SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Next Big Future reports:
Liquid Piston gets more DARPA funding for 30KW engine 30 times smaller than todays engines
DARPA has awarded LiquidPiston an additional $2.5 million to continue development of its 30kW X4 rotary diesel engine prototype, bringing DARPA's total funding of the engine technology to $6 million.
When development of the fully packaged engine is complete, the 30kW X4 engine is expected to weigh just 30lbs and fit into a 10" box, while achieving 45% brake thermal efficiency – approximately an order of magnitude smaller and lighter than traditional piston diesel engines, and also 30% more efficient. The efficient, lightweight, and powerful rotary Diesel/JP-8 X4 engine offers a disruptive power solution for direct as well as hybrid electric propulsion and power generation.
Seems we get a story about a wonderous alt-energy breakthrough every week that never pans out, can the humble Diesel engine be reinvented to become the "next big thing?"
(Score: 4, Informative) by Hartree on Thursday July 05 2018, @05:20PM (14 children)
The chemistry department I work for is doing lots of research for DOD on improved batteries and the EE department here at the same university is doing it for motors.
The military is (and has long been) highly driven toward this because every gallon of fuel you don't use is one you don't have to source, store and deliver to whatever remote area you're operating in.
Mankind will be running internal combustion engines for a long time yet no matter what else happens so investigating better ones seems a good idea to me.
(Score: 4, Informative) by mcgrew on Thursday July 05 2018, @06:13PM (13 children)
Mankind will be running internal combustion engines for a long time yet no matter what else happens
That depends on your definition of "a long time." If ten years is a long time (it's a really long time when you're 20), then yes, they'll be around for a long time. But I'd bet in twenty years you'd be hard pressed to buy a new vehicle that isn't electric.
Trucks especially, because of an electric motor's superior torque. In fact, railroad trains are electric using electricity from an on-board diesel generator, because no IC engine has anywhere near enough torque to haul all that weight. Electricity is better in almost every way.
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 5, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Thursday July 05 2018, @06:17PM (5 children)
I'd be willing to bet that the military is one of the last groups to give up their fossil fuels. Sure, they'll have alternatives, but if the hydrocarbons make for more effective logistics and battlefield effectiveness, they won't be giving it up just because crude sells for $1000/bbl.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Friday July 06 2018, @12:49AM (4 children)
Diesel electric? For the same reason as trains, tanks surely are better to run on diesel electric (maybe they already do?). And presumably trucks etc will just follow commercial.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday July 06 2018, @01:30AM
They started subs with Diesel electric in WWII, I'm sure if it was "better" they'd be using it by now.
Me, personally, I'd rather not be locked inside an armored tin can with a giant lithium ion battery while people shoot hot stuff at the can.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Friday July 06 2018, @04:13AM (2 children)
Whoa! 30 fucking kilowatts?! Man, that's a lot of power. Hey, wait a minute...
Wah-wah-waaaaaahhhhhh!
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Friday July 06 2018, @08:50AM
Not sure whether you meant to reply to my comment, but I found a better reason for tanks to use direct transmission (rather than electric generator) - that is that tanks have a clutch. I know nothing, so some cuttypastey from wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diesel_locomotive [wikipedia.org]
> As opposed to steam and electric engines, internal combustion engines work efficiently only within
> a limited range of turning frequencies. In light vehicles, this could be overcome by a clutch. In heavy
> railway vehicles, mechanical transmission never worked well or wore out too soon.
and
> In a diesel–electric locomotive, the diesel engine drives either an electrical DC generator (generally,
> less than 3,000 horsepower (2,200 kW) net for traction)
Compared with
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Challenger_2 [wikipedia.org]
> 1200 bhp (895 kW)
> Gearbox: David Brown Santasalo TN54E epicyclical transmission (6 fwd, 2 rev.)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 06 2018, @04:41PM
Without knowing what engines are 30 times the size (or what is included in the 10" box: cooling system? fuel tank? starting system?), it's hard to say.
I'd assume they're talking about car engines, so since few of those are anywhere close to 40hp * 30 = 1200 hp, that still seems pretty impressive, no?
Or, depending which parts need to "fit into a 10" box", comparable-sized engines today would mostly be 10hp lawn-mower engines.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday July 05 2018, @07:49PM
Except for that storage thing... and, while you can transmit it "conveniently" on metal wires, wires aren't as efficient as tankers either. Then there's the whole "deadly if you touch it" thing.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Informative) by jmorris on Thursday July 05 2018, @08:11PM (3 children)
Eh? Trains ARE run on diesel, you said so yourself. You are simply ignorant of the theory of operation of a diesel electric locomotive, they use the electric drive as a more efficient TRANSMISSION, not as the primary motive force. It turns out that, as you note, locomotives require a lot of low end torque to start moving and that a mechanical transmission to accomplish that conversion was a lot bigger, heavier, more expensive, had higher insertion loss and higher maintenance costs than a simple conversion to electricity driving an electric motor. But the source of the motive power is still diesel fuel, there are no batteries aboard a locomotive beyond a small one to crank the engine.
And the cost to move a ton of cargo by train is so low that it is doubtful any competitor is going to displace the sunk costs of the existing rolling stock before it is all retired at end of life, and they are commissioning new locomotives now so they will be rolling for a very long time.
(Score: 2) by toddestan on Friday July 06 2018, @04:59AM
The counterpoint to that, of course, it what happened to steam. Once the tech behind diesel had matured, the railroads saw the advantage and all converted to diesel-electric almost overnight. A lot of relatively new steam engines ended up hitting the scrap heap because no one wanted them.
That's not to say that we will get a repeat, but the railroads are going to do the math and do what makes the most sense.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Immerman on Saturday July 07 2018, @12:55AM (1 child)
Hmm, you know, that makes me think of a great application for such comparatively tiny generators - hybrid electric cars.
Efficiency would be a consideration, but if you gave a car just enough expensive batteries to handle daily driving (20 miles? 40?), along with a gas tank and cheap generator for those longer road trips you could have a real winner on your hands. Google suggests a Tesla cruising at highway speeds averages about 16kW, so this could easily be recharging the battery on the road almost as fast as it would otherwise deplete - throw a "recharge" toggle switch on the dash and let the driver decide when to consume gas. Plugging in is cheaper, so most people would do it when they could, but you'd always have serious power in your back pocket whenever you need it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 07 2018, @03:23AM
Or, you know, you could buy a Chevy Volt which already does this (plug-in hybrid). I think there is a similar Prius model also.
(Score: 2) by mobydisk on Thursday July 05 2018, @10:13PM (1 child)
Diesel generators are IC engines.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Wednesday July 18 2018, @05:08PM
Yes, but not enough torque to pull a train. The diesel engine runs a generator that powers electric motors.
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org