New Disc Gas Engine Looks to Challenge Traditional Diesel, Gas ICEs

Daily Tech ^ | April 7, 2011 4:17 PM | Jason Mick (Blog)

[B4Ranch]

>>My autocross days were over.<<

Being married will do that to ya.

[PA Engineer]

Totally agree. I wonder if it can work with other fuel...say propane or Nat Gas?

The video was from 2009. My poor presbyopia suffering eyes are having problems with the published photos. I was not very lucky with the patent search. We are now two years into the research and I would have expected more.

The key to a successful hybrid is going to be natural gas IMHO. The basic infrastructure is in place and the fuel is ludicrously abundant here and easy to recover. The key I believe will be an electric hybrid with independent electric motors in each wheel and minimal battery storage. The power would come from CNG. I hope I am not giving much away from one of my ideas when I claim that 6 calibrated accelerometers can safely handle the all wheel drive synchronization.

I wish this combustion generator model was true, but there seems to be a lack of information to make any judgement. I was also hoping they would have shed some more light on the potential of variable frequency output of the generator side of the engine.

[prisoner6]

The nice thing about electric motors, especially in each wheel is the torque at stall speed/start up.

The bad thing - at least where I live in PA - is that is there a way to protect the motors from weather? Ice, snow and even rain could be a problem. I envision a sort of inboard solution, similar to inboard disc brakes already in use. I would think you'd need very strong half shafts to handle the stress.

Having the motors outboard also increases unsprung weight which can cause handling problems, or maybe not considering suspension design has advanced since I played with it.

Storage is the weak link now I think. There has to be a solution to that.

[prisoner6]

That was the best cover EVAR!

Although some of the exotica/tiki albums were great too!

[Jeff Chandler]

Imagine the work involved in building even a one cylinder engine when all you had to work with was a black smith shop.

Machine shops were in existence in the early days of automobile engine development.

[SunkenCiv]

I tried checking the PopSci search, couldn’t turn up anything on those bent engines. Did find this though:

http://www.popsci.com/category/tags/internal-combustion-engine

[prisoner6]

Being married will do that to ya.

Sometimes my wedding ring gets in the way...

Even when I'm not wearing it...sigh

[Dryman]

I am listening to that on my Ipod as I post.

[djf]

It’s a Wankel.

I still think my pistons-in-the-disc is a better idea.
My invention.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2082008/posts

[calex59]

Not to many small town inventors:)

[editor-surveyor]

The thing I’m talking about isn’t an engine, but a servo, but it has the same 120 degree ‘bent’ layout. They are the servos that drive the tracks on most large ‘backhoe’ excavators. They were first put into use by the French company Poclain, but soon were also in use on Caterpillar excavators too.

The engines, both gas and diesel were envisioned, weren’t ever even prototyped AFAIK, but they were covered in either Pop Mech, or Pop Sci in the early ‘60s.

[SunkenCiv]

The ones I read about were reciprocating piston engines; I remember the blurb on one suggested that it might not even require a transmission.

[Red Badger]

Rest In Peace, old friend, your work is finished.....

If you want ON or OFF the DIESEL ”KnOcK” LIST just FReepmail me.....

This is a fairly HIGH VOLUME ping list on some days.....

[NVDave]

Oh, they had lathes, mills and shapers back then.

People seem to forget that there were machine shops back as far as the early 1800’s.

You just didn’t see machines that have taken over modern machine shops, like Bridgeport mills. Back in “the old days,” vertical mills weren’t the usual machine, horizontal mills were. Horizontals are much more useful for hobbing gears and removing a lot of material. Brown & Sharpe developed the first “universal milling machine” in 1861 or so. Once they could move the work in three dimensions, they were off to the races.

Lathes have been around even longer.

Give me the right lathe and some fixtures, and I won’t need a mill for most things.

Give me a lathe and a shaper and I probably won’t need a mill at all — just a whole lot of time.

[NVDave]

The problem with storage is that you pay a price on the way into storage, and another price on the way back out.

The second law of thermo gets a big chunk of your energy when you want to ‘store’ energy.

[snoringbear]

“The Wankel made it all the way to full production but has still never displaced the piston engine.”

Yep, agree. Actually, the Wankel was in production for several years before EPA reg’s killed it. Also, just by looking at the drawing, I would say that this engine's genesis is in the Wankel. It's certainly, not a revolutionary idea. The latest idea that I think has potential as far as the gasoline engine is concerned is a high compression engine, about 20:1 compression ratio, much the same as a diesel engine. From what I've read, it has great performance and great mpg. I think Ford is tinkering with it.

[painter]

What was that engine used for? I have seen them running at small engine shows.

[RightOnTheLeftCoast]

Running Apus?

[calex59]

My comment to another FReeper who said much the same thing was: In small towns they didn’t have machine shops, they had blacksmiths and several small town inventors made gas engines and built cars.

[NVDave]

Some blacksmiths in that day had lathes in their shops, and they quite frequently had grinders, filing machines, etc.

The engines of that day might not have been high-precision as those of today, but they weren’t hammered out of billet either.

Remember, the steam engine pre-dated the internal combustion engines, and most all the casting, forging, machining, etc operations necessary for a steam engine are used in an IC engine.