This looks promising. It is basically a continuous combustion wave turbine. While not super powerful in this early design and not intended to replace a V-8 it can be brought to market for a hybrid vehicle application soon, according to the researcher. See the video below. While they’ve got a focus on CO2 for the usual reasons, I’ll take increased efficiency any day.
Schematic model of a wave disk engine, showing combustion and shockwaves within the channels. Source: Michigan State University.
Researchers from Michigan State University have been awarded $2.5 million from the Department of Energy’s ARPA-E program to complete its prototype development of a new gasoline-fueled wave disc engine and electricity generator that promises to be five times more efficient than traditional auto engines in electricity production, 20% lighter, and 30% cheaper to manufacture.
The wave disc engine, a new implementation of wave rotor technology, was earlier developed by the Michigan State group in collaboration with researchers from the Warsaw Institute of Technology. About the size of a large cooking pot, the novel, hyper-efficient engine could replace current engine/generator technologies for plug-in hybrid electric vehicles.
The award will allow a team of MSU engineers and scientists, led by Norbert Müller, an associate professor of mechanical engineering, to begin working toward producing a vehicle-size wave disc engine/generator during the next two years, building on existing modeling, analysis and lab experimentation they have already completed.
Our goal is to enable hyper-efficient hybrid vehicles to meet consumer needs for a 500-mile driving range, lower vehicle prices, full-size utility, improved highway performance and very low operating costs. The WDG also can reduce carbon dioxide emissions by as much as 95 percent in comparison to modern internal combustion vehicle engines.
From ARPA-E
The Wave Disk Generator revolutionizes auto efficiency at lower vehicle costs. Currently, 15% of automobile fuel is used for propulsion; the other 85% is wasted. A Wave Disk Generator hybrid uses 60% of fuel for vehicle propulsion.
MSU’s shock wave combustion generator is the size of a cooking pot and generates electricity very efficiently. This revolutionary generator replaces today’s 1,000 pounds of engine, transmission, cooling system, emissions, and fluids resulting in a lighter, more fuel-efficient electric vehicle. This technology provides 500-mile-plus driving range, is 30% lighter, and 30% less expensive than current, new plug-in hybrid vehicles. It overcomes the cost, weight, and driving range challenges of battery-powered electric vehicles.
This development exceeds national CO2 emission reduction goals for transportation. A 90% reduction is calculated in CO2 emissions versus gasoline engine vehicles. Wave Disk Generator application scales as small as motor scooters and as large as delivery trucks, due to its small size, low weight, and low cost. This technology enables us to radically improve the atmosphere and human health of major global cities.
Last week, the prototype was presented to the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA), this video was released:
We have tried several engine designs in the past, Wankel rotary, Gas turbine with a centrifugal compressor by Rover in the UK, and all ahve suffered from excessive fuel consumption. (I had a Ro80 and sub teens mpg was the best I could get).
This may have the same problems. Lean burn, pioneered by Ford, is good but frowned on by the UK Government due to the projected loss of fuel tax revenue.
Gary Mount says:
April 11, 2011 at 8:02 pm
Justa Joe says:
” Most obsolete rubbish still in production.”
in reference to the lycoming engine.
The lycoming engine offers good aerodynamics for aircraft though the fuel efficiency might not be the best. Its horizontal piston layout provides good sight past the nose cone for the pilot as apposed to say the radial engine or a V engine.
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I never said that the lycoming engine was obsolete rubbish. Ralph did. We were discussing late model American automobile engines, and then he brings up the Lycoming engine as an example? Actually if the Lycoming engine is still in production it must be serviceable in some niche application(s). Fuel efficiency isn’t the #1 priority for every engine in existence.
This is a load of crap right from the word go. First of all modern piston engines are 25% to 35% efficient not 15% as the article states and that number is still going up.
This engine’s efficiency only exists in a computer model. In a computer model a piston diesel engine is 56% efficient. Compare that to the disk wave engine’s theoretical 60%. In reality modern diesels attain 35% and the new TDI diesels are probably pushing 50%.
The bane of this engine will be the same as all other rotary internal combustion engines. The Wankel is a case in point. Nobody can make a rotary seal that lasts for long under high temperature and pressure. Carnot’s law bites them in the ass every time they try. The maximum efficiency of any heat engine is determined by the difference between inlet and exhaust temperature. That’s why you get better fuel economy in the winter. That’s also how inexpensive add-on nitrous oxide systems boost the efficiency of gasoline engines – they super-cool the fuel-air charge before it enters the combustion chamber.
Diesel engines are more efficient because of the way the fuel-air mixture is ignited. Diesel has a lower self-ignition temperature such that it can self-ignite from adiabatic compression of 25:1 and it burns slower & cooler. Therefore the engine runs at a lower RPM, cooler, and with a very long stroke which makes everything last longer. Gasoline explodes under compression-ignition at significantly higher temperature and pressure. Therefore gasoline engines must be short stroke, low compression for a non-explosive burn, and ignited by a spark.
