Slashdot Mirror
Lasers To Replace Sparkplugs In Engines?
An anonymous reader writes "For more than 150 years, spark plugs have powered internal combustion engines. Automakers are now getting close to being able to replace this long-standing technology with laser igniters, which should enable cleaner, more efficient, and more economical vehicles. Price and size have been issues holding up such an advance, but a Japanese team is set to announce they've overcome those hurdles."
Seriously, just think of the potential hacking uses of a pencil sized high powered laser! Cutting and drilling through hardened steel. Remote ignition of fires or detonation of explosives. Actual blinding weapons in a flashlight case.
I'm afraid they'll be too cool to be let out in public.
John
Um - I've looked at spark plugs. They start out nice and shiny, but get gummed up rather quickly. Are the lasers going to need to be strong enough to burn through the carbon buildup as well as igniting diesel/gasoline?
Okay. This is really cool. But, how are they going to get the fricken' shark in there?
Upon reading the article I saw the mention of leaner fuels. Will this require an alternative fuel mixture to truly improve efficiency or did I interpret this wrong? Thoughts?
cheers
We should start a new Slashdot and return control to the geeks. It actually wouldn't be that hard to get some users to
You thought replacing flaky early-run coil-packs was expensive. What does a replacement laser-ignitor cost?
Is it susceptible to fouling and such? Can it be cleaned in such cases? If your engine pings does it destroy the laser? etc.
I'm not afraid of change or anything, but igntion systems have come a long way since the model T. All you need to change now is the plugs, no more rotor, cap, points, condenser. It's a nice reliable system.
Be curious to see this though.
Sent from my PDP-11
Um yeah, they trot out this bull-cockey every year. until they can make the laser spark plugs less than $0.29 each and as durable as a current one there is no market. plus the spark plug has nothing to do with the engine efficiency. The article is full of Wrong in almost every corner of it.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
sharkvan!
We've arrived in the 21st century!
I remember an article from.. oh... 25 years ago in Popular Mechanics or similar saying similar things about plasma jet spark plugs. Igniting a larger portion of the mixture farther from the head, etc.
Now it's lasers. Ok.. if the laser is collimated before it leaves the 'plug', wouldn't it ignite the air/fuel mix right at the plug tip just like current spark plugs do? If there's a lens focusing the laser to an ignition point farther from the tip, then is the laser light concentrated enough to burn off any residues? Plus, when a piston is at TDC, there's not a lot of distance to cover to get ignition in the center of the charge, an extended tip spark plug works well in that case, so wouldn't a laser be overkill? Ok, I can see two lasers from one plug in two different directions, but dual plugs are nothing new either.
Color me skeptical about the potential improvements to be had from using lasers instead of spark plugs.
In the shed, next to the Gundam.
A better job than the US, outside of the military.
At least in part at "Japan’s National Institutes of Natural Sciences," according to a string of letters and spaces in TFA.
But, seriously, diesels work on compression alone and don't need spark plugs.
Another Japanese project that glows in the dark
Awesome work, dudes. Way to spend years perfecting a technique that will be obsolete in a few short years when all the oil runs out...
Sounds like another slashdotter who didn't read the article. They already explain those elements that the laser would improve which will likewise improve the efficiency.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/news/5803066/Cars-to-be-started-by-lasers-instead-of-spark-plugs.html
Which means, any oils or soot that happens to settle on the lens will rapidly reduce the efficiency of the laser. Considering an average internal combustion engine requires about a dozen controlled explosions a second, and over a million times in a days worth of driving, I'd imagine that there's a very good chance that something will end up smearing the lens of the laser. I'm sure they can't release this to the market without first solving this problem. I for one would be interested to find out how that's done!
Geekism is your _only_ God!
According to the article, one of the main reasons spark plugs get gummed up is the electrical sparks they are putting out. Electric arcs tend to corrode their endpoints. With a laser, this isn't a problem. Also, the lasers aren't going to try to ignite combustion right in front of them: It's more efficient to ignite it away from them, in the center of the cylinder. Spark plugs can't do that at all.
