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Laser Ignition May Replace the Spark Plug
dusty writes "Laser Focus World has a story on researchers from Ford, GSI, and The University of Liverpool and their success in using near-infrared lasers instead of spark plugs in automobile engines. The laser pulses are delivered to the combustion chamber one of two ways. One, the laser energy is transmitted through free space and into an optical plug. Two, the other more challenging method uses fiber optics. Attempts so far to put the second method into play have met some challenges. The researchers are confident that the fiber-optic laser cables' technical challenges (such as a 20% parasitic loss, and vibration issues) will soon be overcome. Both delivery schemes drastically reduce harmful emissions and increase performance over the use of spark plugs. So the spark plug could soon join the fax machine in the pantheon of antiquated technologies that will never completely disappear. The news release from The University of Liverpool has pictures of the freakin' internal combustion lasers."
If it makes cool red lights flash under the hood like KITT, I'm all for it.
Funny may not give karma, but +5 Informative never made anyone snort coffee out their nose.
When the vehicle gets to be a few years old, and the rings start letting extra oil past. Soon the lenses are covered with soot. Sparks can still jump through a moderate layer of soot, can the laser?
This will probably arrive as a viable and reliable technology right about the same time the internal combustion engine is on it's way out.
Don't think fax machine, think FD Trinitron.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
this is typical insane engineering- if this succeeds then a mechanic would need to be an expert in light theory and frickin laser beams to work on your car.
this is not the way to make cars more efficient- spark plugs work great and im sure these lasers cant give any more power - the spark plug ignites the gas already, and it BURNS- how much more combustion could you get? this is not an improvement- it is adding tech where it isnt needed or wanted.
=)
Am I the only one that after seeing "Laser", automatically read "shark" instead of "spark"?
Is it one shark per cylinder?
Yeah, they're gonna be pissed.
Of the freakin sharks in the freakin engine bay!
Science advances one funeral at a time- Max Planck
Diesel engines work without spark plugs -- they compress the air before injecting fuel; the compressed air is so hot that the fuel ignites by itself. However, diesel engines require diesel fuel. They cannot use gasoline.
Why not?
Oooooo, when can I buy replacement lasers from the auto shop!?!?!
Electric cars don't need no stinkin' spark plugs.
inefficient. Adding a laser is not going to do much.
Man, you can use them to light cigarettes too! Oh hell... the fuel injector fire at the same time!
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
Great, the laser pulses will probably be DRM encoded so that only authorized chips are used and vendors that insert the appropriate smart card can perform service on them...
The advent of CPU-enhanced cars is a great one, but this is one place where the govt really needs to step in an open things up. For standard engine codes, things aren't too bad; but Lord help you if you want to read an ABS or airbag code from a GM vehicle (for example). They're locked down. I have some decent PC-based code reader hardware and software, but in order to read the ABS error that my two vehicles are both showing (GM, learn to design ABS, will ya!), I need to spend hundreds or thousands on their own software/hardware to simply find out which of my four ABS sensors is faulty.
The more they get into specialized things like this, including laser ignition, the more I worry that I won't be able to be a backyard mechanic any more.
Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
is a car with frickin' laser beans on its cylinder head?
Nope, they use potpourri sented spark plugs, so much smugger.
"So the spark plug could soon join the fax machine in the pantheon of antiquated technologies that will never completely disappear."
:(
I always get my secretary to page me when I get a new fax. Then I head over to the closest payphone and give her a call to see what it says. Generally its just spam
There's another obvious application for this - detonating nuclear bombs.
Nuclear weapons require that all the charges be detonated simultaneously, within nanoseconds, so that the implosion squeeze is precisely symmetrical. (OK, A-bomb geeks, I'm ignoring asymmetrical designs and flying-plate systems here.) If the timing is even a few nanoseconds off, the core won't be compressed; it will just blow out on one side, and a "fizzle" yield will result.
The usual trick for this is to use an "exploding wire" detonator. Unlike regular detonators, which have an intermediate explosive to start the main explosive, exploding wire detonators do it in one step, by discharging a capacitor bank through a resistance buried in the explosive. This takes a very fast high-voltage high-current switch, and the traditional solution is a krytron, a gas-discharge vacuum tube from the thyatron family. There have been big flaps over the years about various countries trying to acquire krytrons, which aren't classified but are export-controlled.
