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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."
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.
=)
We're not talking gigahertz, 0.00001% error rate stuff. We're talking honking big pipe firing a few hundred times a second.
My first thought was, 20% loss? Who cares!??? Just stick a bigger laser on the other end!
Seriously, this is one of those things where power is good, and more power is better. Early ignition was pretty pitiful. Now electronic ignition is pretty much bullet proof.
I expect this to be like fuel injection, going from expensive trouble prone disaster to rock reliable. Once they figure it out, it'l be like injectors - maybe 200,000 mile service.
Honestly, I can't wait. I expect reciprocating engines will be with us a long, long time, burning some sort of liquid fuel.
I'm assuming it's because gasoline is a helluva lot easier to light on fire. My experience from being an adolescent firebug was that gas burns easily, but very quickly, whereas diesel takes a lot more heat to get started, but burns more slowly, and probably releases more energy. I'm no chemist, but my understanding is that different hydrocarbons have different energy yields, and diesel is much more efficient, the tradeoff being a very different kind of engine.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
inefficient. Adding a laser is not going to do much.
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.
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I would imagine that such a technology could be adapted to other fuel sources like hydrogen. In fact, I suspect that hydrogen engines might actually benefit greatly from this.
I'm not so sure of that. Granted, you can use hydrogen fuel in an IC engine, but storing it is a big PITA. At sea level pressure, gaseous hydrogen has abysmal energy density per volume, and any solution for reducing that volume would have to be adapted for every car on the road. Meaning liquid hydrogen is a non-starter, pressurized hydrogen needs to be stored in a collision-rated tank, and hydrogen dissolved in or bonded with something else needs a cost-effective carrier of limited weight per fuel (else the energy density per weight or price per tank becomes a problem).
If we've got the hydrogen storage problem licked, and with all the R&D focusing on precisely that we very well might someday in the not too far future, then why use an IC engine over a fuel cell? In a FC + electric motor configuration, the engine makes very little noise, there are fewer moving parts than an IC engine, no need for a separate (and heavy) alternator + battery to power the electronics, and probably other advantages I've overlooked. The one downside is cost, which can probably be substantially reduced via mass production - the cost per cell is high now, but we aren't making them for every car on the road.
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"Hydrogen engine" is vague to the point of uselessness. It's like saying "Combustion engine", which covers everything from steam locomotives to rockets.
I suspect you read "hydrogen engine" to mean a fuel cell powering an electric motor. From the context, it sounds more like he meant an internal combustion engine, fuelled by hydrogen, which is a different beast entirely. Hence the confusion. An ignition source is indeed potentially useful for such an engine, though not absolutely necessary (not all IC engines use spark plugs).
Hydrogen IC engines do exist, both on paper and in prototype, but I strongly suspect that if we ever get hydrogen to work as a fuel, meaning we can generate and store it in the needed quantities, we won't be burning it in a piston engine of any kind. Fuel cells make more sense in that context.
Erotic is when you use a feather. Exotic is when you use the whole chicken.
Carbon monoxide is a product of all combustion, not just car engines.
The laser can be focused to a specific point more easily, allowing it to ignite a stratified charge better. This makes it better at igniting a leaner mixture. Coupled with Direct Injection and maybe some octane boost trickery, this could make gas engines get the same compression ratio as a diesel while still reving over 3k.
Not a typewriter
Sparkplugs cost like, uhm, a dollar.
...they replace the fuel spray from injectors with heavy hydrogen pellets.
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. . . .
You may be right, in that a spark makes a better ignition source. But, do we KNOW that, or do we just assume so? I won't argue the point, but I will point to explosives, and note that a spark is often not the best source of ignition. Naval guns use electricity to detonate primers. C4 and other explosives use a carefully controlled combination of pressure and temperature. In fact, those explosives can be set alight, and used to cook dinner, because the spark isn't what detonates them.
Gasoline? Internal combustion engines? They are terribly wasteful of both fuel, and energy. Even a very efficient gas burning engine pumps fuel out the tail pipe, which is the reason catalytic converters are required on vehicles in the US. If a laser can set off a more thorough, more efficient ignition, that burns ALL of the gasoline in the cylinder, fuel mileage will increase, for certain. Polluting emissions will probably be reduced. Is it worth the cost? Only time will tell.
And, THAT is the reason for research. Very few people will purchase these things if they add $10,000 to the cost of a vehicle - but if the cost is brought down to $50 per cylinder, they never have to be replaced, AND they increase fuel mileage even a little bit, people will buy them.
Let them research. If/when they have a product ready for market, I'll probably test it.
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How pray tell does hydrogen and oxygen burning produce C02? It would be a bloody miracle if it did.....
When it comes to ignition, compression is never a problem these days. What compression does do is increase *heat*. So unless your running gasoline with a higher octane rating, you will get detonation and pre-ignition the higher your compression ration is. This of course, can be offset through timing retardation which in fact often does happen electronically.
The only real advantage I see with a laser ignition system is greater consistency and timing to be used in high revving engines such as F1 race cars. At 18,000 RPM, precision is everything.
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Nor is either compound produced by burning hydrogen. For that matter, you get no CO, nor CO2 from burning aluminum or magnesium powder, or any number of other flammable materials.
I think you meant "carbon monoxide is a product of any form of incomplete carbon combustion" in your original post. Not all combustion needs to involve carbon.
Erotic is when you use a feather. Exotic is when you use the whole chicken.
It may be pedantic, but straight hydrogen should be thought of more as an energy store than a fuel source, i.e., as a gas or liquid battery. The energy used to create any amount of hydrogen is going to be higher than the energy returned in use, similar to how a battery requires more energy to charge than it will give back as usable electricity.
The advantage fossil fuels have is that the initial energy storage took place epochs ago, and we need invest only a tiny bit of energy today to get many multiples of that investment back at this point in time. In that sense, fossil fuels are virtually free energy (not in the perpetual motion sense, but in the sense that they cost so little to get).
Hydrogen is the exact opposite, that is, we must invest more energy to get less energy. The luxurious lifestyle we all enjoy is rooted in the fact that we can get more energy than we invest. Once that reverses, there won't be surplus energy to spend on making life comfortable. Because H2 as a fuel source represents loss rather than profit, I'm pretty skeptical that it will prove to be some kind of magic bullet.
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Can't imagine the kind of injuries you'd get from a high-power infrared laser shooting freely into a car accident due to broken fibre optics. Actually, I can. It's not pretty.
Every experiment which ends in a big bang is a good experiment.
I realize it's a fad to crap on internal combustion engines. The fact is that they're by far the best thing we've got for the applications they're used in. If they weren't we wouldn't be driving gasoline or diesel powered cars right now. They provide the best mix of range, efficiency and utility. Gasoline is one of the most energy dense fuels out there.
This is not to say there isn't room for improvement. Aren't the most gasoline engines only 30% efficient? I'd say there's a ton of room for improvement. Perhaps electric motors will replace gasoline engines, but batteries have a long way to go before that becomes a reality. And then there are the issues with power generation. Electricity in my area is so expensive, I have a hard time believing I'll be saving money by switching to an electric vehicle.
Anyway, my point is, why not improve the internal combustion engine as far as possible? This not only means a new ignition source, but completely redesigning the whole combustion process, which some are already working on. I want to see people working on improving this technology right up to the day it's replaced with something else.