Plus, of course, any laser capable of igniting a fuel-air mixture reliably in a few nanoseconds can burn through a bit of soot on the way.
If the air fuel mixture is correct, the plugs on a healthy engine won't get gummed at all. If it is too rich or burning oil, it won't matter where the plug or spark originates as the build up occurs everywhere in the combustion chamber (although the rings scrape the wall clean). One only has to pull the heads off an engine to look at the carbon buildup that is no where near the spark gap.
But the article talks about it being cheaper (okay, more economical). Sparkplugs cost around $3 to $6 each. It seems that a laser strong enough to get through the carbon build up is going to cost more than that. Since plugs now last well over 36,000 miles in new vehicles, it seems trying to improve on an inexpensive technology with a high tech solution is anything but economical.
Great scott!
you could just go diesel and skip this business entirely. More than half of the vehicles sold in Europe are diesel; it just makes more sense fuel-economy wise. We need to get with the program on this side of the pond.
I'm still waiting for my VW XL1...
I bought a diesel. My 2001 VW Jetta TDI gets about 45mph highway. No spark plugs, no lasers, no problem. *shrug*
If it geeks a Lexus, what's $100 per plug? The buyers won't care.
The problem that needs to be solved is the reason for the spark. The reason for the spark is the need for the ignition of fuel. Switching to laser beam driven electron motors would be crazy cool (or whatever other cool use there is for a laser in an electric motor if there is one). "Fixing" something that is not broke with a gadget that needs to bought (and thus sold) seems like a great idea for an infomercial, not a solution to the worlds problems.
Come on guys! :-)
It's just a step, not the entire show!
It took the auto industry how long to put in seat belts?
Yeah. I thought so.
Only 45 MPH? I'd be afraid to take that out on the highway.
I'm not a scientist but isn't lean burning the major cause of, not the way to reduce NOx emissions?
When the fuel finishes burning the oxygen in the air there is no more oxygen to bind to the nitrogen. If you burn it lean however the high temperatures bind the oxygen to the nitrogen - which is why all modern cars must have catalytic converters to pass emission laws.
Also the mention that the laser can produce two beams to ignite fuel in two places at once is a moot point. Nissan already did that in the 80's and it wasn't worth the effort.
And 100 gigawatts of energy? Why not just use 1.21GW and go back in time? No lasers needed, just a flux capacitor
My 2001 VW Jetta TDI gets about 45mph highway.
I would hope it goes faster than that. :p
A few of my relatives have TDIs, great little engines, excellent mileage.
I opted for the gas fueled GTI though... double the power and starts better in our -40 climate. At the cost of half the mileage though. Way it goes I guess.
If I had a longer commute or travelled more, I'd definitely have gone with the diesel though.
Sent from my PDP-11
Ha, oops, 45mpg. That's with a 10+ year-old car, too, which is pretty nice. Too bad it's loud as hell.
From the The University of Tennessee Space Institute:
"Although laser ignition offers advantages for most combustion sources, its greatest potential exists for jet-engine gas-turbine combustors."
http://cla.utsi.edu/Research/Fluid_Physics/Laser_Induced_Ignition.htm
I think there is (at least) one error in the article.
Don't lean mixtures produce /more/ NOx? Excess oxygen on the hot gasses oxidize anything they can find, which is the 70% nitrogen in the air?
Lean mixes produce NOx. Rich mixtures produce CO (Not enough oxygen to completely burn all the carbon.). Correct mixes produce both (although not as much!)
Of course, laser ignition may well enable leaner mixes, probably using more Exhaust gas recirculation, while not producing excess NOx, which is a good thing, certainly. But wrong is wrong. (cue xkcd reference.)
