Turbine Type Motor

There are some misconceptions and/or arithmetic errors in the article. For instance, current efficiencies are often better than 25%, and therefore cannot be quadrupled.

cold fusion anyone?

I'll have half a pound to go, please. Got any of that heavy HHO in stock?

60% efficient with 90% reduction in pollutants sounds optomistic to me.

http://peswiki.com/index.php/Directory:Wave_Disk_Engine

chrysler tried using a turbine engine in an experimental car [late 50's-early 60's]. it did'nt produce enough low end torque to be a feasable alternative to the internal combustion engine. noise was a big factor too, but it would drive the car at unbievable speeds.

it's a great subject though.

It has been estimated for the same horsepower, a Wave Disk Engine could weigh a thousand pounds less than a conventional engine.
Very few engines today weigh a thousand lbs. Offhand i cant think of any except maybe large diesel engines.

"Amen" ... (I was about to post the same words) ...

I have looked-over this "wave-disc" design several times, and ... still, I just don't get:

... so , a "shock-wave" is created between two spinning blades of a wheel, causing combustion of a fuel-air mix. ... (??) ... What's to keep the 'force' generated by the expanding 'combustion' from pushing in BOTH directions (both 'clockwise' and 'counterclockwise')?

Is it *I* who belongs in the "Hall of Shame" for not seeing clearly?

A hearty "Thanks!" for that ... Your words, together with the PopSci-article-enlightenment (and, particularly your statement "the engine works like an aeolipile" make it clear that my incredulity was warranted.

Per the graphic (snipped, above) it seemed to me to be "plain as the nose on one's face" that such a whirlygig would have to be spun awfully fast to get it going ... and then, it could keep itself whizzing-away ONLY BECAUSE the pressure from the flamefront would exhibit a propensity to exert a slightly greater push against the side which it sees as 'concave', and slightly less against the surface seen as 'convex'.

I'd bet dollars-to-donuts that I could stop the thing using a hinged 2x4 ("nutcracker") 'Dyna-Brake' on the output shaft!

Sometimes I wish I went into teaching at university level. You get to dream up all kinds of cool stuff then ask the gov to give you a pile of dough so you can play all day in your mad scientist laboratory.

Don't get me wrong. I'm all for R&D. Much of todays innovation comes from universities and it's great for the kids. Sometimes I just wish I could get paid to play rather than struggle trying to keep customers happy.

I've been the recipient of SBIR funds (which like the ARPA funds used to fund this [very little] R and [even less] D) are intended to fund projects that are too high risk (possibly with a too-delayed a payback) to be of interest to private equity funding. Makes a certain amount of sense.

But in my experience (and from what I have heard) 1. oversight is poor, 2. some enthusiast in some agency wants a pet project funded, 3. some firms are "wired" for the contract 4. the people doing the oversight are completely naive about the technology. 5. etc etc. All sorts of ways for the money to simply get gone. You do not have to produce anything. All ya gotta do is say, "gosh golly, didn't work". Universities love this.

The money gets spent, the results are not as hoped, and it's on to the next project.

$2.5 million to not yet produce something that works (and which keeps getting hyped as being simple and cheap) seems like a huge waste of our money.

The 25 kW version was to have been running a year ago, and in 2009, Mueller said he though he'd see production versions fully integrated into production SUVs by now. The kind view is that he has no clue at all how stuff (R&D, the auto industry, business) works. The less kind view is that he knew what he was saying was nonsense, but wanted the grant money, so amped-up the hype.

I have made wildly optimistic claims re production timetables on my own projects. But I'm not on your payroll.

Failure is a valid result in any trial.

Knowing what doesn't work and determining why it doesn't is valuable.

So long as the data (properly and professionally documented and peer reviewed) is open to all who wish to use it then it isn't a total waste.

But if it's just tinkering at the public's expense and using public resources to do so then it should be happening in a private shed at the tinkerer's expense..

Yeah I agree but look at the military. They're the biggest bunch of "tinkerers" on the planet and who's paying that?

...but at least the data is available for the next lot of tinkerers to learn from.

...you think so?? Military contracts are a cash cow for developement firms. It's what every "tinkerer" dreams of. They may learn from mistakes but sure as hell don't charge or ask for less $$ the second time around. They charge the same amount the second time, do it right with less resources, more $$ profit in their pocket.

It's a business like any other and the ultimate goal of a business is to make as much money as possible.

I've always wondered how the military generates revenue...oh wait that's right...it doesn't!

Okay I better stop now. I'm starting to lose focus. Need more coffee!

Bring back colonialism I say.

Then the military could make a buck or two on the side.

Failure is a valid result in any trial.
Thomas Edison was once asked "how many tries did it take to invent the light bulb?". He answered 2001, but he knew 2000 ways IT DID NOT WORK.

Failure is a valid result in any trial.

Agreed. Failures can be just as valuable as successes.

The The FTC trials "failed" to show any effect at all from HHO units, saving a lot of naive people a lot of money, provided they take the time to look up the tests. The FTC trials also helped put one of the largest promoters of HHO units out of business.

Often, there are several possible approaches to a problem, any one of which might work. Trials and failures point out those which can be eliminated from contention, helping to focus attention on the ones which might be more likely to work.

Unfortunately, this particular case seems to fit your "just tinkering at the public's expense" category, as far as I can tell. It would be a better fit for a microturbine manufacturer, where you have some real oversight, experienced personnel, experience in generator/turbine integration, directly relevant off-the-shelf hardware and, most importantly, desire for payback. If a company like Capstone could have 54% (fuel to electricity) efficiency instead of 26%, they'd be very happy - that would be a huge savings for their customers.

Long term it won't cut the motorist's fuel bill - governments will simply increase the tax levy to ensure they receive the same level of income.

They did this to diesel when diesel car sales finally outstripped those of petrol cars in Europe). Now it looks like hybrid/electric cars are being adopted by the public, road pricing is once again coming to the fore (in the UK, certainly). The current talk is scrapping VED (an annual tax on owning a vehicle, supposedly used to pay for road maintenance) and reducing tax on fuel in return for fitting black boxes to vehicles which record their road use and then charging based on this. Since it's all GPS driven, "they" will know where you are/have been at any given time. That should be of great help to the police!

That should be of great help to the police!
Big Brother IS watching!!!!

AMEN !

This thread showed up at about the same time as another on the same topic.

The other thread.