New engine shakes up auto industry

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42460541/ns/technology_and_science-innovation/

by pjy04 • 15 years ago

107 44 15 years ago

msnbc.msn.com

evo_9• 15 years ago

They should seriously open source this design before the oil industry spooks show up and make it go away.

ams61102• 15 years ago

Oil industry should be happy about this... it's still burning petrol, after all. Many other ideas on the drawing board are trying to take petrol out of the equation.

uptown• 15 years ago

Like Stan Meyer? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_Meyers_water_fuel_cell http://www.metacafe.com/watch/5794212/drive_angry_hydrogen_t...

CountHackulus• 15 years ago

This sounds a lot like a rotary engine with multiple combustion chambers. The idea of sliding seals should be enough to have any rotary afficionado denounce this new engine.

ajays• 15 years ago

"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."

I'll pay attention once this happens. As they say, there's many a slip between the cup and the lip. Lab projections invariably end up being over-optimistic.

hugh3• 15 years ago

Yeah. Would it have killed 'em to at least build a working prototype before sending out the press release?

Even if the claims they're making do turn out to be true, it could still suck in any number of other ways. How durable is this engine? Is it still gonna be running after a hundred thousand miles?

iwjames• 15 years ago

"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."

I am just as skeptical, but if this is how they get their funding to build that working prototype than I'd say it's fair enough.

quanticle2• 15 years ago

Even more importantly, how easy is it to maintain this engine? The reason rotary engines haven't become more mainstream is that the first attempt (the Mazda RX-7) was notoriously difficult to repair. The RX-8 is better (I hear), but the damage has been done - of all the major carmakers out there, only Mazda offers a rotary engine.

modeless• 15 years ago

Why is this better than a gas turbine?

rayiner• 15 years ago

IIRC it uses the same principle (Brayton cycle). It's just a lot easier to put in a car.

aidenn03• 15 years ago

Dup: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2337237

jvdh• 15 years ago

There is nothing in this story and video to back up any of the claims they are making. He just waves around a rotating disc.

He could be talking about cold fusion in just the same way ;)

[edit] looking at the duplicate link, they refer to their own article from 2006. Cold fusion would either have been laughed away or taken over the world. Same thing here I would assume. [/edit]

VladRussian• 15 years ago

there is a lot of ingenious engines. The question is which one can be made into practically usable product.

There is even productized version of rotary-vane engine coming supposedly next year in a Russian car:

http://www.fastcompany.com/1709400/russian-billionaire-unlea...

I'd be though very surprised if they pull it off as beside Mazda rotary i don't know other mass-produced cars with non-traditional engines.

cubicle672• 15 years ago

Colour my cynical. There's been alternative engine development for almost as long as there's been the combustion engine, and nothing yet has made an impact.

Ralph Sarich invented the orbital engine [0] almost 40 years ago, formed a company and spent millions on the idea but it went nowhere. Interestingly, they knew when to change direction and ended up making a number of breakthroughs in the field of two stroke engines. The company is still in business today [1]

[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbital_engine

[1] http://www.orbeng.com.au/

ugh• 15 years ago

The situation today is different. This engine is supposed to optimize hybrid cars (it is supposed to generate electricity to drive an electric motor) and hybrids are something new, they haven't existed for more than a century, which means that there is likely more untapped potential for optimization. This engine wouldn't be practical in a standard gasoline car and it's not designed to be used in one.

It obviously can still fail but I don't think it's possible to draw historical parallels.

aidenn03• 15 years ago

Well if we're talking about that, then reciprocating engines can do pretty well (the prius engine is over 33% efficient when running in the ideal range, and it actually exists today; diesels do even better)

jnw2• 15 years ago

But maybe an electric car needs a gasoline engine as much as a tablet computer needs a keyboard, and maybe we're several years away from seeing that in the electric car case, just as the belief that a tablet didn't need a keyboard didn't become widespread until the iPad.

jclaassen• 15 years ago

That's exactly what I was thinking. Any Mazda fan will tell you that automobile engines don't need pistons.

kragen3• 15 years ago

> There's been alternative engine development for almost as long as there's been the combustion engine, and nothing yet has made an impact.

That's not actually true. There have been an enormous variety of "impacts" from alternative engine designs. It's just that the engines that made the biggest "impacts" aren't "alternative" any more.

External-combustion engine: prior to 70 AD (aeolipile).

Internal-combustion rocket engine: 1200s.

Steam turbine (impact-turbine steam-jack): Taqi al-Din, 1600s.

Piston-vacuum steam engine: Newcomen, 1712.

Separate-condenser vacuum steam engine: Watt, 1765.

High-pressure steam engine: early 1800s, although maybe we should assign the credit to Hornblower, 1785.

Stirling engine: Stirling, 1816.

Otto engine: Otto, 1861 (or maybe some Italians in the 1850s.)