Prediction for end of Universe #42: Fencepost error in Quantum_bogosort.cpp
I keep wondering how efficient a diesel _series_ plug-in hybrid would be. Diesels are, by their very nature, far more efficient than gasoline engines, and thus make great engines for generators. I'm wondering if natural gas is more efficient yet for a generator? Gas turbine? A series plug-in hybrid with a generator using whatever the most-efficient engine *for a generator* seems like a good idea. Now that the unsprung weight issue has been solved and we can use wheel hub motors for some very nice weight distribution, and can get rid of the old-style transmissions which saves a great deal of weight, and makes up for the weight of batteries, as well as making the whole system much less complex (and thus less breakable) than a parallel hybrid system. Seems like the way to go, and I keep waiting...
I misread the title to read "Lasers to replace fins on sharks". That's it. I'm giving up surfing.
Cutting and drilling through hardened steel.
Doubtful for a laser designed for use *inside* an engine. :-)
You do realize that the reactor was built by GE, right?
The reason why this is so novel is not the power of the laser, but it's size, timing and durability. It'll be interesting to see if NASCAR allows it, as efficiency is a big part of winning that closely regulated league.
Ummm... The mass-market car manufacturers abandoned carburetors for fuel injection back in 1987, yet NASCAR is still just thinking about using fuel injection maybe in 2012.
I think you can safely forget about laser ignition systems in NASCAR for a good long time after they're available in regular production cars. While NASCAR cars have been refined over the decades, they are still not using very much technology that would have been unfamiliar to a regular car mechanic in the late 1970s.
Now, if you'd said Formula 1, then that would make sense.
Putting moderation advice in your
Have a small issue with the text of the story; sparkplugs don't power engines, gasoline vapor and oxygen do. The spark plugs ignite the air/fuel mixture and the resulting explosion forces the pistons down, powering the engine..
A more correct first sentence would be "For more than 150 years, spark plugs have been used in engine ignition systems to start the combustion cycle."
Don't kid yourself. It's the size of the regexp AND how you use it that counts.
Oh, that's right... Slashdot.
Those Japanese sure know how to make the biggest god damn miniature shit around!
Click on our website: ( http://www.fullmalls.com/ ) Website wholesale various fashion shoes, such as Nike, Jordan, prada, also includes the jeans, shirt, bags, hats and decoration. Personality manufacturing execution systems (Mes) clothing, Grab an eye bag coat + tide bag Air jordan(1-24)shoes $30 Handbags(Coach l v f e n d i d&g) $35 Tshirts (Polo ,ed hardy,lacoste) $15Jean(True Religion,ed hardy,coogi) $30Sunglasses(Oakey,coach,gucci,A r m a i n i) $15
New era cap $12
Bikini (Ed hardy,polo) $20accept paypal and free shipping
( http://www.fullmalls.com/ )
I suspect that electric cars or serial hybrids equiped with wave generator or even fuel cells will replace the ICE that these lasers would be good for.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I think you can safely forget about laser ignition systems in NASCAR for a good long time after they're available in regular production cars. While NASCAR cars have been refined over the decades, they are still not using very much technology that would have been unfamiliar to a regular car mechanic in the late 1970s.
This is kind of a good thing, compared to F1 and Indy. Let the drivers drive (even if it is mostly left turns), rather than a continual $trive for greater tech. Some of the F1 drivers are rebelling against the insane amount of controls they have to deal with on the steering wheel.
Different series, different concepts.
How does the laser turn the spark plug wrench, or even find the plugs to replace them?
My Honda has a sparkplug change every 110k. I couldn't believe it, ocming from older cas, so I changed them at 89k, they still looked great. $12@
You mean glorified Go-Karting? The moment you come up with some new innovation that gives you an edge in F1, it gets banned. Figured out the optimal shape for maximum downforce? Banned! Traction control? Banned! ABS? Banned... Just google, theres a very long list.
Point is, a road car has more technological advances in it than an F1 car of the same year.
