The Massive Yet Tiny Engine (gearhead tech breakthrough!)

American Antigravity ^ | 5/12/2006 | Tin Ventura

[ovrtaxt]

Imagine dumping the big V-8 in your SUV for a 25-pound, 2.4 liter engine that gives you 150 miles per gallon on biodiesel - with a boost in horsepower and torque to boot. Meet Raphial Morgado and the little engine that could... With up to 40 times the power to weight ratio of a conventional engine, flexible fuel compatibility, a displacement of 850 cubic inches and the torque of a 32-cylinder engine, the MYT is the beginning of a new paradigm for engines in the 21st century!

"The inspiration for the MYT Engine design came from the need to have an engine that can stand up to the tremendous abuse of drag racing. After literally blowing up more than my share of engines during racing, I swore to myself that I'd build something that met the required needs while providing higher-durability & reduced complexity in the process. Also, because this design was originally intended for the output demands of the drag-strip, I wanted a design that would give me the largest displacement, highest torque, and lightest weight available. The Massive Yet Tiny engine meets those needs, with 850 cubic inches of displacement, 32-pulses per cycle, and a 150 pound package measuring only 14" by 14" in diameter."

"By replacing an 800 pound V-8 engine with a 25 pound MYT and running it on biodiesel, we can achieve 150 miles per gallon in an otherwise conventional vehicle -- plus, you're going to have better take-off and stopping power by removing that 800 pound engine. That's what we can do. It is achievable." - Raphial Morgado

The MYT engine is the result of a $4 million dollar R&D project undertaken by Angel Labs LLC to build the ultimate internal combusion engine. Inspired by drag racing, inventor Raphial Morgado designed the engine with a focus on power, torque, and fuel-efficiency to meet the hefty demands of the today's automotive applications in a lightweight package. The result was a revolutionary design with a power-to-weight ratio up to 40 to 1, over 3,000 ft/lbs of torque, and a diesel-mode mileage in excess of 150 mpg!

This series of 3 videoclips provides an in-depth look at what the MYT is, how it works, and why it's important. The "Los Angeles Auto-Show Presentation" features a 10-minute commentary on the technology by inventor Raphial Morgado, and provides details on the background of the engine and what makes it so unique. The "MYT Engine Description" clip is a 5-minute narrated animation providing a walk-through on the operation of the engine and how it compares to traditional interal combustion technology, and the "MYT Engine Testing" video shows both a closeup rotation of the cylinders in the Angel Labs prototype, as well as 2 minutes of test-videos shot with the MYT in dyno-testing on a 150-psi non-combustion airstream.

[freedomlover]

If this doesn't work it will be Bush's fault.

You guys are getting slack.

[madconservative]

I am not doubting the 850 number, and if you want to define displacement that way... fine. But liters are directly proportional to cubic inches. If you define the terms such that displacement is 850 ci, then it is also 13.9 liters. It's basic math that any gearhead knows... and I have a 67 Camaro in the driveway and a 65 Mustang in the garage to back it up.

[ovrtaxt]

I think there is a ratcheting sun gear type of assembly directly around the shaft, to keep the pistons moving in only one direction upon firing.

There are only 2 intake ports and 2 exhaust ports- no valves, apparenly, since the chamber is sealed once the piston moves past the ports. The ports are paired right next to each other on opposite sides of the donut. I guess each intake port holds an injector.

[Boiling point]

Internal combustion engines as they are configured now, are only 33% efficient at turning a shaft and 67% efficient at making heat. If anyone could flip flop these figures, you would change completely eliminate foreign dependence of oil. Its sad that an engine is a FAR better heater than means of propulsion

[Gandalf_The_Gray]

The inside part of the chamber is split in two. Half the pistons are attached at the front half and half are attached at the back. The two assemblies take turns accelerating as the pistons go around the combustion chamber.

It appears there is some mechanism to smoothe out the motion into a continuous rotation, it also likely regulates the movement of the two piston assemblies.

The mechanism that does that is fairly straight forward. The design for the engine has been around for about thirty years or so, they need to do a through patent search. The weak point of this design is the disk connecting the pistons to the geared crank mechanism. the two disks are clamped between the two halves of the cylinder block and must allow free motion of the disks relative to each other and to the cylinder block. They must also have some sort of seal to prevent combustion pressures from blowing into the crank mechanism. They also have to maintain this close running clearance over rather substantial loading and temperature extremes.

