| The Multi-Fuel, Silent, Engine Shrinking, Gas Saving, Quasiturbine Engine! |
| Written by Hank Green | ||
| Friday, 23 June 2006 | ||
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Almost every car in the world is run by the exact same kind of engine: The piston internal combustion engine first thought of by a guy named Benz (of Mercedes fame.) Obviously, it's a pretty good design, it took over the world in less than 50 years. But the piston combustion engine isn't the only internal combustion engine in the world, it's just the only one in the world's cars.
While we can hope for electric cars to come into their own, and for fuel cells to become a viable alternative to internal combustion, maybe we should also be thinking about how to make internal combustion better. The quasiturbine engine does that. There's no doubt, it's more efficient, it's lighter, it runs in any orientation, and it can be powered by whatever fuel happens to be cheaper that day (ethanol, methanol, gasoline, diesel, natural gas, biodiesel, even hydrogen.) The engine produces no vibration, is up to 50% lighter than piston engines, and increases efficiency by more than 50%. A car that would get 30 mpg with a piston engine would get roughly 60 mpg using a quasiturbine. A quasi turbine hybrid could get up to 150 mpg. The QT engine (somewhat aptly named, because it is on the Q.T., being mostly silent) is a rotary engine. Check out the graphic below for a pretty simple summary of what goes on in a quasiturbine engine. 
The engine is, obviously, a bit more complex than a traditional piston engine, but it's really not that complicated. There are four steps in the quasiturbine cycle, each either compression or decompression.
First step is decompression, as the engine spins the engine actually sucks fuel into the vacuum created by the previous compression.
Second step, the fuel is then compressed (top part of the image) to prepare for ignition.
Third step, the spark plug fires at the fuel's maximum compression and the expansion of the combustion drives the engine in it's continuous cyclical movement.
Fourth step, the exhaust is squeezed out of the engine as the turbine prepares to suck in more fuel.
It's really an elegant system. There's no crankshaft, no valves, no pistons. All movement is contained inside the engine so lubricant (and oil pan) isn't necessary. The compression of the QT engine also allows for more complete combustion.All this ads up to a highly efficient, light-weight, long-lived engine that burns all of it's fuel and can operate with any available fuel.
So... you're probably wondering why you don't already have one? Car makers, mechanics and engineers have had 120 years to perfect piston engines and the complications raised by the somewhat more complicated QT engine have so far kept it out of the hands of the masses. Don't be surprised, though, if we see QT engines on the road significantly before fuel cells take off. The QT engine won't cure us of our addiction to hydrocarbons, but it might make the transition a bit easier.
Comments
(9)
Not sure if this will work in practice
written by a guest , June 27, 2006
Sounds awesome!
written by a guest , June 29, 2006
Hopefully an automaker will actually have the good to make a car with one of these...
In response to comment 1: The currently available (and highly successful) Mazda RX8 runs on a Wankel engine.
have the good >> have the good sense
written by a guest , June 29, 2006
Whoops...
Interesting, but more efficient?
written by a guest , July 08, 2006
I don't think this engine would be more efficient than a wankel. There are more moving parts, more seals, and greater swept sealed area than a wankel.
Wankels are notorious for poor fuel efficiency and all sorts of lubrication issues. For instance, a piston engine slops the lubication back into the sump for re-use, hence the need for a sump down orientation with the pistons up (typicaly angled in a vee or vertical in an inline engine). Wankels tend to burn the lubrication and spew it out the exhaust, which is why Mazda took a few years between the RX-7 and RX-8 -- to address these issues. It's still not fully ddresses, but is mch better. This (and the Wankel) are basically two strokes, and the same problems plague them that plague two strokes. J
Oh, and...
written by a guest , July 08, 2006
Those funky combustion chambers will be extremely inefficient for flame propogation, regardless of fuel. There would also be issues with carbon and other combustion byproducts munging up those complicated joints.
I'm not saying it's not possible to address these issues, but the effort would take a lot of work.
...
written by TJ , January 04, 2008
i have been studying this engine for 3 years now and as far as i have seen, comparatively speaking due to the design you won't have the problem of vibration that the wankles have. the compression potential would make a high end diesel look like a low compression engine. those two points alone would put it at the top of the game. piston engines are near the bottom - relatively low power due to weight, number of parts that need to be at the right place at the right time. diesel engines - more power, but higher maintenance, still a lot of parts that need to be at the right place at the right time. wankel - improved on the piston till you have to start replacing seals from the vibration. quasi - compact, the only moving parts center themselves to put everything where it needs to be, compression thats off the charts, power thats only limited to the compression you set the engine to. compatible with about any fuel on the market, evens runs on compressed air. its an engine you can completely teardown and rebuild in less than an hour, run on any fuel you like - gas, diesel, hydrogen, cooking grease, if it lights and causes expantion it will run it. wheres the down side again.
...
written by TJ , January 05, 2008
External Combustion
written by DS , January 21, 2008
While this story is a breath of fresh air, it is not new. We have had access to this technology for quite some time, in fact, the original reciprocating engine designed was a sterling engine that functioned from external combustion, heating and cooling gas in the cylinder. This engine design is even more efficient with external combustion as an inert gas sealed in the chamber provides the necessary force to enable this motor design. This is technically an external combustion design, not an internal combustion design. It promises much greater fuel economy, while at the same time, elevated performance and durability. It operates best as a steady state motor, meaning that if the engine revolutions per minute can be raised to an optimum level and sustained throughout operation, it's efficiency as a tool for transportation is enhanced. Hybrid technology married with this design and the core for the conversion of fuel to energy should be the focus for this design and could be intergral to mass adoption. Frankly, I can't wait for the performance gains. To me, economy is the side benefit and not the other way around
Backing it up...
written by DS , January 21, 2008
Just an afterthought, but if you really want to know about this technology, you need to visit this site:
http://quasiturbine.promci.qc.ca/qtusa/ | ||
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That being said, I'd love to have one if it works.