Sometimes I wish I was a plumber, then I'd know how to deal with other people's shit.
I bet a dollar to a hole in a donut that it will cost more than a plug does now.
Patent must be out on plugs.
NASCAR is anything *but* stock car racing today. It lost its roots a long-ass time ago IMHO.
Life is not for the lazy.
Yeah, it'll be great to have laser ignition in my engine, better mileage, lower emissions, yada yada yada. These are good things and would be tremendously beneficial, but I can think of a dozen applications off the top of my head that could use cheap, powerful lasers, most of which involve manufacturing, including desktop manufacturing. I wouldn't be surprised if there were a gazillion medical and scientific applications that would benefit as well.
Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
I agree. F1 should just drop back to rules that the engine must be a 4-stroke naturally aspirated 1000 cc or smaller with no more than 4 cylinders and run on 87 pump gas (one large tank to fill all the cars at the start for no cheating with any additives or alternate fuels). Then let them go wild with all the other banned things. They want to keep the speeds down, so they should shrink the engine power and let them play more with the other stuff.
Learn to love Alaska
If I went 45mph on the highway I would get run off the road.
Anybody remember the movie, 'Real Genius'? "I want 5 MW by mid-May"
Needless to say, however this turns out, it'll be interesting...
Some of the F1 drivers are rebelling against the insane amount of controls they have to deal with on the steering wheel.
Then I'd someone isn't doing everything they could be doing. You shouldn't need all things manually controlled. They should be spending just as much time on ECUs and such as they do on everything else.
A microprocessor can adjust something a hell of a lot faster and more consistently than even the best driver... assuming it can sense what it needs to sense and has been programmed to respond properly to it.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
Believe it or not, carburetors are better at atomizing the fuel mixture at full throttle conditions compared to injectors.
Since airflow through a engine at wide open throttle is fairly well known, and easy to meter for, the carb can be adjusted to precisely match that and get the desired air-fuel ratios.
Injectors can have trouble delivering large quantities of fuel at wide open throttle. When the duty cycle of the injector exceeds about 85-90%, it starts to have problems metering fuel correctly, and the coil starts to overheat. So the typical solution is to drop in larger injectors so a shorter duty cycle can be used.
The other part of the issue with injectors is the short amount of time they have to deliver and atomize the fuel. The fuel is sprayed against the closed intake valves moments before the intake valves opens. The heat from the valves helps to vaporize the fuel. Since there's only so much heat, and only so much air in the intake port, not all of the fuel may be completely vaporized. The incoming air then has only a bit of time to attempt and vaporize what is left before the valves closes and combustion occurs.
So why do we use fuel injectors? Because they excel at the thing carbs suck at, part throttle atomization. Injectors can easily meter out a precise amount of fuel determined by the amount of air entering the engine according to it's sensors. A carb has to deal with what it sees across the venturi which isn't as sensitive at part throttle conditions. Toss in the complicated dynamics of the air inside the plenum and it's hard for carbs to precisely meter out fuel.
My 2001 VW Jetta TDI gets about 45mph highway. No spark plugs, no lasers, no problem. *shrug*
No problem with the car maybe but have you tried shifting up a gear?
I bought a diesel. My 2001 VW Jetta TDI gets about 45mph highway. No spark plugs, no lasers, no problem. *shrug*
you know, your car could go faster.
my 1997 VW Jetta TD can hit 102mph on the highway.
try switching into 2nd gear, 3rd, and so on, you'll get more than 45mph :)
they use platinum and iridium metals in the spark plugs that last that long. They tend to cost a bit more. Also, when an engine is still cold, there will be carbon and other waste products building up on the spark plug. The heat grade of the spark plug is quite important to keeping this minimal. Once the engine warms up, the spark plug itself gets so hot, that contaminants will burn off. The big benefit of Iridium over platinum here is, that they can make the Iridium electrodes so thin, that it will heat up in seconds, giving you a better running engine when still cold.
