The IRIS engine works by expanding and contracting like the iris of an eye. Its creators say its greater working surface makes the IRIS more efficient than traditional piston-driven internal combustion.
Posted on 05/12/2010 10:42:44 PM PDT by FTJM
In the past year, the U.S. auto industry has reeled under market pressure, faced bankruptcy, accepted billions of dollars in government bailout money, and agreed to mandates for cleaner and more efficient vehicles. But for two brothers from Colorado with an automotive start-up company, things couldn’t be better.
Levi Tillemann-Dick, 28, and his brother Corban, 24, are carrying on a dream they hatched with their late father, Denver inventor and businessman Timber Dick, to bring to market a radical new engine design that is much more efficient than a traditional internal combustion engine.
The four-stroke engine used in gasoline-powered cars today was a breakthrough when pioneers like Nikolaus Otto and Gottlieb Daimler developed the design in the 1870s and 1880s. But its operation is so inefficient that only 20 to 30 percent of fuel in the tank is converted to energy that actually makes the car move. The rest is lost, mostly as heat.
(See related quiz, What You Don’t Know About Energy.)
The Tillemann-Dick brothers believe that they can ramp up that efficiency to 50 percent by shifting from a piston-driven engine design to an “internally radiating impulse structure” that expands and contracts like the iris of an eye. They believe their start-up company based in Washington, D.C., IRIS Engines, has an advantage in efficiency and engine power as a result of this unique design, and can benefit from the forces roiling an auto industry currently based on piston-driven engines.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.nationalgeographic.com ...
>>In the United States, federal regulators last month finalized a rule that will require automakers to achieve an average fuel efficiency of 35.5 miles per gallon by 2016. <<
Gee, why don’t they just make it 400 mpg. That would solve all our problems.
Is there a working model, or is this still theoretical?
This thing looks as great as a Wankel rotary engine. Looks like the Dick brothers will be dicking us as they receive massive Govt handouts. Why else locate in DC. Doesn’t seem like a very cost effective industrial manufacturing hub.
One arm of gooberment want’s high mileage.
Another wants clean air.
A third wants low mileage ethanol.
A forth forces weight induced safety.
None like small diesels.
Detroit is on permanent welfare.
His friends called him, ‘Woody’.
Pretty silly idea, imo.
“radical new engine design that is much more efficient than a traditional internal combustion engine.”
Hey guys, I know some aliens and they have a .......
Historically, the increase in mpg leads immediately to an increase in miles traveled and ultimately more oil being used than would have otherwise been the case. The greenies are running as hard as they can and going backwards even faster.
Mileage tax to the rescue!
I think the Wankel engine failed because they couldn’t solve the problem with the seals on the rotor. The seals wore out. The IRIS seems to have an even bigger seals problem.
For an animation, see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xb0pOKFr1fg
Interestingly, on the other hand while in Europe they have spent Billions of $$ to build a particle accelerator to try and create a man-made 'black hole', here in the USA our liberal democrats and the commie president has done the virtual opposite!!
They have created a huge govt black hole designed to suck an unending stream of billions of dollars until it bankrupts the country!!
Intriguing - using a more widely dispersed explosion to compress a structure inward. I suppose springs or such devices are used during the combustion phase or contraction phase.
Here I was amazed at that engine and right in the middle of the thread you give me a great laugh. However, I will resist all urges to come up with other whimpy names no matter how humerous they may be.
It still would be a Good Thing, no, to have more energy efficient engines? Even if economic pressures encouraged more consumption of travel.
The ancient Otto cycle, with its combustion chamber volume that varies linearly with piston displacement, can in principle be greatly improved upon for efficiency. However it’s impossible to beat the economy, simplicity, and reliability of a plain old piston ring for a seal.
ping for Don
Perhaps, but not so much where the tradeoff is weight, safety, and cargo capacity.The best economically and aesthetically and in the interests of freedom is give the consumer what he wants.
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