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30kW Engine in 30 Pounds? DARPA is Buying the Idea

posted by Fnord666 on Thursday July 05 2018, @04:51PM   Printer-friendly
from the we're-from-the-future dept.

jmorris writes:

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?"

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 05 2018, @09:17PM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 05 2018, @09:17PM (#703251)

    It's a Wankel engine. A guy I used to fly with had one thirty years ago when I was a kid. You can still find them on ebay. Also the Mazda RX-3 (or some number) car used one. Nice car, but expensive to fix.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wankel_engine [wikipedia.org]

    video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCteBhr4dGY [youtube.com]

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 05 2018, @11:33PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 05 2018, @11:33PM (#703298)

    While it is a rotary engine, LiquidPiston’s X Engine is NOT a Wankel engine. It has a fundamentally different thermodynamic cycle, architecture and operation.

  • (Score: 1) by DECbot on Saturday July 07 2018, @07:35PM

    by DECbot (832) on Saturday July 07 2018, @07:35PM (#703889) Journal

    It was the RX-7 and later the RX-8. The 7s could be turbo charged and there were carbureted and fuel injected versions of the RX-7. The RX-8 was only ever fuel injected and there were no after market turbos available.
     
    The big repair cost was flooding the engine. I did it to mine when I moved the car from the driveway to mow. Shutting off the engine when it was still cold would result in flooding. Next time you would try to start it you'd end up damaging the plugs and windings. Unless you have your own garage to work in, it was a $400 USD repair (+tow).
      The other fear was damaging the apex seals on the rotors. I ended selling mine before I had to worry about that.

    --
    cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base