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
I bought a diesel. My 2001 VW Jetta TDI gets about 45mph highway. No spark plugs, no lasers, no problem. *shrug*
If I could only go 45mph on the highway, I'd have bigger problems than lasers and spark plugs!
... that this concept car is re-visited to be the first car to get the lasers: Mako Shark.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
> spark plugs have powered internal combustion engines
Really? Why do I keep pouring petrol into my tank.
Nice, but we need cars that can handle all the gasoline we get for free when refining crude oil to diesel.
a) Why not go to normally-open injectors, if the duty cycle is such a problem?
b) With direct injection, I don't think any of the other concerns are valid.
Nobody would go back to carburetion if the rules didn't require it. Nobody, not no way, not no how.
of the article, the only thing that got through to me from that was:
Lehzer in mai car!!
"I'm taking this loop off." - Jack O'Neill
...My 2001 VW Jetta TDI gets about 45mph highway...
So you're the guy I was stuck behind today.
Never shake hands with a man you meet in a fertility clinic.
My 2001 VW Jetta TDI gets about 45mph highway.
You must see a lot of fingers driving so slow on the highway...
It may just about be possible for racing, but normal owners would not want to have to readjust the carburetor every time the barometric pressure or temperature changed. And then you have the little problem that a carb will always change the mixture slightly when cornering. It is just not possible to adjust automatically for lateral, rotational and acceleration forces on a pot of gasoline which is being used as the input to a metered jet. Anybody familiar with racing carbs knows that they are a complete pain to set up and keep adjusted.
Your second point is nonsense. You're just saying "The injector has to be the correct size for the application".
Third, this is a gross oversimplification. You do not want the fuel completely vaporised. That will cause explosion. Enough fuel has to be vaporised for the ignition to work, but otherwise it has to be atomised - i.e. present as very small droplets - which can then burn at a controlled rate, preventing uncontrollable pressure rise with the risk of gaskets blowing and bearings failing. This problem is common to carburetors and injectors alike. (Diesels do not need any vaporisation at all because they do not have spark ignition.)
Only your last paragraph is correct. Injectors can do a better job, not only of metering fuel, but also of timing it, stratifying the charge, and ensuring that the mixture around the plugs is ignitable. A carb is basically a crude analog solution to a complex fluidics problem. (Incidentally you contradict yourself - you correctly refer to "atomisation" in that para, whereas you refer to "vaporized" above.)
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Because the British were noticeably tight fisted and lazy about servicing, British motorcycles were more or less designed to leak enough oil to require regular top ups to keep the oil clean. What was widely seen as incompetent design had a real-world purpose. When Triumph finally came up with a unit twin design that could be made to be oil tight (I wish I still had my T100...) they promptly fitted an oil bleed to lubricate the chain so that the oil replenishment would still be needed.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
I'd also add one thing: direct injection gasoline with a laser igniter and high compression is close to a Diesel (the ignition in a Diesel normally starts well into the combustion space when the droplets reach ignition temperature. So I think the theory is already there.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
NASCAR is anything *but* stock car racing today. It lost its roots a long-ass time ago IMHO.
Technically, it really hasn't been in many many decades - if EVER. The only true stock car raced in NASCAR was the 1963 Chevy Impala. While there were only 58 of them made, they were "stock cars" that anyone could go into the dealership and buy/order. The bulk of the racing mods (except tires and wheelie bars) were stock. Including the aluminum front end, the beefed up suspension (which also went into the police cruisers), the 427cu in engine designed for 430hp (but they dyno'd between 500-650hp), and so on.
With a lot of digging, and reading through a lot of old magazines on the subject (as well as on that car - particularly the most famous one of them: Junior Johnson's "Holly Farms" 1963 Chevy Impala Z11 Super Sport). Many such articles cite that line as the only true stock car ever raced in NASCAR. The rest were either highly modded with some components from the car it was named after, or the stuff they race nowadays.