Krytrons are 1940s technology. This laser ignition system could be its replacement. One big laser pulse pumped through fibers of equal length to each detonation point should do the job. And it's off the shelf dual-use technology.
Shark plugs?
Can y'all throw in a car analogy? Help a inquisitive brother out.
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
Sparkplugs cost like, uhm, a dollar.
This quite frankly seems to be a solution to a problem that doesn't really exist. Not only that, but it is a more complicated system for ignition. The combustion cycle in modern engines is actually quite efficient, and we're more or less peaking in terms of efficiency. The returns will probably be quite limited on this method, and it will be a system in which much more can go wrong. K.I.S.S (Keep It Simple, Stupid).
> Soon the lenses are covered with soot.
I would think it would be self cleaning, wouldn't the laser keep all the crap burned off of the lens ?
We are Dead Stars looking back Up at the Sky
...they replace the fuel spray from injectors with heavy hydrogen pellets.
The problem with putting lasers in your engine is that it gets hot in there, and laser lifetime plunges drastically when you run them at elevated temperatures. I'm sure the dealers will love us having to replace our laser-plugs every two months, but no one else will.
(And if you're thinking thermo-electric cooling is the answer, that's going to use a whole lot of juice; don't know how feasible it is.)
..and get low-end torque like a locomotive?
I just patented a device to control sharks through attached spark plugs. How am I suppose to use a laser? Sharks and fiber-optics don't mix well. Besides their lasers are busy with other matters... Sigh.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
... or has anyone bought a spark plug lately?
I hadn't really thought about it, but now that I think about it, I can't remember every buying a spark plug for any car I have owned, that was made after 1987...
Maybe I don't keep cars as long as I used to, or do they just last longer now?
I assume the robots that make cars now are more consistent than the dudes who made them before.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
We used a similar system starting back in the late 1990s for initiating ordnance systems. The primary explosive would be doped with a small amount of carbon black to enhance absorption. One advantage was that specific equipment was required for proper initiation, which (in theory) made it safer.
Dynamite and a laser beam indeed.
how does this help us transition away from gasoline-based engines?
I don't know that any combustion system makes sense in a purely electric car, and I am not sure if hydrogen combustion benefits more from laser ignition or a regular old spark plug.
Other than the LASERS!!! effect, I don't see how this technology actually contributes to the issue currently at hand.
Just think, if they could get the lasers well, a lot more powerful, you could have an internal fusion engine... launch some deuterium into the piston, light it off with a laser... why, we could have the internal "combustion" engine for billions of years to come.
This is my sig.
Yer funny...rocket with zero moving parts == dud.
I thought HCCI was the future, like modern diesels? Guess the plug manufacturers felt the need to remain part of the Big Bailout Machine.
Not at all. "Moving part" simply means an internal mechanical component that moves in relation to the rest of the machine. A gear, piston or valve is a moving part.
The machine as a whole does not constitute a single moving part, despite the fact that in the literal interpretation of the phrase it sounds like it could. The key word is "part", i.e. as separated from the whole.
A rocket can be as simple as a hollow tube, capped at one end, filled with solid propellant. You ignite the fuel (preferably via a fuse) and watch it fly. No part of the rocket moves in relation to any other part, unless you wish to interpret "part" so loosely as to include the exhaust.
Erotic is when you use a feather. Exotic is when you use the whole chicken.
Then can we call them Shark Plugs?
I'll be going now...
Forget that, I'm still waiting for a car analogy even after scrolling by 90% of the posts.
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
wake me up when they are blue
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Hopefully they are dependable. With the heat of engines I'm not sure how long they would last. One good thing is that it'll flood the market with cheap high power lasers. Importing the parts my have to go by the FDA since they regulate lasers.
*It's not what you can do for the Dark Side but what the Dark Side can do for you!*
I'm about 80% done rebuilding and restoring a 1964 Dodge Dart.
I love the push button automatic. I love the rock solid and reliable slant six. I love that when it came off the line in mid 1963, JFK was still alive, and America was still a democracy.
I've upgraded to electronic ignition. It is MILES better than the old distributor!! I can't wait to upgrade the plugs to laser ignition! Future generations of this technology will definitely supersede the old plugs!
