http://www.autoweek.com/apps/pbcs.dl...FREE/302270007

Click the link above or reference...

I think Bruce Crower is really onto something here. With tweeking and fine tuning I could see this as being a usable solution to some of our fuel woes, and even may let us use ultra high compression methanol motors and have a real chance of getting off the opec oil tit.

I wonder what the operating conditions and limits are...Hmmm


What do you guys think?

 

sounds really good, I need to read it a few times for it to really sink in

 

Thats a fairly decent article and the idea is certainly sound, but i think there will be a few issue.

I will guess his 6 cycles the first 3 are the same and then you recompress the exhaust gas inject saturated liquid water undergo a steam based expansion by transfering energy from the exhaust gasses to the water and then you vent the steam on the 6th stroke.

My thoughts are he's going to have one hell of a time keeping the thing together, liquid water is never good for the hot side of a power plant with moving parts, and when something goes wrong with any part of the controls of the system you will end up with a cascading catastrophic failure. I'd have quite a bit of concern with rings staying lubricated, and long term durability. For example you drive home from work and park this 6 cycle machine where does it quit in the cycle, with steam waiting in the chamber to be expelled, and it condenses and cools over night to liquid water which has a tough time getting out of the cylinder and on the next (suggested high compression) stroke you get on the edge of or into a hydraulic situation.

Also depending on your exhaust conditions. put a tubrine on the exhaust to drive a generator and charge the batteries in a hybrid version, and bump the efficiency more.

Another thing is, even though articles can have many sorts of errors etc, I dont feel like he's using the type of vocabulary of somebody who would be entirely capable of engineering a thermodynamic system like this, but i'll give him the benefit maybe he's dumbing it down. If i'm wrong i'd love to see his numbers on the thing, the operating temperatures and pressures would certainly be interesting to say the least.

 

You're worried Bruce Crower is incapable of engineering something? You must be one heck of an engineer yourself.

I think that may be the most revolutionary thing to happen to ICEs since the Wankel engine (though hopefully more useful). I kind of want to build one now.

How hard could it be to make a basic version? Add a fuel system to a diesel motor and modify the cam gear to spin 50% slower?

Hmmmm

 

Comparing something to the Wankel isin't saying much.

I'm going to agree that if this was worth something we would see them running someplace.

Bret

 

 

There is more technical info on it somewhere, I'm not sure where but I have a customer that is an engineer and it was in some magazine he gets.

I don't see how water is going to work or steam......won't steam strip the oil off the cyl? Alot of it I don't think will work. How can you open a vale twice in a revolution? at high rpm it would be so hard to control.

Would be easier with a separate valve for the water.....I don't see whay you could not still run a traditional cooling system as a back up. And how much water will you need? You have the dead weight of that.


It should work good in small stuff, lawn mowers, cement mixers stuff like that. I don't see it working in a car. Gas power has been pretty much the same for 100 years now.......I don't think we will live to see anything liek this ever work

 

Actually I take my original comment back i found an article with a more scientific example, He seems to have a pretty good handle on thermodynamic thinking and actually intends to send the steam to a condenser and resue it.

http://www.popsci.com/popsci/technol...cbccdrcrd.html

The article in the op seems a little bit off compared to it. This one has a diagram of the process.

Edit: Even this process seems to be pretty dependent on complete cylinder evatuation. Its new and I think a relevant idea to look at.

Supposed to be a 3 valver.

 

It just struck me as one of those "why didn't I think of that!" things. It's so dead simple in theory but will prove to be a bear to figure out. Bruce Crower is one of the people I would have the faith in to figure it out though. Kinda like (but not quite) Smokey in that regard, and it just sounds like something that a by the book engineer would question too much and therefore not even attempt it.

I wish him all the luck in the world with it. I can easily see it working too, given the temperatures generated. I doubt you would ever see liquid water in the bore though since it would flash to steam explosively, and every surface it came into contact with would be red hot (relatively) so it wouldn't have a chance to do any damage to the metal surfaces. They've known how to make metal surfaces live in a steam engine for what, a couple hundred years now? I'm sure it could be worked on this as well.

The thing I am most interested in seeing is what kind of cyl pressures are generated by the flashed steam. I'm sure it can be worked out mathmatically, but I lack the mad math skillz to get the numbers. Any takers?

 

I'm interested in seeing how it works in a multi-cylinder engine...

 

The first four are the same.

 

It's supposed to run for 30 seconds without water before shutdown.

 

Yeah that's how I read it, that you vent the exhaust and then inject the water, I guess to limit the contamination of the water for re-use.

 

"Today, Crower Cams and Equipment Company employs about 160 people in five facilities, and manufactures not only cams but crankshafts and connecting rods—including titanium rods for (unnamed) Formula One customers. "

DAMN! Ferrari got a great deal there! <-assumption.

What happens if you lose water somehow? Catastrophic overheating?

 

I would imagine you would have big ping problems due to running diesel high compressions with gas.