Just like today, there were various factory upgrade options one could purchase with a car. In this car's case, it was the Z11 package. And wonderfully, for those who owned them, the car was still street legal (since it came with street tires, and no wheelie bar installed). It could manage 0-60 in under 6 seconds, quarter mile speeds of 10.8 seconds, and in an acceleration from zero, could pop the front wheels off the ground in at least the first 3 (of 4) gears on shift. For that day and age, especially with a car that was still so heavy (even with it's aluminum nose) and only a four speed tranny, that was pretty impressive back then.
http://www.conceptcarz.com/vehicle/default.aspx?carID=9077&i=2#menu
StarTrekPhase2 - The Five Year Mission Continues!
The shark would eat the tiger.
The correct solution is of course:
Take tiger out.
Insert shark.
Toss in the complicated dynamics of the air inside the plenum and it's hard for carbs to precisely meter out fuel.
Countless hours spent with grinders, milling machines, welders, power tools, hand tools, 'flow benches' and engine dynometers, etc., in my misspent youth, will wholeheartedly second this!
IMHO though, I would have to add '...and atomize that amount of fuel.' to that sentence.
Since airflow through a engine at wide open throttle is fairly well known, and easy to meter for, the carb can be adjusted to precisely match that and get the desired air-fuel ratios.
How true, but again I feel the need to address fuel atomization.
Dumping unburnt fuel out of the exhaust is counter-productive in any context. Racing/high-performance or fuel economy, both depend on efficient use of allowed/accepted resources.[research Smokey Yunick, if you're not already familiar with his wizardry] to achieve their goals.
Very nice post, BTW. Very well stated, and informative.
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
Glow plugs are there to preheat the cylinder block so that your air-fuel mixture does not become so cold after coming in contact with cylinder walls that it cannot ignite on compression.
Once engine starts, glow plugs simply go off.
So for the purpose of heating cylinder block even before you crank the engine, lasers will do a terrible job.
My Aurora : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o91ZsGwJYyg
FB : https://www.facebook.com/TanveersPhotography
Sparkplugs only get gummed up when something else is wrong. A Spark plug with 50,000 miles on it in a well running engine will come out with a bit of wear on the electrod and some browning of the porcelin, but all in all, it should be clear of all sludge. If your vehicle is burning oil, or has a leaking injector, or is venting coolant into the combustion chamber, yeah, this thing is going to stop working. But really, if your car is burning oil, has a leaking injector, or is venting coolant, you shouldn't be driving it.
Also, these won't be needed in Diesels. Diesel engines have no spark plugs. They run at a much higher compression ratio and it is the heat of the compression stroke that ignights the air/fuel mix. Diesel engines do have glow plugs, but their purpose is limited to warming the combustion chamber BEFORE the engine is engaged. Glowplugs are disabled while the engine is running.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
I thought that, but the answer is that Diesels are not only quite heavy, but their starting load is much higher. So start/stop doesn't work as well on a Diesel hybrid, especially compared to e.g. Toyota engines where the starting compression ratio can be reduced for easier starting. Natural gas isn't more efficient because you cannot use it with a Diesel cycle and, as it is a gas not droplets, the compression ratio cannot be too high (detonation.) Mitsubishi started off with hub motors for the MiEV and abandoned them for a variety of reasons, but mainly the unsprung weight is very poor, the width is too great with the brakes, and delivering power to a wheel with a shaft is far easier than with a flexible cable, when kilowatts are involved.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Let's try more like $100-200 million to design a new engine, amortised over a million units, less the cost of replacing tools to keep making the old one, and less the cost improvements as CAD simplifies manufacturing and reduces metal content. Why do you think complex modern engines are actually cheaper to make and service than old style carb-equipped grunt boxes? $5000 is far more than the entire powertrain typically costs the manufacturer. You can prove anything with POOMA numbers.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Most likely because NASCAR, at least at one time, required the options in the vehicle to be in production and has safety standards. I doubt any car maker will ever put normally open injectors in any production vehicle as they want it to fail closed. Otherwise you run the possibility of flooding the engine too readily or even causing fuel leaks in accident conditions.