Two-stroke engine: Clerk, 1881.

Atkinson-cycle engine: Atkinson, 1882.

Rotary engine: Millet, 1889.

Diesel engine: Diesel, 1892.

Progressive-expansion turbine: Parsons, 1897.

Four-stroke diesel engine: Diesel, 1897.

Combustion-gas turbine: Elling, 1903.

Pulsejet (used in buzz-bombs): Karavodin, 1907.

Monosoupape, used in the Sopwith Camel: 1913.

Liquid-fueled rocket: Goddard, 1926.

Turbojet: Whittle and von Ohain, 1930s.

Ramjet: Leduc, 1936.

Turbofan: 1943.

Wankel engine: Wankel, 1954.

I've omitted minor changes like turbochargers, nozzle shapes, fuel injection, continuous-jerk camshafts, and so on; even though they're very practically important, I don't think they represent "alternative combustion engines". I've also omitted designs that haven't seen widespread use.

Now, from this, it looks like nothing has happened for 50 years. That is an illusion. The Atkinson engine only became significant in the last decade or two; Wankel's device only became significant in the 1970s; the ramjet didn't become significant until the 1950s; steam turbines went from a curiosity in the 1600s to the prime mover for much of the world's economy today, but it wasn't until Parsons' redesign that they really mattered.

Over the last 50 years, many new heat engine designs have been created: nutating-disc engines, thermoacoustic engines, the quasiturbine, scramjets, Stelzer's engine, the fluidyne engine, Sarich's orbital engine, the IRIS engine, and now this "wave disc generator". It's too early to tell which, if any, of these will turn out to be useful in the long run — at least as useful as the Wankel engine was in Mazda’s cars.

cubicle672• 15 years ago

thanks. that's a great list btw.

I guess I was specifically referring to car engines which, aside from the Wankel, are the same basic idea (pistons turning a crankshaft) that's been around forever. Yes, the technology has improved out of sight, and there's been a number of significant innovations like you've mentioned, but I've never seen anything outside the piston/crankshaft paradigm take hold.

About 15 years ago I was able to tour the Orbital Engine workshops and have a look at their stuff and chat to their engineers. At the time (mid 90's) they had developed a two stroke car engine they had running in a bmw. The engine made more power and torque, used about 20% less fuel and was about 30% lighter than the one it replaced, yet nothing ever came of it. [0]

I'd love to see this stuff happen, but I think the problem lies not with the technologies but rather that manufacturers are too conservative

[0] bloody hell, I've found one of the cars and it's on the market at the moment http://www.carsales.com.au/all-cars/private/details.aspx?seo...

Zak5• 15 years ago

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.

It should be noted than 25kW is 33HP. Though it's possible to make a useful car with that little power, 33HP is generally considered an appropriate power level for a beginner's motorcycle, not a car. Even if it's much lighter than a piston engine and has such a wide powerband that it doesn't need a gearbox, it's likely they'd need a lot more power for consumer acceptance even in small cars.

Edit: I googled this and found that the intent is to use this engine to run generators to charge batteries in hybrid cars, not for direct propulsion. In that case, the cars probably won't be much, if any lighter than standard cars since all the weight savings will be replaced with batteries. Power output could, of course be lower than a standard car engine and still provide good performance since the electric motors could have peak outputs far exceeding the sustained output of the generator.

InclinedPlane• 15 years ago

I don't think you're giving it quite enough credit. For a hybrid car what you can do is marry this to a more powerful electric motor (say, 40HP). When the car is cruising at a constant speed it's running on the engine and charging the batteries (or using just the batteries with the motor off). When the car is accelerating a lot it's using the batteries/motor and the engine at the same time (generating say 70HP or more). Given the lower weight and higher efficiency of this engine that's pretty significant. If it's possible to create a hybrid drive-train (including batteries) that weighs only as much or only a little more than a pure gasoline drive-train that could translate into much cheaper hybrid vehicles on the market.

P.S. For clarity's sake, modern hybrids are enormous compromises due to the weight of the battery and electric motor. For a hybrid you want the highest efficiency possible and thus the lowest total vehicle weight you can manage without compromise safety. The necessity of heavy batteries fights in the opposite direction, so in order to produce a fuel efficient vehicle car makers use more expensive, lighter weight materials in the construction of the vehicle. This increases the complexity of manufacturing (more different materials are being used) and raises the price of the vehicle. If you could drop in a drive-train which kept the weight the same that would change the industry dramatically.

