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MIT Researchers Test More Efficient Engine: Reduces fuel consumption by 25%

technologyreview.com — A new version of the internal combustion engine, which could significantly cut gas consumption, might be

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maheshee11 1 year 18 days ago, made popular 1 year 18 days ago

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Error601, on 10/10/2007, -2/+4It sounds like you could pull it off with just a programming change if you already have variable exhaust valve timing. I don't know how many engines have that at this point.
- mogus, on 10/10/2007, -2/+3I think that's right. A brief read of the article seems to say that the only difference is in the timing of the exhaust valve. I know that there are vehicles with variable valve timing, just not sure if they're computer controlled or not. If you could use the same fuel, it's not a bad idea.
  - adrianmonk, on 10/10/2007, -0/+0The article also says that a conventional engine creates a partial vacuum at the intake to the cylinder in order to ensure the right fuel/air ratio but that this new type of engine does not need that. So there would also need to be a way to control the vacuum in the intake manifold, at least from what I understand.
- Brian48216, on 10/10/2007, -1/+4most cars with Variable Valve timing do so with different cam profiles. As far as I know, most cars don't have an infinitely variable valve timing, only a number of varying cam profiles which are selected to optimize performance across the RPM range.
  
  I think if you had valves that worked with computer controlled solenoids instead of cam/spring arrangements, then you could do the programming change
  - mogus, on 10/10/2007, -1/+2I think infinitely variable timing would be the key to success in this case. It could even be a fairly simple control circuit; just have a cylinder pressure sensor, and then have a feedback loop that would adjust exhaust valve timing to achieve the minimum amount of chamber vacuum.
    - sv650touring, on 10/10/2007, -1/+2Infinitely variable valave timing is basically the holy grail of piston engine design. I read Lotus Engineering was working on a system, but I doubt it will be in regular cars any time soon. Once it happens though, expect engine power curves and fuel efficiency to both improve dramatically.
  - NSMike, on 10/10/2007, -1/+3Yeah, but if you're using a base-plate of pre-fabulated amulite, surmounted by a malleable logarithmic casing in such a way that the two spurving bearings were in a direct line with the panametric fan, wouldn't the lineup of six hydrocoptic marzelvanes fitted to the ambifacient lunar wane shaft have to be retrofitted so that side fumbling can be effectively prevented? I mean, the main winding, of the normal lotus-o-deltoid type of course, placed in panendermic semi-boloid slots of the stator would have to be connected to every seventh conductor by a non-reversible tremie pipe. Otherwise the side fumbling will be transmitted to the differential girdlespring on the ‘up’ end of the grammeters.
    - alienasa, on 10/10/2007, -1/+1That was the funniest thing I have read all day :D
- DrDabbles, on 10/10/2007, -1/+2To reply to all of you at once, Valve timing is variable. In fact, iVTEC is an infinitely variable system, as is that in my Subaru. In theory. In reality, controlling this with any kind of servo or other electronic actuator would be rather difficult, since there are extreme forces at play, vibrations, and extreme heat.
  
  Having said all that, this motor is not new in any manner. The concept is very old, there are several renditions of it, and engines have actually been produced in the past. Why not put them in cars? Because you need to have a service infrastructure in place to make it work.
  
  One of the more popular alterations to this engine is to open the exhaust port every other cycle, or something to that effect. This means the combustion chamber stays hotter, which means you burn the fuel more thoroughly, and therefore need less fuel to produce the same amount of energy. The problem with that is detonation.
- kcasper, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1This can't be done with a programming change. The details you are missing is that the gasoline and air is mixed then compressed until it ignites. The difference between this and diesel engines is that the gas isn't mixed with fuel before injection in a diesel engine. This is a low heat detonation. Most of the energy is used up in the force and little goes to making a short lived heat wave that typically goes with igniting unmixed fuel or sparking the fuel as in common gasoline engines.
  
