- Oct 22, 2014
- 23,072
I saw this on the attached video. Instantly, my mind wondered. How it might be used in a sailboat.
New Engine Design. What could it do for a boat?
- Thread starter jssailem
- Start date
It looks like a rethink of the old steam engine adapted to combustion fuels. Of courses, smaller and lighter is going to have a positive impact on a sailing vessel. The greater power of a two-sided combustion chamber would help in driving a larger prop at a slower rpm for better displacement driving power.
The engine shape also would fit well into the keel line of a boat. Is it quiet? Not having any rotating parts, it seems like vibrations would also be reduced, but I don't know. That's a lot of back and forth movement that has to be converted to rotational output. Perhaps a vertical orientation inside the keel would be a good arrangement.
-Will
The engine shape also would fit well into the keel line of a boat. Is it quiet? Not having any rotating parts, it seems like vibrations would also be reduced, but I don't know. That's a lot of back and forth movement that has to be converted to rotational output. Perhaps a vertical orientation inside the keel would be a good arrangement.
-Will
It would make a perfect anchor.
Why go back to a new type of IC engine when the world is trying to going forward with electric engines. Not very well in some cases I'll admit when we use dirty electricity, but if we can get clean electricity everywhere, we've got it made.
Always the same old problem, it seems too good to be true. Oh yeah, it is.
- Oct 22, 2014
- 23,072
It is not about going forward or backwards. It is about facing the challenges of the various motors and discovering alternatives that resolve the limits of current understanding.
I look at the issue that limits the use of electrical motors on boats as the ability to get power to drive the motor. The present approach is to collect and store power then to consume it with the motor. We are currently limited by the volume of power desired from the amount of storage available. I see diesel engines on a boat an advantage, because I can carry a certain volume of fuel that yields more power than I need for a long period. They are undesirable because they burn fossil fuels. The possibility of this new engine is to increase the performance (stated as 3-4 fold). This is like getting free fuel. Now if this power can be transferred into a method that drives my boat through the water, there is a gain in performance with a reduction in the evil things we want to avoid.
I am thinking that Naval vessels burn fuel oil in boilers to create steam. The steam is used to drive generators. The generators provide electrical power to turn electrical engines. The engines turn the propellers.
What if this efficient engine could produce the power needed to drive an electric motor?
Looks like BS to me. The video is not real so no prototype yet. Also, it doesn't matter that it is configured differently. A heat engine is limited in its efficiency just by the laws of thermodynamics (See Carnot Cycle) and converting to electricity does not improve efficiency. It makes it worse.
- Oct 22, 2014
- 23,072
The specifications on this Elco 40hp electric motor demonstrate the issues faced.
Accessories - Motor Mounts Set (4x) $275.00
Accessories - Female Coupler for motor $268.00
Accessories - Male Coupler for prop shaft $268.00
Batteries - EP-12 Victron AGM Deep Cycle 12V/165Ah (9x) $4,428.00
Battery Charger - EV108-AGM Charger (1x) $895.00
Subtotal $20,129.00
- weight
- power storage
- integration costs
- expense
Accessories - Motor Mounts Set (4x) $275.00
Accessories - Female Coupler for motor $268.00
Accessories - Male Coupler for prop shaft $268.00
Batteries - EP-12 Victron AGM Deep Cycle 12V/165Ah (9x) $4,428.00
Battery Charger - EV108-AGM Charger (1x) $895.00
Subtotal $20,129.00
- Oct 22, 2014
- 23,072
This is not just now discovered idea. In 2016, the company was working with Peugeot to use the push-pull engine design to extend the range of their electric car..
from a Reuters posting.
(Technology | Wed Jul 13, 2016 5:13am EDT Related: TECH
Peugeot tests Israeli range-extender technology in electric car push)
In a rethink of engine fundamentals, Aquarius has pared the range extender down to a single piston that blasts to and fro inside a valveless 600cc cylinder, generating power from electromagnetic coils with each stroke. It delivers more than twice the overall energy efficiency of a typical combustion engine, according to simulations by German engineering firm FEV.
I am not thinking this is a panacea. I am willing to wonder, what could be possible
Yes, but how would its holding power compare to one of the new generation of anchors such as the Rocna or Mantus?
Seems like we need another anchor thread to debate this.
At the proposed 22 lbs. it would be a lot easier to re-power than your typical diesel auxiliary. And you would likely not have to dis-embowel your boat.
Regarding the fossil fuel debate I would say that we are a long way from giving up fossil Fuels. We can, however, use cleaner fossil fuel, like natural gas, pretty much right away. And this engine is another example of an improvement in fuel use efficiency which would reduce carbon emissions. Why wouldn't we do that?
And I'll point out that unless the electricity you use to power anything is produced from nuclear, solar, wind or hydro-electric, you are not saving carbon emissions by using electric - anything.
Regarding the fossil fuel debate I would say that we are a long way from giving up fossil Fuels. We can, however, use cleaner fossil fuel, like natural gas, pretty much right away. And this engine is another example of an improvement in fuel use efficiency which would reduce carbon emissions. Why wouldn't we do that?
And I'll point out that unless the electricity you use to power anything is produced from nuclear, solar, wind or hydro-electric, you are not saving carbon emissions by using electric - anything.
… and how can we use existing diesel engines to secure moorings?