Zak5• 15 years ago

Further research in to this engine design suggests it has a very narrow efficient range and the intended application is as a generator only, not to directly power the wheels. The electric motor would have to provide all the power required to propel the car. Of course, pure electric cars have already been done with some success, and a hybrid based on this system could have electric motors with a lot more than 33, 40 or 70 hp.

ams61102• 15 years ago

33HP in an electric vehicle is actually not as bad as it sounds. Most of the horsepower needed in a vehicle is to overcome inertia (e.g. starting from a standing stop) and electric motors can output full power at 0 RPM unlike an internal combustion engine. So a car driven by an electric motor would not need a clutch or transmission, which eliminates a significant inefficiency in the drivetrain.

Internal combustion engines and electric motors are also not rated in the same way. Electric motor HP is "rated" horsepower (what it can produce continuously without overheating; generally it's capable of more for short periods) while internal combustion horsepower tends to be "maximum" horsepower and there are a lot of different ways to come up with a number, some purely based on calculations and some on actual measurement. So unfortunately HP is not an apples-to-apples number between electric and combustion engines.

aidenn03• 15 years ago

If you live anywhere with mountains, it's exactly as bad as it sounds though.

sliverstorm• 15 years ago

That's modern power creep speaking. You don't need the massive power of modern automobiles. That 7 second 0-60 on your mid-sized sedan? Faster than nearly all sports cars 30 years ago. Absolutely blistering compared to any car 50 years ago.

40hp is about what you use on the freeway, or at least it used to be before the average car came to weight 2 tons. You don't need a whole lot more than that. Hell, the MG Midget was offered with a 30HP engine once, IIRC.

I'm quite sure in a decade or two we're going to have people saying things like, "It's true you CAN make a car with only 200hp, but it's generally accepted you need at least 800hp for any car"...

kragen3• 15 years ago

I had an air-cooled Vanagon for a while. It was 2½ tons, due to aftermarket camper modifications, and could manage a bit over 60mph on its 70-horsepower 2-liter air-cooled engine, despite having the aerodynamics of a brick. Something with half the frontal surface area or half the drag coefficient, such as basically any modern vehicle, could manage quite well with half that horsepower.

I think the average US car weighed a lot more in the 1960s than in the 1970s, 1980s, or 1990s. Maybe widespread SUV use is pushing that average back up.

Did the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deux_Chevaux really have only two horsepower?

herdrick• 15 years ago

> I'm quite sure in a decade or two

I can't wait, thanks for the cheery prediction!

joe_the_user• 15 years ago

Geeks? Smart guy/gals?

I couldn't tell you if the thing is real or not.

But, if such an engine, with two-three times(!!!) the efficiency of a standard gasoline engine with a lower power to weight ratio, were to be producible at 25kW, all the (hypothetical underpowering) problems could be solved by ...

... using ...

TWO engines!! (or three engines)

... jeesh ...

It's for hybrids. Each engine would just charge a battery.

darklajid• 15 years ago

My first car, and one that I'm still very fond of, had 29HP [0]. I'm 31, so I'm not talking with a 'get off my lawn' 'glorify the past' attitude. In fact, I liked the car that much, that I had several of those in my life.

Oh - yeah: I drove a hell of a lot on the German Autobahn with it as well. Fast? Hell no. But I still have that speeding ticket (went just a tiny bit faster than 100km/h) somewhere as a nice souvenir.

0: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Citro%C3%ABn_...

wazoox• 15 years ago

> It should be noted than 25kW is 33HP. Though it's possible to make a useful car with that little power ...

Not only it's possible, but many successful european cars hadn't more : Citröen 2CV, Renault 4CV, Fiat 500 and 600, and most other economy cars of the 50s and 60s hadn't even that power, and sold by the millions.

yason• 15 years ago

It should be noted than 25kW is 33HP.

But the design obviously isn't limited to this? A bigger engine could give more power yet still consume less than a regular piston engine. Or 1-2 of these running in parallel, depending on the load.

phaedrus2• 15 years ago

The engine used in the original VW Beetle was about 40 HP (started out even less, and later models were 60 HP, but for many years it was 40). I have heard that it only takes about 18 HP to overcome air resistance at highway speeds for a small car.

Also, it's important to note the reason for the big discrepancy between the "inflated" horsepower ratings modern cars have vs. the lower HP in older classic cars: power is RPM * torque, and gas engines are rated in peak horsepower. To reach the advertised peak horsepower of modern engines, you have to be fairly high RPM (5K to 6K) whereas an older, lower horsepower rated engine might start to drop off its power curve after 4K. But at lower RPM the torques may be similar, or even higher for some older engines (the VW engine in particular with its Boxer configuration was optimized to have good torque for its size). What this means is that unless you are driving full throttle all the time at high RPM, you're not necessarily pushing all 100+ horsepower or whatever that your modern engine is capable of in theory, and so conversely an engine with smaller max horsepower is not as much worse as you'd think it would be.

Jach• 15 years ago

http://www.aptera.com Prototype by the end of the year? I swear Aptera has been saying that for the last few... (Okay, they have prototypes but they're not on the market yet.)

New engine shakes up auto industry

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