Hi Efficiency Engine Design

2/21/2002 | John Jamieson

[John Jamieson]

Hi Efficiency Engine Design
John Jamieson MIT67

I’ve been studying the reasons that modern internal combustion engines operate at 25 to 30% efficiency for the last year or so. There are basically three main areas that seem repairable but would lead to large efficiency increases.

1. Current engines are symmetrical stroke. They have the same compression ratio as exhaust ratio. About 10 to 1 is the limit for compression ratio with modern gasolines, but the ideal expansion ratio is more like 25 to 1. Atkinson realized this problem in 1896 and patented and built many engines to prove the concept. He was run over by lighter, smaller, cheaper Otto cycle engines. (Current “Atkinson cycle” engines are really “Miller cycle” engines, without asymmetrical strokes).

2. Current engines cannot adapt to variable displacement to adjust output. High output can very efficient but low output requires throttling of the air, reducing compression ratio and efficiency. (Most cars only require 10 to 20 horsepower to cruise at 60 mph).

3. Current engines generate about half their internal friction due to piston side loads. Several patents claim to correct this but most are statically indeterminate, which means they don’t work.

Come up with a new engine design that fixes these three problems and you’ll improve IC engine efficiency by 50 to 100%.

Please don’t tell me about any existing technology, I’m familiar with the vast majority of existing designs, having studied over a thousand patents. Most don’t close to solving these three problems in any practical way. Original ideas only please. Yes, I do have a design that solves two of the three problems, that I’d be glad to share with anyone interested. (Graphical simulation in VB available).

[John Jamieson]

You notice, I consider this just an achedemic pursuit. I don't believe economy sells, just accelleration.

[John Jamieson]

fuel injection got invented.

[mamelukesabre]

Ummm... thanks, but no... I was referring to permanent magnetic cylinder walls and a permanent magnetic outer area around the piston head. Today's technology could easily make a near frictionless magnetic-rail piston/cylinder. That's bound to reduce waste-heat and increase power and efficency while keeping everything in the entire engine design to original specs, thus lowering development and production costs (as well as time to market).

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That's silly. The side load on a piston is not constant. So If you introduce a constant magnetic force...you simply alter the direction/cycle of the resulting side force. You would need some way to modulate that magnetic force and that would require electricity.....and that consumes energy.

[John Jamieson]

me too!

[John Jamieson]

I like it. A short replusive electrical shot at about 30 degrees on the exhaust stroke. The equipment has to take some serious heat, but might be possible. That's orginal thinking!

[aculeus]

If you're looking for fuel effiency, forget it. This is controlled so that our consumption of gasoline continues to fund the oil money pool. Devices have been created, even in the early 1900's, that were put on a carburator, that provided over 200 miles to a gallon of gas.

where is it now, you ask? Buried in the vaults of the oil co's. Where's the inventor? Dead of course..

Is that near the vault containing the razor blade formula (10000 shaves per blade) that Gilette has kept off the market?

(Those two urban legends are sooo old, they weren't even called urban legends when they were debunked by the Readers Digest in the 1950s.)

[Magician]

Hybrid cars are innately expensive to manufacture because you are manufacturing two motors, each capable of driving the car. Also, unless a battery, with its high replacement costs, is part of the system as a power reservoir, you are still forcing the primary engine to run at fractional power almost all of the time. Also, you still haven't gotten beyond the innate inefficiency of the primary gasoline engine. The hybrid is a costly interim solution with only marginal economy advantages.

If fuel availability gets to be a drastic problem, the first answer will be 70 mpg cars that are very lightweight, very aerodynamically efficient, and have very small gasoline or Diesel engines and barely adequate performance by today's standards. Think of a modern "deux cheveaux".

[zog]

--you mean like the new liquid fueled cannons propellant/ignition system? Yassssss Beyond gas into plasma

[blabs]

right down there with Nikola Tesla..he didn't invent anything either.

Don't be so naive as to believe that inventions as these don't exist. There are many powerful people in this world who will see to it that it never get's exposed, and a lot of people wind up dead in many places..where do you think the term arkancide came from.

http://users.erols.com/byronw/

[John Jamieson]

You are so correct!

[Charles Martel]

Hmmm... sounds like an evolution of the sleeve valve idea. I've wondered if that old design might be worth revisiting with computer-actuated solenoids and such. Effectively infinitely-variable intake and exhaust timing.

[mamelukesabre]

I like it. A short replusive electrical shot at about 30 degrees on the exhaust stroke. The equipment has to take some serious heat, but might be possible. That's orginal thinking!

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Yeah well, I don't know if it's all that great. YOu still have to come up with the part that goes in the piston and it has to be really really light and heat resistant.

But if you could do it, you might as well apply the same idea to all the ROD BEARING AND PISTON PINS TOO! Make every part in the whole darn engine just float.

[zog]

--two motors, interesting........ combine them. electric motor=armature spinning on a shaft inside a case that makes a field. tubine engine, similar shaped deal, just using vanes for compression. Steel is steel, copper is copper, electricity can be supplied as ya go. Make use of the wasted inertia..

[John Jamieson]

Power stroke is the only really heavy load...that drives all the bearing designs.

[Redcloak]

That's the other option that came to mind. Ditch the cam shaft and use electrically actuated valves. You could then keep the exhaust valve open during the start of the compression stroke to keep the ratio down. At the right point in the stroke, close the valve and inject the fuel. Computer controlling the valves would allow variable compression ratios depending on engine load. A computer controller would also allow better use of pressure sensors. You could know what the compression really is rather than estimating it based on engine geometry.

[FreePaul]

Like the old Cadillac V8-6-4 engine, except make it work RIGHT this time...

Now you have really thrown out a challenge to "Detroit". I always thought of it as the 2, 4, 6, 8 but that is probably extreme.

[LouD]

Come up with a new engine design that fixes these three problems and you’ll improve IC engine efficiency by 50 to 100%.

Boosting IC engine efficiency by that much would get you pretty close to the maximum possible theoretical efficiency according to Carnot. You'd still have friction and thermal loss to consider...

[zog]

--if all the cyliders were common and inline, well, like they usually are of course, you wouldn't need that many solenoids, either, like one or two per bank if they were hefty enough. The other way like referenced the old caddy attempt, it was one per valve, with valves themselves always being a compromise because they are round. They add more, make them smaller, still a compromise for the area they want to cover. I think the whole dang head should open and close, skip the valves.

[Southack]

"That's silly. The side load on a piston is not constant. So If you introduce a constant magnetic force...you simply alter the direction/cycle of the resulting side force. "

No, it isn't silly, perhaps you just didn't understand it.

You can make a piston float just like the Japanese can make a mag-lev train float above its "tracks", except that in the case of an engine, the "float" would be between the walls of the cylinder and the head of the piston. Using permanent magnets in that manner would reduce the friction of every stroke.

[Charles Martel]

I've always wondered why they didn't put the turbo charger AFTER the catylitic converter. Isn't there alot of heat energy going right out the exaust pipe that is generated by the catylitic converter?

Plug the turbochargers into the exhaust too far "downstream" and you get monstrous turbo lag. Also, not much heat energy is not actually *produced* by the catalytic converters - they sort of bottle-up exhaust heat (some of which is required for the catalyst to function).