Posted on 04/09/2003 1:08:01 PM PDT by Nov3
THE original blueprints for a device that could have revolutionised the motor car have been discovered in the secret compartment of a tool box.
A carburettor that would allow a car to travel 200 miles on a gallon of fuel caused oil stocks to crash when it was announced by its Canadian inventor Charles Nelson Pogue in the 1930s.
But the carburettor was never produced and, mysteriously, Pogue went overnight from impoverished inventor to the manager of a successful factory making oil filters for the motor industry. Ever since, suspicion has lingered that oil companies and car manufacturers colluded to bury Pogue’s invention.
Now a retired Cornish mechanic has enlisted the help of the University of Plymouth to rebuild Pogue’s revolutionary carburettor, known as the Winnipeg, from blueprints he found hidden beneath a sheet of plywood in the box.
The controversial plans once caused panic among oil companies and rocked the Toronto Stock Exchange when tests carried out on the carburettor in the 1930s proved that it worked.
Patrick Davies, 72, from St Austell, had owned the tool box for 40 years but only recently decided to clean it out. As well as drawings of the carburettor, the envelope contained two pages of plans, three test reports and six pages of notes written by Pogue.
They included a report of a test that Pogue had done on his lawnmower, which showed that he had managed to make the engine run for seven days on a quart (just under a litre) of petrol.
The documents also described how the machine worked by turning petrol into a vapour before it entered the cylinder chamber, reducing the amount of fuel needed for combustion.
Mr Davies has had the patent number on the plans authenticated, proving that they are genuine documents.
He said: “I couldn’t believe what I saw. I used to be a motor mechanic and I knew this was something else altogether. I was given the tool box by a friend after I helped to paint her house in 1964. Her husband had spent a lot of time in Canada.”
The announcement of Pogue’s invention caused enormous excitement in the American motor industry in 1933, when he drove 200 miles on one gallon of fuel in a Ford V8. However, the Winnipeg was never manufactured commercially and after 1936 it disappeared altogether amid allegations of a political cover-up.
Dr Murray Bell, of the University of Plymouth’s department of mechanical and marine engineering, said he would consider trying to build a model of the Pogue carburettor.
Engineers who have tried in the past to build a carburettor using Pogue’s theories have found the results less than satisfactory. Charles Friend, of Canada’s National Research Council, told Marketplace, a consumer affairs programme: “You can get fantastic mileage if you’re prepared to de-rate the vehicle to a point where, for example, it might take you ten minutes to accelerate from 0 to 30 miles an hour.”
He would have ended up in a concrete coffin, never to be heard from again. The oil Billionaires wouldn't have allowed his interference. Don't be naive.
Once upon a time, I went through the math on the otto cycle (I said "carnot cycle" earlier - WRONG! I meant otto cycle!) and found that it was 35% efficient at best. Also went through the diesel cycle and came up with 45% efficient. As you state, the cycle efficiency has nothing to do with how much of the energy was extracted from the fuel of choice - it was based on the physics of the cycle itself. Once upon a time, I could do the calculations as a matter of course - haven't done it in YEARS - a clear case of "use it or lose it" here - (memory is perfect- it's the I/O which is shot - LOL) - sigh!
BTW, an interesting site for folks who want to look at the various engines and cycles is at http://www.rawbw.com/~xmwang/GUIdemo.htm. It's got some decent "action graphics" illustrating each.
Regarding the CCV engine - hmmmm! Roger your coments about light car and underpowered; the engine was not commercially successful, as I recall, DUE to it's lack of performance, and I thought this was in great part due to the relatively long time it took for the "stratified charge" process (that "preburning" chamber I mentioned) to work. The main point here is that there WAS something to be derived from a process which supported more efficient combustion which, in turn, released more energy from a given "burn".
I'm definitely NOT talking about increasing the efficiency of the cycles involved, nor violating laws of physics; in fact the ONLY thing I'm espousing here is a means to get more of the energy out of a given volume of petroleum-based fuel than is now being done. Here, again, I've "lost" the math, but there is an amazing amount of energy in gasoline, and this is why inefficient use of the fuel still gets decent results in current systems.
Even if an otto cycle is 35% efficient at best, 35% of X is less than 35% of (X + "delta"), "delta" being the additional energy available in the fuel which is not currently being extracted. Perhaps my tongue got in front of my eyeteeth and I couldn't see what I was saying - or typing - *SMILE* - and it didn't come out correctly! My contention is nothing more than "vapor burns more efficiently than droplets of liquid, more efficient burning allows release of more energy, and more energy released yields more miles per gallon." Too simple, right? I don't see "perpetual motion" or violations of laws of thermodynamics or physics here.
Thanks for taking the time to describe "where you are coming from" in this discussion. I absolutely understand, and even concur with, your position, as I stated in opening sentences of this post. I still wish a vapor-based "carburation" (right word?) system would be developed, but the times it has been tried, petroleum companies have apparently either bought the innovators out or strong-armed them (rumor of a guy in houston who was murdered over this issue because he wouldn't sell - please note I said "rumor" - I do not consider myself susceptible to conspiracy theory panics - LOL!).
Two losses from total energy that could possibly be attributed to mixing are incomplete burning - not all fuel has a chance to burn before the power pulse is past (and this is true whether the fuel is in vapor or fine droplet form), and heat of vaporization. The heat of vaporization is a nit, and the only ways to get more complete burning are to lean out the mix or run the engine slower. Leaning out the mix too much causes detonation, not good for power or engine life, and running the engine slower doesn't fit with traffic too well. I guess you could have a 12 speed gearbox, but the cost of this would probably outweigh any fuel savings over the life of the car.
I guess that running the engine on O2 rather than air would speed up the kinetics of the flame front, but this would get kind or pricey, and who would want to drive around in a car with a tank of lox and a tank of gas? Not me.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.