Nikola Tesla had proposed the efficiency of a steam train would be improved if the steam engine were used to maintain battery charge for an electric drive motor. In the case of steam, he was likely correct since the boilers had to be kept hot even when the train was sitting still refilling water, loading passengers or taking on more coal. To convert this extra energy to electric storage meant the boilers wouldn't need to labor on long uphill runs and could stoke the steam engine at its most efficient rate.
Another proposal for electric power generation using steam or combustion engine involved running the heat generating engine underwater to tap the heat to create steam. The heated water surrounding the engine would evaporate and rise up to be collected as condensation at the top of a tower where it would then fall back down while turning a turbine like with a hydro-electric dam. Very clever.
-Will
I think this is very interesting, but the devil is always in the details yet to be worked out for new tech like this. I'd love to have a smaller, far lighter and more fuel efficient generator on my sailboat that's maybe quieter and has less vibration and possibly less maintenance - they purport maintenance only after 1,000 hours (one could hope). But details. Here's an article that says they've sold $5m worth of these things as generators, but while the motor itself is 22 lbs, all in the generator is 10x that at 220 lbs, so the improvement may or may not be substantial over current ones at least in the weight dept. Edit: On another part of their website they give the weight as 160kg, so 352 lbs - wouldn't want that in the port locker. And given the stats in the video, with a range of 750 miles on a 13 gallon fuel tank that yields 57.7mpg. That's really good, but not leaps and bounds better than highly efficient hybrids today. An auxiliary replacement? Maybe; would love to see the concept. Here's the generator article:
Aquarius Engines Receives €5M Purchase Order For Innovative Generators (prnewswire.com)
That said, big organizations see some promise here - they say they've inked an R&D contract with the US Army:
Aquarius Engines Inks Five-Year R&D Contract with the U.S. Army (prnewswire.com)
Aquarius Engines Receives €5M Purchase Order For Innovative Generators (prnewswire.com)
That said, big organizations see some promise here - they say they've inked an R&D contract with the US Army:
Aquarius Engines Inks Five-Year R&D Contract with the U.S. Army (prnewswire.com)
The internet at its finest :
It's a piston engine. How does it exceed any other piston engine on the road for thermal efficiency ? I think the promoters have also re-jigged the Carnot Cycle.
I recently saw on the internet that Bernie Madoff is actually the CEO behind this company.
It's a piston engine. How does it exceed any other piston engine on the road for thermal efficiency ? I think the promoters have also re-jigged the Carnot Cycle.
I recently saw on the internet that Bernie Madoff is actually the CEO behind this company.
- Oct 22, 2014
- 23,072
The Hybrid idea is what seems feasible on a boat. The use of the little engine to generate electrical power for boat electrical use to include power for an auxiliary motor. It is said to be capable of producing 32kW. It would be able to charge a LFP battery. With a fuel based charging source you would be able to have a power charging source that supplemented solar and wind. When north of the 45th parallel this becomes important during 6 months of the year.
No, no. That's how the promoters are controlling him . There's no worry about him ratting you out in a plea deal .
I guess I don't understand where the scavenging/charge gas pressure comes from .. On a regular two stroke, it is generated by the downward stroke of the piston.. I don't see in the animations what powers the "blue" gas to clear the cylinder of exhaust and put in a new charge of air.
- Oct 22, 2014
- 23,072
Reading the material, the claim is Mechanical efficiency.
While Rudolph Diesel, during his invention period, attempted to develop an engine that could reach the "thermal efficiency" limits theorized by Carnot, he realized the goal was unattainable as his attempt to compress the engine air at a compression ratio of 60:1 was beyond the technological capabilities of his time. Had he succeeded the efficiency would have been 73%. He accepted a less than perfect system and succeeded. His first fully functional engine produces 13.1kW and had an engine efficiency (Engine efficiency of thermal engines is the relationship between the total energy contained in the fuel, and the amount of energy used to perform useful work.) of 26%. This far exceeded the 7% engine efficiency of steam engines of the time.
Even with all the advances we have to date, the engine efficiency in a typical small boat diesel is in the 35 to 40% range. The compression ratio of most diesel is between 14:1 and 25:1.
I ask you @Ralph Johnstone, if the state of the current technology is such that diesel engines are not even reaching 50% and the theoretical limit as calculated by R. Diesel was 75%, is there not room for improvement?
Could not someone develop a more efficient boat engine model that is greater than 40% engine efficient?
This is such an interesting debate to follow. It looks almost exactly like one of the many electric engine threads where someone puts forth an idea for going all electric and the posts blow up about how electric is all a shell game and we can't build a clean electric motor.
Now that someone suggests a new, more efficient combustion engine, the posts concentrate on how it can't be more efficient because its a combustion engine and they suffer from heat energy loss... It's so much alike.
It isn't that these points aren't good points, they are but...
Crazy.-Will
If I understand correctly, this engine does not "drive" anything and there is no rotational output to connect to any load. What I saw was a very effecient motor-generator which produces electricity which is in turn used to drive things. Not sure if it make AC or DC but that really wouldn't matter much.
In boats, I could see it being very useful in a series hybrid system where it could product power to run the propulsion motors directly or recharge the battery bank.
I am willing to be a Geni pig and let my boat be used as a test bed.