Scientists Claim Major Leap in Engine Design 775
An anonymous reader writes "Purdue researchers say they have made a major advance in the design of the internal combustion engine, one that could seriously boost fuel efficiency and cut emissions. A key portion involves building intake and exhaust valves that are no longer driven by mechanisms connected to the pistons, a departure from the way car engines have worked since they were commercialized more than a century ago. 'The concept, known as variable valve actuation, would enable significant improvements in conventional gasoline and diesel engines used in cars and trucks and for applications such as generators, he said. The technique also enables the introduction of an advanced method called homogeneous charge compression ignition, or HCCI, which would allow the United States to drastically reduce its dependence on foreign oil and the production of harmful exhaust emissions. The homogeneous charge compression ignition technique would make it possible to improve the efficiency of gasoline engines by 15 percent to 20 percent, making them as efficient as diesel engines while nearly eliminating smog-generating nitrogen oxides, Shaver said.'"
Killed in "development"? (Score:1, Insightful)
Nothing new (Score:3, Insightful)
The big difference here is that finally someone realizes we can do that independent of crankshaft, pistons, and cams.
It's a simple concept really, monitor your engine and control the valves on solenoids digitally and you can achieve monumental performance, efficiency, and emmission improvements. It's really just a matter of making the concept cost effective to produce.
Nah (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What will they do with this efficiency, though? (Score:5, Insightful)
Reminds me of a play we had to read in 1960s grammar school about nuclear war. Big scary Atom Bomb threatens everybody, but he is driven away by Atoms for Peace (the script called for a costume kind of like lady liberty, complete with torch, except white instead of green). You see Science was bringing us limitless power, and that was going to eliminate poverty. Since nobody was poor, nobody had a reason to fight.
Lipstick on a pig (Score:5, Insightful)
Put the effort into other forms of energy and we'll be a lot better off a lot more quickly.
Re:Killed in "development"? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:So it's glorified Variable Valve Timing, then (Score:2, Insightful)
"The new method would eliminate the mechanism linking the crankshaft to the camshaft, providing an independent control system for the valves."
Providing precise valve control without using camshafts is a fairly big leap in engine tech for your average car or truck.
Re:I RTFA yesterday when I saw it on the Firehose (Score:5, Insightful)
They may not have solved any of the actual implementation issues, nothing in the article said they had.
I don't wish to belittle their design ideas - but it is usually very difficult to go from a revolutionary engine design to an operational engine. A good example is the Stirling Engine, great design - difficult to realize.
I wish them luck - but not going to hold my breath for this one.
Re:So it's glorified Variable Valve Timing, then (Score:5, Insightful)
1. Scientist develops an improvement in an old but unused technology.
2. Nobody had ever heard of the old technology, so they can't explain the new stuff until they explain the old stuff.
3. The press writes about the old stuff, not realizing that it's not news.
Plus bonus step 4: scientist, trying to ensure that grants continue, points out that eventually there's a major improvement to be made, which the press promptly presents as "imminent".
You see this all the time on Slashdot, especially in conjunction with solar-cell stuff. There's news there, but it's not what the press is talking about, because the actual news is less interesting.
Re:Killed in "development"? (Score:5, Insightful)
Your Tinfoil hat is on too tight again.
Re:Nah (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Lipstick on a pig (Score:5, Insightful)
No matter how much carbon dioxide an internal combustion engine emits, the fuel consumption will still be carbon-neutral if it's running on biofuels.
We have a huge fueling infrastructure that is not simply going to go away overnight, and internal combustion engines will be here (on Earth) for a long, long time to come. Making them more efficient is probably a good idea.
Same old same old... (Score:2, Insightful)
No mod him -1 bugger eating moron. (Score:3, Insightful)
He didn't even bother reading the summary which points out that this might raise the efficiency of gas engines into the range of diesels. (RTFS)
He also didn't bother doing any research on the relative amount of diesel consumed in the USA vs Gasoline.
Like I said a moron.
Re:Nah (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Nah (Score:5, Insightful)
Every guy who buys a land barge drives it around feeling like the Big Man About Town, but to everyone else on the street he's either invisible or just a dickhead who doesn't give a rat's ass about the environmental cost of what he's doing. Seriously, do you ever see someone driving past in a new Hummer and say to yourself, "Wow, I really admire whoever's driving that beast. I'd like to be his friend!". If he was a slob or an idiot before, he's now a slob or an idiot with an SUV.