  This is not a new technology. There are already developed very expensive engines out there that use this for specialty purposes. The problem with this technique is that the force of denotation is a LOT HARDER on the engine. Those researchers have probably seen cracked engine blocks while researching the subject.
jmpeagle, on 10/10/2007, -3/+3hahaha kevin rose was on 2 of the ads when I oped that up. Apparently he is speaking at an MIT conference.
- Ramble, on 10/10/2007, -2/+2I've been wondering why. The people at MIT are supposedly smart yet Kevin Rose is really just an average person.
  - Stratochief66, on 10/10/2007, -3/+5Perhaps an average person intellectually, but he is a successful entrepreneur.
Dumbledorito, on 10/10/2007, -8/+38No, no, no. Increasing fuel efficiency is impossible without sacrificing safety and basic constitutional freedoms. The oil and car companies told me so!
- Error601, on 10/10/2007, -15/+3Always a brainless ***** for any subject.
  - Dumbledorito, on 10/10/2007, -3/+12Indeed, thank you for filling the role.
    
    And if you actually paid attention to the debate any time CAFE standards are brought up, you'd see my statement is accurate, even though it's rife with sarcasm.
    - CaptTruth14, on 10/10/2007, -1/+2You are CORRECT!!!
      The gas Company has a "RIGHT" to sell us old technology that would be EASILY REPLACED. I've seen engines that run on the hydrogen from water.
      NO EFFICIENCY THERE, the $$$ wouldn't transfer to gas co.'s bank account!!!
      
      CAPT
- gtluke, on 10/10/2007, -8/+2then why is volvo (owned by ford) doing this research?
  idiot
- FredFredrickson, on 10/10/2007, -4/+6Because Volvo doesn't make Hummers or Suburbans...
- NinjaBoy, on 10/10/2007, -1/+18I swear 75% of the digg users couldn't spot a joke to save their life.
fpcyber, on 10/10/2007, -1/+1It's too bad this doesn't work under low or heavy loads. Awesome nonetheless.
- Error601, on 10/10/2007, -1/+1The purpose is to get rid of the low pressure situation when running at low power so it wouldn't make any sense for it to work at high power.
  - adrianmonk, on 10/10/2007, -0/+0If it could eventually be made to work all the time, that would have one advantage: you could eliminate complexity and the engine could have fewer parts.
    
    I don't know if you could ever get to that point, though, because it's hard to imagine how such an engine would start. It seems to require existing heat to get going. I suppose you could pre-heat some air with an electric heater and use that or something.
    - geminitojanus, on 10/10/2007, -1/+1Or you could just start it basically the same way you start a diesel, turn the thing over with an electrical starter until some of the fuel detonates and starts the combustion cycle.
      - adrianmonk, on 10/10/2007, -0/+0But this type of engine seems to require heat from previous combustion to bring the new fuel/air mix up to temperature where the combo of temperature and pressure will allow it to combust.
griz, on 10/10/2007, -5/+1Now we just need a hybrid version of one of these and we will start to see 100MPG+ cars.
- Ramble, on 10/10/2007, -2/+3No we won't. All the motors and batteries required for the hybrid will make the car too heavy and you'd probably have to switch back to using conventional spark plugs.
- brstilson, on 10/10/2007, -2/+4Actually, more like 200 mpg Mopeds.
- ForkySpoony, on 10/10/2007, -2/+2All of the batteries? It's not a hybrid electric. Just one battery will be needed.
- adrianmonk, on 10/10/2007, -1/+0Would the two technologies mesh well? I suppose it depends on whether you are talking about a serial or parallel gasoline/electric hybrid.
  
  According to how I understand it, a gasoline engine's efficiency varies according to its load, and this technology helps it get better efficiency at loads where the efficiency isn't great. But the way a serial gasoline/electric hybrid works, it is always running its gasoline engine at the most efficient load and RPM (since the engine only turns a generator), so this technology probably wouldn't help there at all.
  
  On the other hand, maybe it could help with a parallel hybrid. I don't know how a typical load for a parallel hybrid differs from a load from the load an engine sees in a conventional car. A hybrid has smaller engine, so is it under a high load more of the time? Or is it more complicated than that?
krnldmp, on 10/10/2007, -2/+5An incremental change to a nearly obsolete technology.
- fivestarsoul, on 10/10/2007, -1/+1are you saying fuel is obsolete? as long as theres money coming in from it, its not going to become obsolete, no matter how old the technology is.
- mightyzug, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1he is saying that for a bunch of 'geniuses' these MIT nerds are ***** retarded for thinking this would be some kind of breakthrough. we have diesel engines that operate just as cleanly and get better gas mileage than this thing ever could hope for. so why waste time trying to improve on technology that will be obsolete very soon>>
lincolnluxor, on 10/10/2007, -2/+2I kinda get it but I don't at the same time. Regardless I don't care. 25% is a lot!
insanebrain, on 10/10/2007, -2/+1High Octane ??
- beavioso, on 10/10/2007, -2/+1You probably wouldn't want High Octane. It seems like a modification of a diesel engine, where engine knocking (ignition due to compression) is not a problem, and in fact you want it. Diesel's use Cetane ratings, so:
  
