Axial vector engines

[Blake Sobiloff]

I just caught wind of this new engine design. Pretty interesting! In a nutshell:

• no crankshaft
• sinusoidal camshaft
• six double-ended pistons (12 cylinders)
• piezoelectric valves,
• piezoelectric fuel injection,
• oil cooling only (no radiator),
• elimination of piston rings,
• self-starting engine (no conventional starter),
• ceramic cylinder sleeves,
• plasma ignition
• flexible fuel (diesel, JP5, JP8, natural gas, propane or gasoline)
• requires synthetic oil

The initial engines weigh less than 100 pounds and produce 205 HP with 650 ft-lbs of torque! They also claim the engine is 40% more fuel efficient than comparable conventional engines.

Too bad they're looking at electrical generation as their first market. It'd be nice to see something this innovative in a car or truck.

 

[oilyriser]

That's kinda neat, because you could change the profile of the the roller coaster cam thing to make the pistons move in a non sinusoid if you wanted to. And it doesn't necessarily have to use hydraulic valves. You could add a 1/2 speed shaft and another roller coaster cam thing to operate the valves.

 

[robbobster]

That is too cool.
And I don't even think I understand how it works.

 

[Shannow]

It's just a reharsh of the swashplate engine developed (by Mercury ??) during the 60's.

It's still a neat idea, and could be very well packaged in comparison to traditional designs.

 

[NJC]

Still smells of "fishing for your (yes, eventually YOU) research dollars"

All kinds of sooper technology could work, just at what cost. We'll build a H2 fuel cell powered car that will emit nothing but water vapour but ... um, there's nowhere to fill your 25bar tank and the cost is $800K.

 

[Bob Woods]

It looks like they started with a wobble plate hydralic pump or motor, like the difference between a Roots compresser and an axial flow compressor. No Crankshaft but the sinewave cam works like one.

 

[Al]

Color me skeptical. If it were 10% as good as they claim..Honda would have already paid 10 billion for it and 1000 of their best engineers would be busy designing installations on their entire worldwide vehicle line. Honda's stock would be at about 1000 bucks right now. (Not the $3.50 that Axial Vector is trading at on the OTC) Good info though.

[ January 10, 2006, 09:02 PM: Message edited by: Al ]

 

[Shannow]

The swashplate engine has certainly worked in the past, both in Otto cycle and in Stirling Cycle. Sleeve valves were very popular and functional as well.

I like the design, but like the Sarich orbital engine(which was never going to be viable due to seal length/unit volume problems), I think this will have some innovations that get applied to "normal" engines, and not really be the world beater.

 

[Schmoe]

Hey, we could all go and use Sterling engines too.

 

[oilyriser]

They're going to be spending a lot of time working on those cam followers. You'll need rollers top and bottom, slightly tapered so there's no sliding friction. The clearance will have to be set very carefully to prevent shock loads on the rollers. I'm not sure there will be less friction in this design, but it might be lighter. Put one on a motorcycle.

 

[Al]

I agree oilyriser. I don't see less friction and I don't see the system as durable.

 

[bar1]

Here is a Norwegian variant, the Sinus engine