Nobody cares. It took most of my life and a fair amount of wasted money to finally learn that.
Re:Nah (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I RTFA yesterday when I saw it on the Firehose (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Nah (Score:5, Insightful)
(Damn I love wikipedia!)
Re:Pretty Low I Would Say ... What Motive Is There (Score:3, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Nah (Score:2, Insightful)
Until they roll over, because no American drivers are trained to handle heavy, high-CoG vehicles...
American SUV stupidity just makes me want to bash my head against a wall. The vehicles don't do ANYTHING well, at all (except tow loads heavier than 99% of owners will ever need to tow), and yet all the sheeple think they're the best things on the road, because all the other sheeple think they're the best things on the road.
They're unsafe, slow, can't handle, can't stop, don't have much interior space, are hard to load and unload, don't do well off road, and cost half again as much as more capable cars and vans. Ugh.
Re:Nah (Score:5, Insightful)
6 people died near here in February.
Don't tell me what kind of vehicle I don't need.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYs7AP8UPic [youtube.com]
http://outdoors.webshots.com/album/556944959vklPk
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNe
Re:I RTFA yesterday when I saw it on the Firehose (Score:2, Insightful)
The top-end racing cars use pneumatic valves. There's no float, because all the movement is positive, i.e. no "let the spring push it back to rest", but rather "push in the air to open, suck out the air to close".
And in response to the sibling posts: sure, they only run for 200-500 miles at a time, but they run at very close to the absolute limits of the engine the whole time. Also, many of the top-end racing leagues have a limit on the number of engines a car is allowed to go through per season; to my understanding, most of those numbers are in the very low single digits.
Re:So it's glorified Variable Valve Timing, then (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:What will they do with this efficiency, though? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Nah (Score:5, Insightful)
SUVs are basically very mediocre at everything, because other vehicles best them in every category: fuel economy (any car), passenger capacity (vans and minivans), performance (most cars), handling (any other vehicle), towing (pick-up trucks), cargo carrying (trucks again), etc.
Most SUV owners would be much better served by having two vehicles instead of trying to have one vehicle that does everything (poorly). Need to carry cargo or tow stuff sometimes? Get a used, cheap pick-up. Need to carry lots of people sometimes? Get a used, cheap minivan. Need 4WD because of bad weather? Get a Suburu.
Re:Nah (Score:4, Insightful)
I appreciate the severity of the blizzard and am glad you got home safely. But an all-wheel-drive car with good snow tires would have done the same job. If you were caught off-road, you would have had a much better chance with a Wrangler or short-wheelbase pickup. Your experience doesn't change the fact that other vehicles do everything SUVs do much better.
Re:Nah (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Nah (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Nah (Score:0, Insightful)
Seriously, anyone who even remotely resembles this is going to be put off by the sheer absurdity.
Hmm, are you trying to make up for your tiny penis by spouting off this kind of absurd nonsense?
--
Look, I'm anonymous!
Re:Nah (Score:3, Insightful)
I see that kind of behavior more often from people driving smaller vehicles.
Re:Nah (Score:3, Insightful)
Sure, a pickup can tow better than my Blazer or my Jimmy, but how comfortably can you pack four passengers into an S-10 pickup?
Sure, any mid-sized sedan can fit four passengers, but not comfortably (three in the back seat sucks) and how much of their stuff can you fit in the back?
A compact or a hybrid will get much better gas mileage than any SUV but if that's your sole deciding factor, why not get yourself a moped?
Most SUV owners would be much better served by having two vehicles instead of trying to have one vehicle that does everything (poorly). Need to carry cargo or tow stuff sometimes? Get a used, cheap pick-up. Need to carry lots of people sometimes? Get a used, cheap minivan. Need 4WD because of bad weather? Get a Suburu.
I can comfortably afford to maintain and pay for one vehicle, not three. How about you?
LK
Re:Nah (Score:1, Insightful)
You must not live in an area that gets snow. I'd much rather take my chances driving home than to be stuck in an empty parking lot all night. I have been stuck for hours in snow in a rear wheel drive vehicle and I have been able to get home in a four wheel drive vehicle, I prefer the latter.
LK
Re:Nah (Score:1, Insightful)
Maybe it's just you. Seriously. Take any sociology 101 course and they'll prove you dead wrong. Material wealth does have a bearing on status including the kind of mate you attract. Maybe you were rubbing elbows in the wrong circles or you're just that much of a dick. Who knows?
the next time you go for an interview and an employer asks what kind of vehicle do you drive don't think it's because he's interested in your environmental stance. It seems you still have a ton to learn.