  High Cetane ??
  - aposter, on 10/10/2007, -1/+0Cetane is a fancy name for hexadecane. A hydrocarbon with 16 carbon atoms. gas is rated in octane which has 8. If I remember right the "octane" rating of standard 40 cetane diesel is around 120 or so. They simply guage how hard it is to autoignite the fuel. One compared to 100% octane molecules, and the other to 100% hexadecane.
sensoukami, on 10/10/2007, -4/+12This is another fine example of why the "oh no, the Earth is running out of resources" Chicken Little the sky is falling Malthusians just don't have a clue.

The one inexhaustible resource we have is human ingenuity. A resource is becoming scarce? Find more, use less, use more efficiently, find sustitutes. All best achieve through the price mechanism and profit motive. Government could improve that process by aligning incentives better (I'm a fan of pollution taxes, for instance). But the base process is pure market capitalism.

The stone age ended before we ran out of stone, the Iron Age ended before we ran out of iron, the Oil Age will end loooong before we run out of oil.
- smitting, on 10/10/2007, -3/+1You are probably right about humanity progressing to something else before we run out of oil. But if we did run out of oil before the end of the oil age, human ingenuity may not be exhausted, but will be greatly inhibited from the following collapse of modern society. Then again, even moving to a new source of energy won't make any guarantees on that point.
  - sensoukami, on 10/10/2007, -2/+1I hear what you're saying. The thing is, oil just doesn't "run out" one day. It will "run out" slowly, over the course of years. As the wells run dry, price will go up (and up and up). This price pressure will get people to change their behaviour (switch to hybrids, more efficent cars, biofuels, etc...).
    
    Most people's analysis on issues like this one collapse because they are making straight-line static extrapolations. We are a dynamic species. We adjust to changes in our environment. Rising oil prices due to decreasing supply are just a change we will adapt to....
- vertinox, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1Your right, but someday we'll have to solve the problem of Heath Death (look it up) and we aren't sure any amount of technology or capitalist economics can solve that one.
  
  But to be fair, we'll have to solve that issue of ice ages, large body impacts, and the sun dying before we get that far.
  
  But yeah... Someday it will all be gone... Just not any time soon.
mprender, on 10/10/2007, -0/+5The Coates CSRV engine looks fairly promising as well:

http://www.coatesengine.com/products.html
- Dougman82, on 10/10/2007, -1/+2I remember reading about this concept a few years back. It does look quite promising, especially in that the power required to drive this system is like 10% of what is required for a standard valve train.
- brad3378, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1At this point it just looks like eye candy to me.
  Until they can convince me that their rotary valves seal as well as traditional poppet valves and don't wear out, I'll remain skeptical.
  How will they react to thermal expansion? How well do they seal? Etc.
  
  If it's such a good design why don't they just put a video of a running prototype on YouTube.com ?
vancelethurin, on 10/10/2007, -7/+1Why doesn't Ford Motor Company just relese that device that can make a gas guzzling Cadillac get 100+ mpg whch, by the way, they bought from a man in Tennessee for several million bucks and made him promise to keep his mouth shut and not sell any more of them. This happened aroung 30 years ago...you'd think that with the world worried about fuel efficiency, they'd release it; but NO, they wanna make themselves and the oil companies more capital before the energy crises comes. Those FRIGGIN' MONEY SUCKING BASTARDS!

-----funny articles by vancelethurin------
http://www.gomestic.com/Do-It-Yourself/17-Things-You-Can-Do-with-Beer.30408
- Azuroth, on 10/10/2007, -1/+1I know that guy!!! That's the same guy that discovered that the moon landings were filmed in a Hollywood sound studio. He also was the one who convinced the Roswell aliens to come to earth, then shot them down with his experimental super efficient space laser. Furthermore, he discovered that Kermit the Frog isn't really green. He's actually blue but they photo shopped him green so he would be "more television friendly".
vivalibre, on 10/10/2007, -3/+1Fuel economy, blah blah. Where is my Bose suspension system??? http://www.bose.com/controller?event=VIEW_STATIC_PAGE_EVENT&url=/learning/project_sound/suspension_challenge.jsp
- LogicBomB, on 10/10/2007, -1/+1Firstly, bose is total garbage. Ever heard the expression "no highs, no lows, must be bose?"
  
