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In the time where the cost of energy keeps rising, and the energy sources are being exhausted, the world has to realise that it has to be very conscious about the use of the energy sources witch are left. Much research is done on alternative and renewable energy sources like windmills and tidecenters, while people are still spilling with the main energy source of the moment; oil.

That’s why I, who doesn’t believe really that an alternative for oil has already been found at the moment, started to find ideas of how oil could be used in the most efficient way.

For the moment in an internal combustion engine, most of the fuel’s energy is lost into heat. This heat is vented by the radiator, or in the best case used to heat up the internal car at an efficiency of (in the best case) 42% while a major part of the energy is lost. Therefore one has to focus on the gain of energy by using this heat.

By using turbo’s one can gain some energy in the exhaust by using the expansion of the gasses, but this is more used in performance engines, and at small scale this gain of efficiency is lost.

BMW designed a system which gains heat from the exhaust gasses using a steam generator. The weight of the total system is around 150kg and makes a gain of 15% of total engine efficiency.

This project started as a part of the Eco-Runner project of the TU-Delft, and the proof of the pudding is in the eating; this will also happen to the designed engine, as it will run in the eco-runner car. The Eco-Runner project has the goal to drive as far as possible on one liter of fuel. It enters in a very high competition where records are driven of  3765km on one liter of fuel. Although at the moment the engine development isn't a part of this fuel efficient car project any more, due to insurmountable in opinions about the team's heading, the final goal keeps the same.

I would like to thank hereby everyone who has given me the opportunity to develop, on an almost unlimited base, ideas for this engine. Without the people at  PMB workshop at  TU-delft(especially Rene, Peter and Alex), ir.Joris Melkert who gave me the carte-blanche for the design, Prof. ir.van Buijtenen for the assitance and the numerous people I forgot, this whole project wouldn't stand where it is now.

The sections of "Basic idea, Engineering and Manufacturing" are going about the period before April 2007. Now I am trying to keep somekind of diary in the 'actual progress' section.

Ecorunner2 car