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
As I understand the article, the laser still ignites the mixture purely by heating it.
I wonder if using UV light would work even better, where you also get some ionization effect to start the combustion?
Captcha "underway". Huh. Does that mean that this is already being researched?
This is the exact sort of nonsense that SHOULD have killed all three of the "Big Three."
Automobiles have become a vehicle (pun intended) for delivering a bunch of packaged non-essentials to the consumers. Hell, even Microsoft has gotten into the game and started putting their software in cars.
The other day a friend asked me to look at the driver door window switch on her GM-built SUV. It wasn't a switch problem. It had a fucking processor running the WINDOWS of the vehicle and I couldn't access the damn thing without a scanner/interface. Simply more shit to drive up the price and TOTALLY unnecessary for the functioning of electric windows, all the while ensuring that it more then likely has to go back to the DEALER for repairs.
"Do not look at the spark plug with your remaining eye."
I am the unwilling control for my Origin.
>> "So the spark plug could soon join the fax machine in the pantheon of antiquated technologies that will never completely disappear."
Aw, you were so close, but missed the mark. There are many other examples that you could have used and kept with the car theme. For instance,
Carol vs. Ghost
Because incremental improvement is a lot cheaper than replacing an entire infrastructure. One thing an awful lot of geeks don't seem to grasp is the sheer cost and timescale of e.g. migrating to fuel cells or EVs, compared to incremental improvements. In Europe, modern gasoline fueled cars are about as efficient as Diesels were 15 years ago, and Diesels are between 10-20% more efficient than they were then. The engines are also much lighter and more reliable, i.e. lower external costs. In that time the penetration of EV and fuel cell technology is effectively zero. If we'd stuck with the status quo and waited for the magic bullet, we would actually have achieved nothing - because battery and fuel cell technology is taking a lot longer than anyone expected, and in the meantime they have to achieve ever better performance just to keep up.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Another way to see the point, look at the difference between a Honda lawnmower engine and a Honda car engine. The lawnmower engine is probably as simple as a basic fuel cell, with very few moving parts.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
http://www.eng-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=78116&page=1
FTL
For those of you not in the know, Smokey Yunick was a legendary race car mechanic and Popular Science correspondant. He died a couple of years ago. In March 1983 Popular Science carried a story about an engine he had developed that only had two cylinders and 78 cubic inches but developed 150 hp and got 60 mpg when installed in what looks like a Volkswagon Rabbit. He called it his "adiabatic engine." Supposedly all sorts of car companies were quite interested in the engine.
When I see this I will belive the oil companies have given up.
How can this be better than a spark plug? Isn't there a lot of gas mist and exhaust in the chamber? Won't the laser get blocked by these, and stop working? You know like you have to clean your spark plugs. I think cleaning the glass for the laser to shine through would be needed a lot more often! Although, it is an interesting idea if they can get past that...
Michal
There's probably a good reason, but why not use microwaves? Wouldn't that be better to ensure even burn?
"So the spark plug could soon join the fax machine in the pantheon of antiquated technologies that will never completely disappear."
PC Load Letter....WTF is PC Load Letter?
Good point. What about having the laser occasionally re-aim it's target, or energy so that it hits the lens or covering, so that it ignites and cleans it. Or have two lasers that can be aimed at each other, and can clean each other.
..........FULL STOP.
Laser ignition is a lot like spark plugs.
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Yeah, it's just like waiting for a taxi.
"It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him." - Tolkien
What about the fact that a laser travels at the speed of light throughout the cylinder? A spark can't travel anywhere near that fast and is limited to one part of the cylinder. The lightspeed laser could trigger ignition throughout the entire length of the multiple beams in each cylinder and do it simultaneously to boot. This really makes sparkplugs look primitive.
Surely the internal combustion engine is an "antiquated technology" ? Dont just replace the spark plug, replace the whole flippin engine with something from the 21st century not the 19th.
I have a questions, during the combustion process Carbon can build up on sparkplugs. What happenes when it builds up on the Optics, and how long do these things really last?
...and what advantages over the spark plug does this rather expensive sounding method have?
You feel sleepy. Close your eyes. The opinions stated above are yours. You cannot imagine why you ever felt otherwise.