The spark ignition is the efficiency killer. Igniting the fast burning mixture at a single point means you have combustion starting at one point and progressing through the mixture all the while the combustion chamber is enlarging as the force of the expanding gas is extracted as mechanical force. Timing this perfectly is nigh on impossible under all the varying conditions. Computers and electronic fuel injection help a lot but they still can’t get it done as well as a diesel engine. You see, in the diesel combustion chamber the fuel ignites all at once everywhere for a slow perfectly uniform burn that can push for a long time into a larger volume which translates into a lower exhaust temperature. This is where Carnot’s law comes into play – even though the diesel combustion temperature is lower than gasoline the diesel’s exhaust temperature is lower by a greater amount – and the name of the heat engine efficiency game is getting the greatest difference in temperature between inlet and exhaust.
This wave disk engine might be a little better than spark ignition. If I understand correctly compression is achieved by centrifugal force and a shock wave ignites the fuel along a wave front so instead of a single point of ignition you get ignition along a wave front which is still not everywhere all at once as in diesel ignition but should be an incremental improvement over spark ignition. There’s still nothing that can be done about gasoline’s explosive nature. So even if the theoretical efficiency is greater the life of the rotary seals is still going to be its Achilles Heel. The appeal of rotary engines has never been about efficiency but rather about simplicity. Unfortunately the rotary seal problem has never been overcome and it certainly isn’t for a lack of trying.
Just sayin’…
Correction to my last:
I said difference between inlet and exhaust temperature is what determines maximum efficiency. I should have said the difference between combustion temperature and exhaust temperature is what matters. In Carnot’s general law for heat engines this is referred to as the hot side and the cold side.
Gary Mount says:
April 11, 2011 at 8:02 pm
“The lycoming engine offers good aerodynamics for aircraft though the fuel efficiency might not be the best. Its horizontal piston layout provides good sight past the nose cone for the pilot as apposed to say the radial engine or a V engine.”
Nonsense. You could point the V downwards and get better sight clearance. Even better sight clearance would be an inline configuration pointed downwards. Boxers (like the Lycoming) have a natural dynamic balance that is only matched by inline-6 and V-12 configurations. The advantage of natural dynamic balance includes fewer main bearings and longer bearing life but the critical thing for aviation engines is the boxer requires no balance shaft or counterweights which means they are a much lighter weight engine.
My first thought as well. They really haven’t cured that premature seal wear problem in the Wankel after 80 years. This thing looks like the surface speeds will be plenty faster and the rigidity of the vane structure to carry the seal is going to be far less.
Looking how thin the vanes appear to be, I think it is safe to say that the heat problem for them is going to be something in the realm of what a gas turbine has to deal with which means exotic materials, coolant oil vias, and then then you have to seal them on top of all that running with no lubrication. They have be sealed well enough for start up but then not seize as they expand from all the heat.
I’m from Missouri on this one, it might end up working but still find itself on the scrap heap like the Chrysler gas turbine car 50 years ago.
If this has really gotten gov’t funding, it’s already beating the last revolutionary (rotary valve? opposed-piston? I forget which scam it was) engine design presented here, which only scammed private investors out of their money. (Even though in that case, the folks who made a career out of continously being just a few years away from production actually put their (notorious) own names on the scam, and were successful regardless).
Personally, if I was some combusting fuel, I’d blow through that no-compression pinwheel in the first picture as straight as possible, bouncing of the left convex bit and then the right convex bit causing nary a hint of net revolution.
Turbines in cars? old news.
Can you imagine coming up with this idea, honestly believing you’re on to something, and then never make a prototype?
Obviously there are some ideas that need massive infrastructure/$$$ to make even the slightest protoytpe (e.g. nanotech), but even novel circuitry that would have to go on a microchip to achieve its absolute potential can be prototyped with discrete components or programmable logic to show the relative improvement the innovation produces.
You’d think the university in question (though the nearly-not-accredited bit suggests they are merely the US marketing outlet/$$$ inlet for the Polish brains behind the operation) could have loosened up a few thousand $ for machining a small protoytpe to see if there’s any truth at all to the theory, before spending time to draw more pictures, make non-prototype videos, and beg for a grant.
Of course, getting the grant shows their strategy, though it sounds nutty, worked.
Do you have to have special connections to get that much money for that little actual realism in your proposal, or are the grant writers really that easy to convince?
Does anyone know if they have built ANY kind of a working model? This is reportedly a product of a school of engineering…engineers just go ahead a build things, they don’t just talk about them. Plastic models don’t count with me. I have trouble believing that the engineer Mueller is serious without a running model. Who gives a boiled peanut about the theoretical stuff….have they built even a rough-and-ready working version? — that at least burns fuel and spins?
If not, I would have to label this ‘press release science’ and relegate it to ‘Popular [Pseudo-] Science Magazine’.
>>Dave Springer says: April 12, 2011 at 7:45 am
>>the critical thing for aviation engines is the boxer requires no balance
>>shaft or counterweights which means they are a much lighter weight engine.
You could have fooled me. The Lycoming is the most rattling, vibrating, thirsty, ancient and unreliable engine to have ever graced the front (or back) of an aircraft. Give me a modern car engine any day.