So much for the "insightful" around slashdot.
Re:What will they do with this efficiency, though? (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah, and the scientists who developed silicone breast implants thought they would be used by breast cancer victims who'd had mastectomies and just wanted to look normal again.
Well, I'm sure they had some idea, but that was the intent at least.
Re:I don't see anything new here (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Nah (Score:2, Insightful)
I do think there's a place for them (say, if you are in a band and haul a lot of large equipment, and live in a snowy area where 4wd is useful, and you occasionally drive back into the woods behind your house to haul brush... that combo makes an SUV pretty attractive). But hell, if you are going to walk around calling yourself a truck, then ACT like a truck is supposed to, and be more respectful of cars on the road, and don't friggin' drive in the passing lanes, and don't go into garages with 7 foot clearances and tight turns, and don't park in parking spots designed for normal cars... aw hell, I could go on and on.
To sum up: I CARE! But I do think most people who drive them are dicks, particularly Hummers.
Kind of funny, though, that the really big dicks get Hummers...
Re:Nah (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:you're right..... freakin tax loophole (Score:3, Insightful)
Now when you consider the law was there for farmers, you have to consider what the law does. It classifies medium duty and heavy duty vehicles a little differently then light duty and so on. But An SUV is definatly necessary for a farmer even in the passenger state. You see, Farmers are more likely to have a family then most small car envirogreen people are. So when they need to load up the kids and goto the feed store, they need room for the kids. When they load up the trailer and haul cattle to market or take the livestock to shows, they need a place for the family to to ride without having to follow in a separate car using twice as much energy, oil, wear and tear on the roads, and maintenance.
Have you ever attempted to fit a 5 year old, A 2 year old in a car-seat, your wife and yourself into the front of a pickup truck? You may be fine riding in the back, but I don't think the kids will be. Especially in 20 degree (f) weather or rain.
The law is intended to allow the vehicles to have power to haul things, tow things, and get things done efficiently. Sometimes people other then farmers need to do this. Sometimes people who will never do this want to be able to if ever neccesary. Sometime people want the room, ground clearence and everything associated with an SUV that makes the cars weigh too much under the light duty standards. If an SUV get half the fuel economy of a car, then the people are paying twice as much in fuel taxes as your small car is. We live in a free society, Why should we stop someone from buying something that isn't anymore dangerous then other cars or doesn't hurt anyone when used properly?
Re:Nah (Score:4, Insightful)
I have big tires with deep lugs on my pickup truck. I can usually pull all wheel drive cars out and get them unstuck in 2 wheel drive just because of this. The snow when you frame or even ground effect s(spoiler) starts dragging, it acts like a plow and builds up in front of the vehicle while your driving. When it is doing this, it compacts and almost turns into a block of ice. Once this is so big, it wedges under the vehicle and has the same effect as trying to pop a large curb on a slippery surface. If you catch it soon enough and don't dig tire depression into it, OR sit on it letting the warmth of the tires melt one in it, you can usually back out of it and drive around the blockage until it happens again but you have to watch out for other cars in the process.
While this doesn't happen often, you can look at the ground clearance of your car, the lowest point will hit first and sometimes that is less then 4 or 6 inches on smaller cars. That means as little as 2 inches of snow with drifting can strand you. With an SUV, you usually have twice as much clearance and and more weight driving the tires to solid pavement better when spinning for traction. They can usually last a lot longer. But you can be fooled into a false safety and get stuck there too. I have 14 inches of clearance from the differential points on the axles of my pickup truck. After that, the low spot is 20 inches to the ground. I don't have to worry about that and quite frankly, I'm not driving in 10 or 15 inches of snow. But If you out in the middle of nowhere, sometime you need to drive in 4 or 6 inches of snow just to get somewhere safe.
An SUV, if it has the ground clearance, can go further then an all wheel drive car, sometimes even in 2 wheel drive.
Re:How do you work the valves? (Score:3, Insightful)
So borrow/rent a proper towing car when needed.. (Score:3, Insightful)
You'll tow better/easier and you won't be driving around in a monster for the rest of the year.
New Design?! Where?! (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Nah (Score:3, Insightful)
It's a sad feedback loop:
1. U.S. dealers don't think we want useful cars,
2. Useful cars aren't available,
3. We buy crap cars,
4. Goto 1
Hmm: "making them as efficient as diesel engines" (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Nah (Score:4, Insightful)