Thursday, May 18, 2006
New And Improved
Its been a while since I posted here, but I saw an article that caught my eye:
Taken from Greencarcongress.com
"A father and son team—Dr. Nikolay Shkolnik, an entrepreneur and inventor, and his son Alexander, a PhD student at MIT—have developed an engine architecture they claim will achieve 50% fuel efficiency (compared to the ~30% of existing engines) and drastically reduce pollutant emissions.
The architecture, based on a patent-pending “High-Efficiency Hybrid Cycle” (HEHC) thermodynamic cycle, borrows elements from Otto, Diesel, Atkinson and Rankin cycles. LiquidPiston, Shkolnik’s company, is implementing the HEHC cycle in a rotary piston engine: the LiquidPiston Engine.
(In April, LiquidPiston was named one of the four finalists in the ECOnomics Environmental Business Plan Challenge presented by GE & Dow Jones. The ECOnomics winner will be announced this month and receive a $50,000 prize.)
The HEHC Cycle. The basic cycle uses a discrete compression chamber, isolated combustion chamber, and expander chamber.
Air (with no fuel) is compressed to a high ratio (> 18) in a compressor cylinder of the engine. The resulting compressed charge is directed into an isolated combustion chamber, where fuel is injected and auto ignites.
Combustion occurs under truly isochoric conditions (volume stays constant) and is allowed to complete until all fuel is fully combusted. The combustion products then expand into the expander cylinder, which has large volume than the intake volume.
Optionally, a small amount of water may be used to facilitate cooling, lubricating and sealing of combustion chamber and pistons.
A small amount of water (an optional component) may be used in the system. Water may facilitate the cooling, lubricating, and sealing of combustion chamber and pistons."
If it ends up getting mass produced, it would be great. The design is not really size prohibitive. The engine could be used in applications from chainsaws to locomotives. ¶ Posted By Anonymous 10:50 PM
Taken from Greencarcongress.com
"A father and son team—Dr. Nikolay Shkolnik, an entrepreneur and inventor, and his son Alexander, a PhD student at MIT—have developed an engine architecture they claim will achieve 50% fuel efficiency (compared to the ~30% of existing engines) and drastically reduce pollutant emissions.
The architecture, based on a patent-pending “High-Efficiency Hybrid Cycle” (HEHC) thermodynamic cycle, borrows elements from Otto, Diesel, Atkinson and Rankin cycles. LiquidPiston, Shkolnik’s company, is implementing the HEHC cycle in a rotary piston engine: the LiquidPiston Engine.
(In April, LiquidPiston was named one of the four finalists in the ECOnomics Environmental Business Plan Challenge presented by GE & Dow Jones. The ECOnomics winner will be announced this month and receive a $50,000 prize.)
The HEHC Cycle. The basic cycle uses a discrete compression chamber, isolated combustion chamber, and expander chamber.
Air (with no fuel) is compressed to a high ratio (> 18) in a compressor cylinder of the engine. The resulting compressed charge is directed into an isolated combustion chamber, where fuel is injected and auto ignites.
Combustion occurs under truly isochoric conditions (volume stays constant) and is allowed to complete until all fuel is fully combusted. The combustion products then expand into the expander cylinder, which has large volume than the intake volume.
Optionally, a small amount of water may be used to facilitate cooling, lubricating and sealing of combustion chamber and pistons.
A small amount of water (an optional component) may be used in the system. Water may facilitate the cooling, lubricating, and sealing of combustion chamber and pistons."
If it ends up getting mass produced, it would be great. The design is not really size prohibitive. The engine could be used in applications from chainsaws to locomotives. ¶ Posted By Anonymous 10:50 PM
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