  Secondly, see firstly.
feckineejit, on 10/10/2007, -1/+1any engine will consume less gas if you keep the RPM s low enough.
MuadDave, on 10/10/2007, -1/+1"Under some conditions, it can reduce fuel consumption by 25 percent...."

Yeah, like laboratory conditions.

The exhaust valve timing requirements would almost certainly require electromechanical valve actuation, which is a totally cool thing in it's own right. With it you can eliminate the timing belt, camshaft, lifters, pushrods, etc. If you go that route, and you get infinitely variable intake and exhaust valve control.

Instead of going with HCCI, you could just leave the intake valve closed and the exhaust valve open on 1/2 the cylinders under light loads, essentially letting them 'freewheel' instead of requiring any gasoline at all. (Or fire 1 cylinder per 4-stroke cycle, a different cylinder each time.)
- jerbaker, on 10/10/2007, -1/+1Doesn't Cadillac already do this?
- HappyScrappy, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1GM cars already do cylinder deactivation, they first did it in the 80s. Honda, Chrysler and Mercedes do it too.
  
  It doesn't have the same effects as HCCI.
SilverBlade2k, on 10/10/2007, -2/+1I wonder how much the patent holding will sell this to one of the oil companies for...
HiddenCanuck, on 10/10/2007, -4/+1Don't make me give up the American lifestyle.

and don't mess with texas.
trustyconker, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1It seems like a good idea for industry, but it's high time that average consumers stopped using gasoline and its jarring that MIT, who should be leading the alternative fuel developments are busy working on gas. What would happen if these brilliant guys pooled their minds on making photovoltaic cells more efficient?
- mightyzug, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1or if they worked on something worthwhile like biodiesel :P
pyrates, on 10/10/2007, -1/+2And I bet the car companies will use this to make their engines more powerful and slightly better at fuel efficiency instead of being 25% better at fuel efficiency. Because marketing likes the engine being more powerful instead of being more fuel efficient.
maeon3, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1Most of the energy in a gasoline cycle is wasted as heat. Just recapture the waste heat, turn it into steam for an additional stroke for 40% improvement in all rpm's.

Google six stroke engine.
HappyScrappy, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1This article is junk.

HCCI doesn't reuse old gases, air that has been burned has less oxygen and can't be used again. They completely miss how it avoids making a vacuum.

Additionally, I despite MIT jumping on this crap and attaching their name when companies have been working on this for years. Japanese companies have been working on it since the 80s.
Grumps, on 10/10/2007, -2/+2Less comsuption = less sale. If the Oil company could pull off a war in Afghanistan and Iraq, what makes you think they cant just kill those researcher. Isnt the government good with sudden accident?
loki1983, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1this idea has been around for several years.... not worthy of front page. gm's been working on this for a while
mightyzug, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1lame, lame, and lame
sumgi, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1Sounds like they're just making it more likely you will have to pay the dealer to fix it, most likely right after the warranty is up. Let's move on to electric drive trains that have only one moving part and no friction. Why continue with an industry based on a high friction, high heat system that makes money by selling you replacement parts? Why not build cars that are reliable and build our industry around cars that are plug and play and completely free to change to meet the customers needs? That way rather than have dissatisfied customers that must come to you because their car no longer runs, or because it's another 3000 miles and the oil needs changing you only see customers when they want the latest GPS unit or the newest in car computer installed. Lets move on and leave the heat engine behind.
brad3378, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1I'm an Engineer and I've been keeping a watchful eye on this project.

Here's a link with more details directly from MIT's website:
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2007/engine-0723.html

Unfortunately, this technology is only good for "a few MPG" and not the 25% figure quoted above.
fixedcoma, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1i've been waiting years to see someone actually show how much energy is really wasted from gasoline engines. Lets not forget about all that wasted heat and pressure!!!
- Error601, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1Pick up the specs for your engine of choice and stop waiting.
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MIT Researchers Test More Efficient Engine: Reduces fuel consumption by 25%

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