james t kirk

Don't know if this has been posted before or not. Did a search, and certainly no titles of this came up.

Bruce Crower has lived, breathed and built hot engines his whole life. Now he’s working on a cool one—one that harnesses normally-wasted heat energy by creating steam inside the combustion chamber, and using it to boost the engine’s power output and also to control its temperature.

“I’ve been trying to think how to capture radiator losses for over 30 years,” explains the veteran camshaft grinder and race engine builder. “One morning about 18 months ago I woke up, like from a dream, and I knew immediately that I had the answer.”

Hurrying to his comprehensively-equipped home workshop in the rural hills outside San Diego, he began drawing and machining parts, and installing them in a highly modified, single-cylinder industrial powerplant, a 12-hp diesel he converted to use gasoline. He bolted that to a test frame, poured equal amounts of fuel and water into twin tanks, and pulled the starter-rope.

“My first reaction was, ‘Gulp! It runs!’” the 75-year-old inventor remembers. “And then this ‘snow’ started falling on me. I thought, ‘What hath God wrought…’”

The “snow” was flakes of white paint blasted from the ceiling by the powerful pulses of exhaust gas and steam emitted from the open exhaust stack, which pointed straight up.

Over the following year Crower undertook a methodical development program, in particular trying out numerous variations in camshaft profiles and timing as he narrowed the operating parameters of his patented six-stroke cycle.

Recently he’s been trying variations of the double-lobe exhaust cams to delay and even eliminate the opening of the exhaust valve after the first power stroke, to “recompress” the combustion gasses and thus increase the force of the steam-stroke.

The engine has yet to operate against a load on a dyno, but his testing to date encourages Crower to expect that once he gets hard numbers, the engine will show normal levels of power on substantially less fuel, and without overheating.

Link to rest

http://www.autoweek.com/apps/pbcs.dl.../60222004/1024

james t kirk

Brilliant.

Simple, clean, and 40% potential fuel savings.

Only question would be how much water you have to haul around.

Charlatan

Sounds great, more effeciency means we can make even bigger vehicles that run at the same efficiency at today's SUVs... I can see it now, we will all be driving super-sized hummers with 6-stroke engines.

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cyrnel

Charlatan, what's the problem? It took about two sentences for me to go "doh!" and realize Crower has a great idea. Engineers have been trying to reclaim exhaust waste since the early days of internal combustion. If development works out, and that's a big question, it could really help. Considering our huge (and growing) freight fleets I can't see a downside if he's even slightly successful. (Unless he's senile or meant this for April 1. )

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There are a vast number of people who are uninformed and heavily propagandized, but fundamentally decent. The propaganda that inundates them is effective when unchallenged, but much of it goes only skin deep. If they can be brought to raise questions and apply their decent instincts and basic intelligence, many people quickly escape the confines of the doctrinal system and are willing to do something to help others who are really suffering and oppressed." -Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media, p. 195

Mondak

Well - even if this does not work out, I love people who are driven to solve a problem. Good for him. I hope he does it.

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All truth passes through three stages:
First it is ridiculed
Second, it is violently opposed and
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Etarip

Hehe, gotta love this:
“If it turns out to be great, fine. If it doesn’t, it’s just another year out of my life that I’ve had a lot of fun doing something.”

cj2112

Crower is the man when it comes to cams, so seeing innovative stuff from him excites me. this has the potential to be very big.

Charlatan

Don't get me wrong... if this works I think it's a great invention. My bitterness stems from the fact that engines today are vastly more efficient than what we had say, 20 to 30 years ago. Amazingly enough we are still getting about the same miles per gallon. Why? Because instead of harnessing this added efficiency to achieve actual efficiency, we have opted for bigger vehicles. No reduction in fuel has been realized.

The optimist in my can see how this would benefit the trucking industry and potentially reduce fuel consumption levels across the board.

The cynical side just sees more of the same... even bigger "status" vehicles with no real efficiency achieved.

__________________
"My hands are on fire. Hands are on fire. Ain't got no more time for all you charlatans and liars."
- Old Man Luedecke

james t kirk

It's funny cause the cynical side in me says that he will be bought out by the big oil companies who will bury it.