Others have "invented" the exact same kinematic mechanism as an Otto cycle engine and It has failed to catch on. If they overcome the sealing problem, there might be concerns as to adequate lubrication in the toroidal combustion space. It might just work if they can get the details right. If not it will always be a nifty air compressor/motor.

Regards,
GtG

[ovrtaxt]

lol- see my post 175.

[ovrtaxt]

By the way, it's also similar to the Tschudi engine design from the 50's- but improved quite a bit.

[Boiler Plate]

marker

[Boiler Plate]

It seems that the weak spot will be sealing the Rotors. If that seal can hold up for 200,000 miles then this guy will be rich beyond his wildest dreams.

Extremely clever and elegant design.

[ADemocratNoMore]

BTTT

[RadioAstronomer]

Yuppers. :-)

[Joe Boucher]

Up to now a serious good engine can only hope to garner 1 h.p. per 1 pound of engine weight.
If real this could really change the design of vehicles and the world.
Way cool.

[Flightdeck]

Mazda Rx-series have rotary engines, don't they? I'm not exactly familiar with the combustion chamber/pistons though.

[stocksthatgoup]

way cool

[AntiGuv]

FutureTechPing!

An emergent technologies list covering biomedical research, fusion power, nanotech, AI robotics, and other related fields. FReepmail to join or drop.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

ROFL!

[Jonx6]

ping

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Useful site:

New Toroidal Internal Combustion Engine Promises 20:1 Power-to-Weight Ratio

*********************************************AN EXCERPT**************************************

18 April 2006

The Massive Yet Tiny (MYT) engine

A California inventor is developing a new compact and highly efficient engine—the Massive Yet Tiny (MYT) engine—that promises high power output with a very high power to weight ratio (20:1). The inventor, Raphial Morgado, recently won first prize in the 2005 Emhart-NASA Tech Briefs Design Contest for his work on the engine.

The engine moves pistons on different rotors relative to each other to form combustion chambers of variable volume in a toroidal cylinder. The pistons move in stepwise fashion, with the pistons on one rotor travelling a predetermined distance while the pistons on the other rotor remain substantially stationary.

Fuel is drawn into a chamber as one of the pistons defining the chamber moves away from the other, and then compressed as the second piston moves toward the first.

The cycles of the MYT engine. Click to enlarge.

Combustion of the fuel drives the first piston away from the second, and the spent gases are then expelled from the chamber by the second piston moving again toward the first. An output shaft is connected to the rotors in such manner that the shaft rotates continuously while the rotors and pistons move in their stepwise fashion.

The engine fires 16 times on one revolution of the crankshaft, 32 times on two. By comparison, a standard V8 fires four times per crankshaft revolution—one-quarter the number of the MYT. Angel Labs, the company developing the engine, calculates the equivalent displacement of the MYT as 848 cubic inches (13.9 liters), with a 3-inch bore and a 3.75-inch stroke. The company further calculates that the 14" x 14", 150-pound prototype could produce power in excess of 3,000 hp.

[The 3,000 hp rating] is conservatively estimated from 850 CID. A conventional engine can produce 4 hp per CID (when turbo charged). Four times 850 [the equivalent displacement] is more than 3,000. Our data of air motoring (800 lb.ft. of torque from 150 psi of compressed air) extrapolates to more than 4,000 lb.ft. of torque when fuel is ignited, exceeding our conservative estimate.

—Jin K. Kim, Managing Member, Angel Labs

The design is also modular. Additional MYT units can be connected by removing the rear cover of the engine and connecting another ME chamber assembly. With a dual-assembly configuration, the engine becomes a “64-cylinder” engine with 1,695 cubic inches displacement (27.8 liters), raising the power-to-weight ratio up to a projected 40:1.

The engine uses only about 20% of the number of parts normally found in a reciprocating internal combustion engine, and only 12 of the MYT parts are moving parts, reducing friction and parasitic losses.