As the GP said, carburetor fuel metering is very efficient at wide open or near wide open throttle. Where Fuel injection shines is where you have acceleration changes. This isn't happening on a nascar track where it's 90-100% open throttle 90% or better of the time. Each tech is better at different conditions. It's really that simple.
Quite complicated, can you make a car analogy of this?
WHAT exactly does this bullshit have to do with replacing spark plugs with lasers in cars again? I must have missed something...
Stone
Might be time for a tune-up, is that a top speed?
If it is powerful enough to cause the gas to ignite, over 100,000 miles, is there enough power in the laser to weaken part of the cylinder through the gradual etching? ... unlike sci-fi, the laser isn't going to magically stop unless it isn't powerful enough to burn all the way through the gas to the other end of the cylinder.
Some of the F1 drivers are rebelling against the insane amount of controls they have to deal with on the steering wheel.
Then I'd someone isn't doing everything they could be doing. You shouldn't need all things manually controlled. They should be spending just as much time on ECUs and such as they do on everything else.
A microprocessor can adjust something a hell of a lot faster and more consistently than even the best driver... assuming it can sense what it needs to sense and has been programmed to respond properly to it.
It's the same thing in MotoGP. Electronic controls for most of everything. Bikes that have traction controls that know what corner they are in and precisely how much throttle can be applied. The end result is you are watching the machines race each other more than you are watching the riders race one another.
To each his own, but I personally like to watch motorsport to see the riders/drivers compete with a combination of skill/luck/balls/crazy. I don't watch to see engineers compete with software (albeit very impressive software).
You only go 45mph on the highway? Man you must piss people off!
An ECM from 1986 can do it better than the best driver that has ever lived.
they do Carbeurators for the ease of checking that the cars are legit. it's really easy to hide things with MP EFI.
Kind of like how Smokey Yunic cheated with gigantic fuel lines to have an extra gallon of fuel on board. He met the fuel cell dimension requirements, they never said how long and how large the fuel lines can be.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Ask most racing fans (outside the usa) NASCAR is not even racing.
Real racing? That was Group B rally racing. Those were REAL racers, not these little kids that we have today running their over stickered go karts.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Problem is most cars use "batch fire" injectors. I.E. your 6 cyl engine fires ALL 6 injectors every time. It's because a lot of car manufacturers are too lazy to put in the parts to make it a true sequential injector firing. Newer cars are doing it now because of the EPA regs to get fuel economy up, but before 2010 most batch fired all at once every time. I have reprogrammed stock ECMs to do sequential firing, but you need a sensor on the cam giving you position pulses, and/or a sensor on the crank.
Most cars fuel injection is barely above a glorified carburetor. they have the potential to do more.
as for WOT problem, that is easy to take care of. in racing we would have the ecm fire a second set of 2 large injectors higher in the plenum to make up for the other injectors. this reduces the problem of duty cycle and you dont have to go insane in injector flow size. when you hit WOT, those injectors start firing to enrich the air flow.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
I disagree here.... Your example was simply quoting high duty cycles for undersized injectors. So you get bigger injectors, which then have less atomization at lower pulses hence the same down low drivability problems as the Carb.
However with larger injectors, you still have a computer controlling the injection and thus high accuracy of tuning allows for more horsepower over the carb. I have an Evo with a 2.0 liter 4 cyl that makes over 380 horsepower at the wheels from such a small motor. With full time all wheel drive it runs 11s in the quarter. Considering it makes over 360 ft/lbs at 3200rpm, you can't really call that laggy either. With a carb I'd be going back down in power due to loss of precise fuel control when running 26lbs of boost and 23 degrees timing. How well does a carb handle knock control? I can pull 7 degrees of timing within 3 crankshaft rotations on detection of knock. Do that with your carb.
