An interesting gasoline engine improvement

formatting link

> Startup Working to Commercialize Direct Injection Ethanol Boosting + > Turbocharging > 25 October 2006 > Ebs1 > Ethanol boost with turbocharging promises a cost-effective means to obtain > high fuel efficiency in gasoline and flex ethanol/gasoline powered engines. > > MIT scientists and engineers earlier this year founded a company?Ethanol > Boosting Systems, LLC (EBS)?to commercialize their work on direct-injection > ethanol boosting combined with aggressive turbocharging in a gasoline engine. > (Earlier post.) The result is a gasoline engine with the fuel efficiency of > current hybrids or turbodiesels?up to 30% better than a conventional gasoline > engine?but at lower cost. > > EBS has a collaborative R&D agreement with Ford, and anticipates engine tests > in 2007 with subsequent licensing to Ford and other automakers. If all goes > as expected, vehicles with the new engine could be on the road by 2011. > > The foundation of the approach is the enhanced knock suppression resulting > from the separate, direct injection of small amounts of ethanol into the > cylinder in addition to the main gasoline fuel charge. > > Efforts to improve the efficiency of the conventional spark-ignition (SI) > gasoline engine have been stymied by a barrier known as the knock limit. > Changes that would have made the engine far more efficient would have caused > knock (spontaneous combustion). > > The injection of a small amount of ethanol into the hot combustion chamber > cools the fuel charge and makes spontaneous combustion much less likely. > According to a simulation developed by the MIT group, with ethanol injection > the engine won¹t knock even when the pressure inside the cylinder is three > times higher than that in a conventional SI engine. Engine tests by > collaborators at Ford Motor Company produced results consistent with the > model¹s predictions.
Reply to
Just Facts
Loading thread data ...

MotorsForum website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.