michigan State's team of engineers hope to have a car-sized 25-kilowatt version of the prototype ready by the end of the year.

This discovery was supposed to be "out" by now. I wonder what happened. It's use would make the US energy independent. A car that usually got 30 mpg would get over 100 mpg.

http://news.discovery.com/autos/new-car-engine-sends-shockwaves-through-auto-industry-110405.html

The great thing about serial hybrids is that the all of these other concerns can be ignored. All that matters is how effective the engine is at producing electricity. Prototypes for hybrids have been built using jet engines, which had all of the wrong characteristics for being mechanically attached to a car's wheels, but worked just fine for charging batteries.

You can in theory make a hybrid using an engine that absolutely sucks at producing torque - as long as it produces electricity its cool in a serial hybrid. The electric motor will produce the torque.

Edit: I see Spider and Metal beat me to this, in response to other posts:

If people are satisfied with the same range, you could decrease the size of the fuel tank, saving weight. I wonder how much it would improve fuel efficiency to have a lighter vehicle.

The new engine is so small and light, they estimated that it could shave 1,000 lbs off the weight of a car. Weight is a major factor in gas mileage. Weight must be accelerated every time the car stops at a light so it has a MAJOR factor in stop and go driving. It has the same major effect on mileage in hilly areas. But fuel doesn't weight much. Five gallons is only 30 lbs. Five at 120 mpg is a 600 mile range car.

So there is no one answer to your question, but being light helps. The weight it saves could be used for more batteries giving long range to the vehicle. This would be a great advantage for a "plug in" hybrid. 200 plus range on batteries alone. 120 miles per gallon on gas. What a car! The gas would go stale.

Now add to this the new metal they found that creates magnetic fields when it heats. They are suggesting to add this to tail pipes to create electricity from car exhaust.

That will only thwart the dissemination of this engine prototype for 17 years.

This fact may be outdated, but this is what we learned in school back in Hungary:

The gasoline combustion engine has a 45% rate of efficiency. This is a theoretical maximum.

If you multiply the 45% efficiency with a claimed factor of 3.5, as per the article, then you get about (I am not good at math) 150% effiency of harnessed energy of a total maximum of 100%.

To me it means a contradiction between the conversation of energy and reality, but the conservation of energy is a law which, like all other laws, can be upset by one physically reproducable experiment.

Maybe this is it.

Take some gasoline that is good for X amount of work, feed it to an engine that is 150 % efficient, and then you can use x/2 amount of work to move the car, and use the remaining X amount of useful work for recreating the original amount of gasoline.

To our present knowledge this cannot be done, but if the Michigan engineers accomplished that, then bravo, we must rewrite our physics text books.

its great to bat these ideas around as if they will actually happen in our lifetime. stop and think about the eletric cars and hybrid cars the batteries alone cost as much as a brand new car. and how long do these batteries last? the next thing comming out is partial natural gas. its already being tested and so far is proving itself. in heavy duty long haul engines the fuel mileage is doubled. a complete truck at $160,000 is paying for itself in 12 months.

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Aside from that: if the efficiency is calculated with the reduction of weight in motor material, which reduced weight will not use gasoline energy to get accelerated, then the engine is not 3.5 times more efficient. It makes cars 3.5 times more efficient, probably, but not very likely, true. If the reduction of weight in the car makes up for a more efficent engine, then the usual car weight (let's say 2000 Kg) is reduced to 1500 Kg, then to make the car become 3.5 times more effient, the engine must increase in theoretical self-efficiency by a factor of X, so that

3.5*3/4 = X (efficiency ratio of new engine over old engine, old engine efficiency measured before weight reduction, new engine efficiency measured after weight reduciton)

Then reducing to X, we get a number at least 2.5.

However, 2.5 times the old efficiency, which was at 45%, still puts us over the top of all chemical energy contained in any volume of gasoline, by 10%.

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This is still not very good for those who believe in the law of conservation of energy.

This is fantastic. I don't know how different this is from a diesel engine, I am not a technologist or an engineer.

I see the main thing is the combustion startign with an ignition due to high pressure and heat, AND with the addition of the shock waves as sent fromt the combustion that just happened in the previous compartment.

This is genius.

There are engines of this type, like the diesel engine. But nothing uses vibrations to start the gasoline fire at a lower temperature than in piston engines.

So... this is good. The calculations are off, or the definitions for the calculations. But the idea is very good.

This is a diagram that will be much easier to teach in high schools, than the four-stroke engines were.

Whoa!! Hold on!! (Hold the procession for the wedding party!! The bride has a D99ck!!)

Because... the explosion in the chamber does not move anything against anything else. It is in an enclosed space, which can't expand; there is no way the explosion is contributing with any sort of force or work to any motion. In fact, external energy would be needed to turn the axel that is attached to this engine.

I mean, think. To make something move, something else must move it.
And that something else that moves it, is forced by an energy source. But the energy source MUST be in an contraption, that allows it to move one piece of the contraption relative to some other piece of the same contraption.

In steam engines it moves a type of valve, and that valve moves a rod that moves the locomotive's wheels. The valve moves the rod relative to the locomotive's body.

In car engines, the combustion moves the piston up, which moves the crank shaft. The piston is moved by the explosion relative to the engine's position.

In guns, the combustion moves the bullet along in the barrel, relative to the gun's position.

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If you put a shell in a strong hole well plugged up, then when it explodes, then the bullet does not go anywhere -- there is nowhere to go.

In this engine the explosion does not make the axel turn. Because its pressure on the "moving" sides are equal on the right side and the left side. It is pushing both ways, the only way it can. Try to push a car on a flat survace with the same strength in both directions, and it won't go.

Or fill a pitcher with water, and watch it move in one direction. It won't move, because no matter how unsymmetrical the bottle is, (like the walls of the chamber in this "engine" the pressure of still water in it still pushes in equal strength in all directions of the bottle, relative to the bottle.

I don't think it's the propulsion of the gas in the "engine" that moves the car. I mean, it's not a jet-propulsion that comes out of the exhaust that propels the engine to move. It does sound it is an engine that turns an axel.

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The entire engine is not only iffy, what with the numbers of efficiency given, but the diagram shows a completely non-functionable "engine".

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And this is my final answer.

When I first looked at the diagram, the same question went through my mind.

I think the answer lies in the spiral curvature of the fans.

Consider this guy:



If you took this vent and sealed off the inside, then placed a series of firecrackers inside the vent flaps, and ignited them sequentially, it would be a vaguely similar situation.

At first it might seem that the fire crackers exert force on both sides equally - which is probably true in the first instant of explosion. But as the expanding gas tries to escape that region, the curvature of the blades forces the air to leave in one direction, causing the vent to turn just as if air was being forced through it.

I think the same principle applies to this engine. The rotation is due to the fact that the expanding gas is forced to escape with a biased direction, due to the curvature of the blades.

Mind you, I'm not claiming to know that this is true in this situation. I haven't really looked at it, so I don't really understand it. Its just a theory that makes sense to me.