Combustion Engine Alternative

Who? Us?

It looks like you already have some kind of eccentric engine mounted

Who? Us?

I think Kris was referring to a " normal" person or persons.

Yes, CR4 people of an automotive inclination. Within the context of CR4 members in general, they're perfectly normal.

How is it an alternative to a combustion engine? Doesn't it burn fuel?

Cheers...........Codey

Maybe I should have said 'conventional', but I just don't like that word !

OK no problem!

Interesting. Something to keep an eye on.

And if it works and we can team it up with the EEStor capacitor/battery/vaporware technology for one amazing alternative hybrid powerplant.

I like the idea of having a real mongrol of a car. Windmills and everything on it

It looks worth following, I saved the site. I like the one moving part, it's my motto. I'm glad DARPA got into it, maybe it won't get squashed like the GM electric car. GM, Aren't those the guys who just had to get a govt. bailout? After crushing all those perfectly good cars, too....

Yeah it's interesting. The 2.5 million $ investment seems a bit pathetic, compared to some of the bail-out money various organizations have got.

Sort of looks like a backwards version of the Tesla Turbine. Could be useful though.

Regards Dragon

The higher efficiency would be due to the higher temperature of the working fluid. How do they handle higher temperatures? The engine rotor in the video looked like metal. How is that going to handle much higher temperatures than a gas turbine?

You have an extremely promising career as a straight man.

Forget the rotor. How's that plastic cover ever gonna last?????

To hell with that thing, I want a LASER powered space elevator, so I can fight the Space LIE-YUNS(lions).

Cough Cough

you two back inside that bath isn't going to break itself

Aw, Gee, it's the grown-ups.

The first thing that strikes me is the claim of 5 times higher efficiency compared to the ICE. Say we look at 20% which is low nowadays, it would be 100% efficient. Or compare it to 30% efficient ICE it would by 150 % efficient.

If doubling would have been stated, I would say WOW, that's enormous, hardly believable. 20% to 50% better would be a huge achievement.

That makes it all very questionable. Also the other claims of ultra low emissions.

Just read their last paragraph in the attached paper of 2008, it reads as follows:

A wave disc can be an effective compression device and in conjunction with the combustion chamber can form an efficient gas generator but a wave engine design on the basis of only unsteady process can not be an efficient device.

In specific wave-disc geometry, torque generation is possible, but it is not as effective as in the case of steady-state machines.

I will admit to a certain prejudice in favor of things that come out of real universities -- so for me, this bears serious consideration -- and a small version could be a great replacement for the ICE in my plug-in hybrid prototype. (In my prototype, the engine operates at full load, or not at all.)

I'll have to read more, but initially, I'd think the 5 times improvement of which Mueller speaks has to do with the overall driving efficiency of a series hybrid optimized for this engine. This engine, I would assume, has one operating point at which the acoustics work right, which would make it somewhat useless as an ordinary engine to drive a car. (In this respect, it is a little like the highly tuned two-stroke Kriedler 50 cc GP bikes of many years ago, which had "light switch" power bands, making essentially useless power at 10,000-15,000 rpm, but loads of power at 20,000. (To keep it on the boil, you needed 12 speeds or so in the gearbox, and had to slip the clutch until you were up to 20 or 30 mph.)

The engine itself could be perhaps 50% efficient at its design power output. If it operates only at that design load (or near), (which is possible with a series hybrid) and you compare it to a "typical" car engine (and back up a few years to a time when 25% peak efficiency was typical) which operates, on average at 10% efficiency in actual operation (on an EPA urban cycle, which includes idling, light load operation, low speeds, etc), then a five times improvement in overall efficiency would be possible.

On the other hand, if they are claiming that the peak efficiency is 5 times better than that of a modern car engine's peak efficiency, (30% typical, 38% for a Prius) then they would be claiming 150% efficiency*. I think they are not making this claim, but will have to read further.

Mueller mentions a 25kW unit as being sufficient for an SUV (no doubt a smallish one). This suggests that the resulting series hybrid would be optimized for urban traffic, with (25/.746 x .70 efficiency) 23 driveshaft horsepower being just barely adequate for steady state highway cruising with a large, boxy vehicle. Guessing, I'd say that a 200 hp ICE, typical in a small SUV, operates at 18% efficiency at 23 hp. The hybrid could be operating at 50% x 70%, or 35% at the drive shaft. So highway efficiency could be about double that of a typical SUV, if the wave engine efficiency is 50%. A long hill (perhaps requiring 100 hp continuously) would have the hybrid falling behind, as the battery charge depleted. (This is where plug-in hybrids can have a noticeable advantage. With 30 or 40 mile battery-only range, about 10 miles worth likely remaining when in charge-sustaining mode, one can conquer a pretty long hill.)

Overall: Plausible and interesting. There are always the "whoops, I suppose I should have anticipated that" moments that come up (with one's lunch) in such projects. But for my project, my current engine is not really well-suited, (having been built for a wide power band) and this one could be better: more efficient and lighter, with better potential for alternative fuels.

(As if to prove that I am bipolar: often, in the real world, so many promising engines end up, during development, struggling to achieve the performance of existing engines, which have had so much optimising over the years. My positive feeling re this one is mainly gut, at this point.)

* (Mere 150% efficiency is the stuff of plain, ordinary, old-fashioned over-unity devices, many of which have been personally demonstrated to me to operate at 200 - 300% efficiency, but my NDAs prevent me from providing details. [My NDA with ExxonMobil also prevents me from disseminating the "truth" about HHO devices.] The promoters of these devices are right: all the laws of physics are wrong. Now, the only over-unity claims that I find interesting are those of some of our members here, who have claimed much larger multiples. Heck, if you are going to claim 101%, you might as well claim 311111%, as magnacoaster has. Although I offered to test magnacoaster's unit for free, he did not appear to take me up on the offer. The only reasonable explanation I can think of is that the new laws of physics prevented the unit from being delivered by FedX, the operation of which relies on old physics. Perhaps the unit floated up into the sky as it was being thrown onto the plane. Such anti-gravity effects -- and, of course health benefits -- are well documented in over-unity devices such as the highly-regarded Searl Effect generator.)

I see magna coaster is still about, I can assume he never sent you a unit to test.

I had managed to avoid that thread the 1st time through, so thanks that's an hour I'll never get back

Haven't heard anything from our newest HHO wizard WWL lately, he swallowed packy's bilge whole...

Cheers for the interpretation, Blinky

If I understand this engine correctly it can only run at certain speeds determined by the exhaust wave length. SO if the first efficient engine speed was 1500m rpms then the next would be 3000 and the next would be approximately 6000 to keep the tune. Is that what the rest of you get from this?

I was sure that I had sent a post on this yesterday. _{(I may have moved to China and not noticed)}

I have already started work on a grooved section attached to the inlet to fine tune the inlet pressure pulses. When I combine that with my HHO generator, I expect the fuel tank to generate fuel as I drive it.

What I see as a problem with this, is the sealing efficiency of the chambers to the rotating end plates.

An engine that relies so heavily on pressure waves is going to need to contain that pressure as efficiently as possible. The details will tell.

Hi Bob,

I have been invited to a before and after dyno session By Ron Hatton, the intake groove guy.

If I can, I just might go and take some photos and watch the process.

If I do, I'll let you guys know.

Lyn

Make a believer out of me.