.
hey guys:
this is the money making part of the whole thing. the publicity to pull in investment capital. i would expect that these people know that this thing will never work but it looks shiney enough to pull in money.
its just like the investment business. the only sure way to make money in investments is to sell books on how to waste your money and if they do well enough hold seminars at $1000 a head to listen to you bull@ur momisugly#$% the rubes.
C
“”””” Dave Springer says:
April 12, 2011 at 7:45 am
Gary Mount says:
April 11, 2011 at 8:02 pm
“The lycoming engine offers good aerodynamics for aircraft though the fuel efficiency might not be the best. Its horizontal piston layout provides good sight past the nose cone for the pilot as apposed to say the radial engine or a V engine.”
Nonsense. You could point the V downwards and get better sight clearance. Even better sight clearance would be an inline configuration pointed downwards. “””””
Well they actually used to make inline inverted aero engines, and inverted V 12s as well. Funny thing is that the Merlin, and especially the Griffon engines in the WW-II Spitfires, all had the Vee up, even though it created considerable visibility problems for the pilot; specially with the larger Griffon engine. The visibility problem was mostly a taxiing problem, as they wouldn’t tolerate a lot of combat limitation of visibility. There are lubrication headaches that go with head down engines.
However the Napier Sabre Engine of the Hawker Typhoon, and Tempest fighters, was a boxer; a horizontal H 24 cylinder engine having two over and under crankshafts. But it used sleeve valves also, which changed the head gear a bit. The Napier Sabre-7 engine, was the most advanced piston engine ever put into an aeroplane.
It will never come to market. The high priests of AGW cannot allow it to survive, so they will come up with some excuse to kill it.
Ralph says:
April 12, 2011 at 11:45 am
“The Lycoming is the most rattling, vibrating, thirsty, ancient and unreliable engine to have ever graced the front (or back) of an aircraft. Give me a modern car engine any day.”
It rattles & vibrates because it has a 6 foot propeller chopping the air instead of a machined flywheel inside the engine case.
It is noisy because it doesn’t have a muffler.
It is thirsty because it’s usually producing 75% of its rated power when it’s in the air.
It IS ancient. It is NOT unreliable.
Mike M says:
April 12, 2011 at 7:48 am
“Looking how thin the vanes appear to be, I think it is safe to say that the heat problem for them is going to be something in the realm of what a gas turbine has to deal with which means exotic materials, coolant oil vias, and then then you have to seal them on top of all that running with no lubrication. They have be sealed well enough for start up but then not seize as they expand from all the heat.”
The easy fix for the lubrication problem is to put oil in the gas like you would with a two-stroke motor. Simplifies things a lot except perhaps the emissions system. Maybe the EPA will give it a waiver of some sort like they do for motorcycles.
JFA in Montreal says:
April 11, 2011 at 11:07 am
“This is very similar to the Quasi-Turbine developped by a Quebec physicist, Gilles Saint-Hilaire, PhD several years ago.”
Quasi Turbine? Is he the Sikh Indian cousin of Quasi Moto? Just a hunch….. };>)
It’s a mistake to dissmiss it out of hand, or compare it to the IC engine.
Instead of mechanical compression, it uses a “shock wave”, which in itself could increase both combustion efficiency and decrease emissions.
But even as a gearhead, I can’t make much of the diagrams.
surely i welcome the new developments in rotary engine,. However i am coming with new type of rotary engine having compression, ignition, expansion and exhaust just as in normal I C engine, but in my design just the piston is missing, still it works as rotory engine. Now it is being fitted in 950 Kg saden car and is under trial.
Will soon come up with new design and will prove India is the best
Harry Bergeron says:
April 12, 2011 at 7:00 pm
“It’s a mistake to dissmiss it out of hand, or compare it to the IC engine.
Instead of mechanical compression, it uses a “shock wave”, which in itself could increase both combustion efficiency and decrease emissions. But even as a gearhead, I can’t make much of the diagrams.”
Think of it as a jet engine with compressor, combustion and turbine all on the same disk, or as a turbocharger compressor with two combustion sections in the middle.
I have trouble with the claim that it is more efficient than, say, a diesel engine. Jet engines or gas turbines pack a lot of power into a small space, but are not as efficient as a piston engine such as a diesel. But if they are that efficient, we’ll see a lot of them.
I have developed new type of rotary engine having compression, ignition, expansion and exhaust just as in normal I C engine, It is piston less and it works as rotory engine. Now it is being fitted in 950 Kg saden car and is under trial.
Any body Interested may contact me on 919825041633
Claim “A 90% reduction is calculated in CO2 emissions versus gasoline engine vehicles.” CO2 is a normal product of combustion for hydrocarbon fuels. The only way to reduce CO2 is to reduce the amount of fuel consumed. But to reduce CO2 by 90% would require a 90% reduction in fuel consumed, but that’s much better fuel efficiency than even the professor claims.
No working model? Wake me up when you have one.
Michigan state started as an agricultural school. That’s why it is sometimes referred to as Moo U.