Read what I said again. The article appears to be claiming an efficiency of 150%. IE, it uses 150% of the total energy, not that it's half again as good as something else.RagingNinja said:
New "Shockwave" Engine Design Solves Energy Crisis
- Thread starter Greg Tito
- Start date
Sweet so make a working engine that produces some HP and Torque numbers and compare it to an existing engine and see how the figures stack up.
otherwise color me uninterested in theorycrafting.
otherwise color me uninterested in theorycrafting.
Because obviously car companies would have no motivation to sell cars that use 90% less fuel than their competitors, and it's not like opec nations wouldn't mind cutting production to maintain current prices and have their oil reserves last 10 times longer.BabySinclair said:
Excellent, I'll take ten.
Wouldn't be surprised if this thing gets buried like the Tweel though. How many jobs is this mans engine going to slash?
Wouldn't be surprised if this thing gets buried like the Tweel though. How many jobs is this mans engine going to slash?
Yeah, got that, but that's still producing 10 times the amount of energy, compared to the other engine, right?dakorok said:
And if the other engine is producing 15% of the total possible, which this article seems to be saying (and is in line with what I've heard of current petrol engines), than this one is producing 150% of the total possible energy, right?
I followed the link to the original article, from Newscientist.
I do not see a mention of a 90% decrease in fuel consumption there. Could someone please point out how they came to that percentage?
A quote from the original article:
"The design does away with many of the components of a conventional engine, including pistons, camshaft and valves. This makes it much smaller and lighter than a conventional engine. A car fitted with the new engine could be up to 20 per cent lighter overall, Müller claims. By eliminating losses associated with mechanical components, it will also make cars more fuel-efficient, he says."
I think that pretty much sums it up.
Still a nice invention, though.
I do not see a mention of a 90% decrease in fuel consumption there. Could someone please point out how they came to that percentage?
A quote from the original article:
"The design does away with many of the components of a conventional engine, including pistons, camshaft and valves. This makes it much smaller and lighter than a conventional engine. A car fitted with the new engine could be up to 20 per cent lighter overall, Müller claims. By eliminating losses associated with mechanical components, it will also make cars more fuel-efficient, he says."
I think that pretty much sums it up.
Still a nice invention, though.
Ok, that's pretty cool. Why hasn't this idea been come up with before - I mean, where are the car companies' research funds going?! If it works well enough, it could be pretty sweet, and might even make alternative fuels easier to deploy - hydrogen, for example.
No, the curves in the channels create vectored emissions. Think of how a wind-turbine works, or a water turbine. Similar idea.danpascooch said:
It's about powering hybrid vehicles - the idea being you use it as a generator (he says 25kW, apparently suitable for a utility or goods vehicle though I'm not sure of that) to burn your fuel more efficiently than a traditional engine does, for the purposes of generating electricity that would then be used to drive the electric motors that actually make the vehicle go. Not as a direct driver of the wheels itself. I think an aspect of this system is that it generates little torque - problematic if you're trying to shift a heavy vehicle, but fine for spinning magnets in coils!Greg Tito said:
Using the word percentage, largely depends on the words used in its context.
If Engine A gets 20 MPG and Engine B gets 40 MPG, you can state:
Engine B is 100% more efficient then Engine A. or. Engine A is 50% less efficent then Engine B.
If Engine C gets 30 MPG:
Engine C is 50% more efficient then Engine A.
But I still don't see 150% in this article, only 150 years..
If Engine A gets 20 MPG and Engine B gets 40 MPG, you can state:
Engine B is 100% more efficient then Engine A. or. Engine A is 50% less efficent then Engine B.
If Engine C gets 30 MPG:
Engine C is 50% more efficient then Engine A.
But I still don't see 150% in this article, only 150 years..
The Tweel failed to take off commercially because of limitations openly stated by Michelin on its release. The idea's still around and being used in some (generally higher-level) hardware for which cost, noise, and heat are of less concern (e.g. lunar equipment, wheelchairs, etc.).Shiftysnowdog said:
Car companies have plenty of motivation to sell fuel-efficient cars, but the people in charge of actually distributing the oil have very little salient reason to stretch the supply out and a considerable reason not to; unless there's a background financial deal of which I'm not aware, their income scales directly with total volume (which is constant) and inversely with time (which is not). If you're going to make the same amount of money regardless of how fast you shift your inventory, it makes very little sense for you to sell it slowly to keep a steady stream of reduced income when you have the option of selling it quickly, investing the difference, and living off of the dividends.Istvan said:
...Yeah, good for business, bad for everyone else. >_>EonEire said:
And am I the only one who believes they'd kill the guy if he refuses the bribe, just to keep this kind of tech off the market?