1) You're still going to need something solid to keep the hot gases and gunk from escaping.
;).
2) Even if you cover the whole top of the cylinder with the laser stuff, if some gunk ends up on the laser things are going to get nasty.
The other problem (not just free air).
When soot/gunk ends up on a spark plug the spark plug doesn't fail dramatically.
When soot/gunk ends up on the exit point of the optical fibre, or some "window pane", or the laser itself, your "laser ignition" engine will lose more than just a few HP
So you'd probably have to diverge the beam a lot, have a huge window (or multiple windows) and focus it some point in the cylinder, so that random junk stuck on the window won't heat up and blow up.
Of course you could make the window very strong so that soot blowing up next to it won't break or wear it out. But if stuff is just igniting right at the window and not inside, I doubt the ignition will be much better than a spark plug.
Single spark plug. And it sucks with the standard plugs installed, particularly round the 3,500 rpm mark where they test the emissions.
In order to get the thing to run smoothly it needs a projected tip iridium plug. Now, this is only an obvious problem because it is a single cylinder machine and it's a relatively large cylinder, but other engines are going to have exactly the same problem with stratification of the fuel/air mixture and combustion efficiency but hide it behind multiple cylinders. A LI plug will allow engine designers to put the spark where they need it, possibly even beyond TDC since there is nothing to get in the way.
Deleted
It seems car companies are highly resistant to giving up on gasoline engines. It probably explains why hybrid cars are all styled so ugly. Anyway even hybrid is really not much of an improvement unless you're a car salesman.
I guess they are all tooled up to make gasoline cars and don't want to pay for retooling or the effort required to change to another tech, regardless of the damage to the planet their business model causes.
I bet these guys are getting funding from the car companies to come up with any excuse to keep gasoline engines being sold instead of having to actually deal with change.
The point about the placement of the ignition point is good thinking. You are using TDC to mean crank angle, but that's not what it means. It means when the piston is, literally, at top dead center. If the ignition point is determined by a laser, it can be set to a position on the upstroke which will actually be covered by the piston at TDC, though the crown is below it when ignition occurs. This means much more flexibility in the placement of the ignition point, possibly leading to new combustion chamber profiles which were previously impossible. Although at first sight it seems odd, once ignition has started the rising piston will push the ignited gas upwards. Perhaps this is where a ceramic or cermet insert in the crown could come into its own.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
If we've got the hydrogen storage problem licked, ... then why use an IC engine over a fuel cell? In a FC + electric motor configuration, ... and probably other advantages I've overlooked.
A big one is efficiency.
In an internal combustion engine you burn the fuel energy into heat, then use the heat to run a heat engine before dumping it outside. This means you pay the "carnot cycle tax" - which means you lose something like 2/3 of your energy when operating at the relatively low temperatures a mobile IC engine must to avoid massive generation of nitrogen oxides from the air.
A fuel cell, on the other hand, can in principle convert virtually ALL of the energy of the fuel into electricity, suitable for powering a motor which can, also in principal, convert virtually all of that into controllable torque and horsepower. Real motors can easily get well over 85% (and pretty much have to in an automotive application, where two wasted horsepower is about 1,500 watts of heat). I'm not sure where real fuel cells are these days. But build and sell a few million a year into a competitive market and you can bet they'll improve. B-)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
IMVHO, only two things will pitch ICE's off the top of the pile: 1) a radical, cheap, viable, ready-to-go, drop-in-now replacement, or 2) time, a long time.
A plug-in hybrid with enough energy storage to recycle the power of coming down 8,500 feet of mountain for going up the next hills or across the valley, the way a normal hybrid recycles stopping from 55 MPH to start back up and cruise a bit, with a smart enough controller to keep the engine off until needed, would do it.
You'd be able to commute on stored grid power (equiv. of well under a dollar per gallon at the moment). You'd still need some power plant for long trips - which might still be a small I.C. engine or might be something else, like a fuel cell sysstem.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
lol
i don't think they will be THAT high powered.
we're not talking Cyclops...
if you rtfa and look at the videos, you'd see the power output is equivalent to a spark plug spark. i'm sure most of us have been zapped while checking for spark....
what i can't imagine is someone reading this post nearly a day after the article hit the front page.