The basic idea about the engine is to add two strokes to a standard gasoline combustion engine. When the work-stroke is finished, normally the hot gasses are blown out of the engine, where after new gasoline purified air is sucked in. Instead of blowing all the hot gas out, one could try to expel two third while the rest is trapped an party compressed again. Then when the piston is at the top dead centre (TDC), one should try to inject a little of water, witch will immediately evaporate. Water becoming steam expands 1600times, so using the heat builded up in the compressed exhaust gasses and in the cylinder wall, one can make form the water steam and generate a extra power stroke. When the engine is again at the bottom dead point (BDC), it will expel normally the ‘steamed’ exhaust gasses.
Advantages
- It gives a second power stroke for each combustion so fuel efficiency is instantly almost doubled for equal power output.
- The immediate incorporation of this system into current production vehicle is possible since there is no real new technology that must be incorporated into the vehicle or the manufacturing process.
- Since the steam stroke greatly cools the internals of the combustion chamber, one can now realistically incorporate serious lean burn technology such as a modern version of a Poughe carburetion system without melting down the internals.
- It is not dependant on rare element technology such as hybrid drive systems.
- It does really add weight like hybrid systems.( efficiency and weight are dependant, the more weight the more energy it takes to motivate the vehicle )
- It can be incorporated into diesel engines as well as gasoline engines. And what most forget, it can be applied to aircraft engines as well as cars and boats.
Problems
Of course a lot of problems will be encountered in the design, but three major problems arise before any designing can be done;
- No injector exist witch can inject water at those pressures as required. Common used diesel injectors cannot resist water, as they need diesel to lubricate. Even water with additives is not good enough (dixit Bosh-motor sport) as the injectors will immediately start to corrodate.
- The engine will first need a heat-up phase, because when cold starting the engine, it will not have already enough heat build up to evaporate the water.
- The temperature loadings in the cylinder will cause complex thermal cycles and probably causing increased wear to piston and cylinder surfaces.
Is the idea feasible ?
To the question where one can gain efficiency and thus energy in a normal combustion engine, there is a very simple answer; the cooling system and exhaust heat. A look on the graph below shows high energy losses in both these systems.
Figure 1Engine losses
At a first idea, one would say that only the heat going into the cooling system could be recuperated by the water drop, but some of the exhaust losses can be used either.
As the water will have to evaporate, and to make this as easy as possible, it will be brought to 90° using the exhaust heat by a heat exchanger. Then the water will flow to the the cylinder mantle, where the exhaust heated water will also heat the cylinder chamber in order to keep the cylinder warm, and get the most of the heat out as possible as it is evaporating.
Nothing can be brought against the principle once the engine is warm and working well. Problem will be the cranking of the engine in cold state.