Unlike a reciprocating combustion engine, the MYT engine permits a piston dwell at the equivalent of Top Dead Center (TDC)—the starting point for combustion. The current prototype is set for a piston dwell of approximately 12 degrees of the crankshaft rotation. By adding in that delay under combustion before permitting the power stroke, the MYT burns a greater percentage of the fuel and air mixture in the combustion chamber, resulting in a more complete combustion.

All we know is that 12-degrees dwell at the TDC, which no other engine can do, will burn all the fuels completely. Therefore, we expect very clean emissions.

—Jin K. Kim

Other features of the engine include:

• The ability to support a compression ratio as high as 70:1.

• No valves. The MYT uses open ports with no restriction. Airflow action is one way.

• The entire engine acts as a heat sink and a radiator. It is both air and oil cooled.

• There is no thrust loading on piston skirts.

• Pistons do not touch the cylinder walls, only the rings do.

• Pistons travel only the same direction. No reciprocation, only stop and go.

• There are no cylinder heads, no cam shaft, no valves (the ME is equivalent to the bottom end of a reciprocating engine).

• Intake compression and power stroke and exhaust stroke events are happening all at the same time, so there are no load strokes.

The MYT engine is not the first implementation of rotating pistons in a toroidal cylinder—the 1968 Tschudi engine is very similar in concept. (A newer derivative is by Hoose, 2005.) The key to the MYT engine is its timing mechanism.

The stop and go actions can be generated in many different ways, but you can not have active locking mechanism, because it will break under repeated stress. It took Raphial, who usually can invent in a couple of hours per invention, more than two years to come up with this invention (he threw away about 10 different ways of implementation.)

—Jin Kim, in the Angel Labs forum

Angel Labs is targeting a number of application: autombiles and trucks, pumps and compressors, aviation (helicopter, fixed wing and UAV), and military. Their goal is to license the technology non-exclusively to everyone. According to Jin Kim, Angel Labs is currently in discussions with Lockheed Margin, Boeing, Ford and several smaller potential licensees.

(A hat-tip to Bob C!)

Resources:

• Morgado, US Patent #6,739,307: Internal combustion engine and method

• Tschudi, US Patent #3,381,669: Rotary Internal Combustion Engine

• Hoose, US Patent #6,880,494: Toroidal internal combustion engine

• Angel Labs forum discussion of the MYT mechanism

• Videos of the MYT in action.

April 18, 2006 in Concept Engines, Diesel, Emissions, Engines, Fuel Efficiency | Permalink | Comments (29) | TrackBack (1)

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Comments

If this is really practical, the applications for light aircraft should be huge.

Posted by: Nick | Apr 18, 2006 3:08:24 PM

Could it be used for a much lighter weight genset for PHEVs?

Posted by: Harvey D. | Apr 18, 2006 3:31:11 PM

What is power to weight ratio of other ICEs? 20:1 is a nice ratio but i would like something in which to compare.

Posted by: John Allison | Apr 18, 2006 3:34:47 PM

I note that this engine has only been run with compressed air, not on a combustion cycle.  This means that the following are not characterized yet:

• Mechanical loading of the various mechanisms (including the stop/start system).
• Stress on the cooling system.
• Thermal efficiency.

This thing sounds a lot like the next Wankel, and could have problems of its own.  Let's wait and see before gushing over it.  That said, 40 HP/lb puts it into territory where it competes with gas turbines!

Posted by: Engineer-Poet | Apr 18, 2006 4:02:31 PM

Er, even 20 HP/lb does.

The state of the art in auto engines is about 100 HP/liter for high performance models (about 1.6 HP per cubic inch).  I can't tell you what the typical power/weight is for cars, but for opposed-piston light aircraft engines it is about 0.5 HP per pound.

Posted by: Engineer-Poet | Apr 18, 2006 4:06:34 PM

[mountainlyons]

Sorry for the negativity. I did a project for College in which I took a 58 Chevy pickup with a 283 in it and the best I could do was 16-18 MPG normal driving and 24 on a trip. Smokey Yunnick converted a small block Chevy to get 35 MPG or 1000 HP. It did not work because of detonation. The 200 MPG myth of a carburetor is extreme and requires flat land and non 4x4 which I can not live without.

[conservativewasp]

I'd like to see it applied to boats too, light, small, high mileage, inexpensive? What's involved in machining something like this?