new kind of hybrid

[MAJA]

quote:

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“The day will come—maybe in the not-too-distant future—when you don’t refer to a ‘gasoline engine’ or a ‘diesel engine’ or a ‘spark ignition’ or a ‘compression ignition’ engine,” Brown says. The engine in question, he explains, will be something of a hybrid. And it will be called an “HCCI engine.” That’s as in “Homogeneous Charge Compression Ignition.”

Apparently, the HCCI engine can be as efficient as a direct-injection diesel engine. Yet it produces little in the way of NOx and particulates (hydrocarbons and carbon monoxide are a different story). One of the reasons why there’s a reduction in particulates is because the charge is well mixed, which is akin to what happens in a spark-ignition engine. Compared to the systems in today’s direct-injected diesels, the injection systems will probably operate at lower pressures, which will keep the costs down. As for the fuel, it could be something of a combination of gasoline and diesel fuel, something that the powertrain insiders sometimes refer to as “dieselene.”

One of the tricky parts of making an HCCI engine work is having precise control over temperature, pressure and the fuel-air mix for appropriate combustion. The one thing that is making the HCCI engine even possible are the burgeoning improvements in control technology.

Time frame? “Easily within 10 years,” Brown answers. “He adds, “The heavy-duty segment of the market will probably see it in five years or less.” (The Mr brown in this is Peter Brown, vice president, Powertrain Projects & Design, Ricardo Inc.)

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Just a topic for everyone to flog. The whole article can be found at:

http://www.autofieldguide.com/articles/010407.html

 

[Mickey_M]

MAJA:

quote:

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..... (The Mr brown in this is Peter Brown, vice president, Powertrain Projects & Design, Ricardo Inc.) .....

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Aha. Articles about some new engine technology or "breakthrough" show up at regular intervals in the trade journals with quotes by Ricardo:

http://www.autofieldguide.com/articles/100404.html

http://www.sae.org/automag/techbriefs_10-99/07.htm

The engines don't materialize.

I've always assumed that these were marketing efforts by Ricardo, which has around 1,500 employees in the US and UK and centers in both countries that do consulting primarily in the automotive business.

http://www.ricardo.com/portal.asp

http://www.npl.co.uk/nmp/case_studies/ricardo1.html

http://www.ricardo.com/pages/englibeasy5.asp

The firm was founded by Harry Ricardo who did pioneering work on detonation and wrote "The Internal Combustion Engine" which was a standard text for 50 years.

http://www-g.eng.cam.ac.uk/125/noflash/1900-1925/ricardo_engine.html

The diesel, Wankel, Stirling, and a host of other engines have been the "coming thing" for at least 50 years, and we're still waiting.

 

[oilyriser]

An electromagnetic servo device could control the exact position of the piston, as well as extract the energy produced, as electricity. This could be fed into an ultracapacitor hybrid electric drive. The engine could be made without a crankshaft, just using the servo device to move the piston up and down. The engine would fire only when needed, to produce the desired average power. Two opposed cylinders would be used, to balance out vibrations.

If the servo device ever fails, things will break, so early designs might want to use a traditional crankshaft, to put limits on piston movement.

This is my own idea. The servo device might be a bit hard to make, since it'll have to generate thousands of pounds of force, and be able to change directions 200 times per second, for 12,000 strokes per minute (6000 RPM equivalent).