Can they be mounted on Sharks?
My Sig indicates the end of the comment I posted.
"The other part of the issue with injectors is the short amount of time they have to deliver and atomize the fuel. The fuel is sprayed against the closed intake valves moments before the intake valves opens. The heat from the valves helps to vaporize the fuel. Since there's only so much heat, and only so much air in the intake port, not all of the fuel may be completely vaporized. The incoming air then has only a bit of time to attempt and vaporize what is left before the valves closes and combustion occurs."
Direct injection. It's not just for diesel anymore. Audi has been using direct injection for at least 4 years that I know of, in gasoline engines.
Not saying you're wrong, but talk to anyone that's owned both systems. 9/10 will take the fuel injection. It's hard to dial in a carb just right--then when you do it's not permanent. Then there's the tuning capabilities of fuel injection....
Ahh, for the days when you could buy a car that had MORE horsepower than the sticker said. Doubly so without having to wait for the damned thing to rev up to 20,000 RPM.
They haven't done that since 1990. At least in American cars. Batch fire isn't all that bad anyway; it's nice to have some time for the fuel to evaporate.
If "Real Genius" taught us anything, wasn't it to always keep your optics clean? I can't imagine a dirtier place to have a laser.
You know, I have one simple request. And that is to have tiburon with frickin' laser beams attached to their heads!
Rules of Conduct:
#1 - The DM is always right.
#2 - If the DM is wrong, see rule #1
OK, so maybe History was not my best subject in school, but I don't recall there being cars rolling around the roads back during the Civil War.
Oh wait, there was that DeLorean...
You couldn't be more wrong if you tried.
There is nothing about a diesel that makes it more efficient at being a generator. They're great for cars because we like to drive torque (accelerate) and diesels do very well with power at low RPMs compared to gasoline. As such, given a desired acceleration curve, a car designer can choose a smaller diesel engine, reducing the weight of the vehicle. This smaller engine has fewer losses, and is thusly more efficient when it is accelerating the resultant lighter car. This is why a 100HP diesel can accelerate a Jetta even better than 130HP gas -- but the diesel will struggle more at highway passing.
Diesel fuel itself has more energy density, so it's good for some applications like trains, but the answer to your natural gas question is that it's much less dense, so each cylinder needs to be much bigger for the same power, or the engine will be underpowered for its size when compared to gasoline. Gas turbines are noisy, although you might enjoy reading about the potential benefits of the Wankel.
Problems with series plug-in hybrids include that the generator always wants to run in its peak power band. No matter how fast I'm going, if my gas car is running at 3500-4000 RPMs, it's very noisy, even if I'm cruising at a constant speed and could easily downshift twice. Batteries add to the hybrid equation for acceleration and regenerative breaking and are simply weights for cruising. A series generator would hate the acceleration part of that and would prefer to simply feed the generator directly. Now, we might be onto something if we suggested a way for the generator to cut over to direct drive at constant speeds, but I suspect that would be too heavy to be of value.
...with your tongue? *BUZZZZZ!*
I8-D
I think you can safely forget about laser ignition systems in NASCAR for a good long time after they're available in regular production cars. While NASCAR cars have been refined over the decades, they are still not using very much technology that would have been unfamiliar to a regular car mechanic in the late 1970s.
Now, if you'd said Formula 1, then that would make sense.
If you ain't first, yer last!
My 2001 VW Jetta TDI gets about 45MPG highway.
There, FTFY
Then I'd [say] someone isn't doing everything they could be doing. You shouldn't need all things manually controlled. They should be spending just as much time on ECUs and such as they do on everything else.
Formula 1 used to allow automated launch control, traction control, etc. The FIA (the ruling body) outlawed all that and returned control to the drivers. The new KERS system and DRS system are manually controlled, as is the brake bias (front to back only), fuel mapping, etc. The driver is still changing the gears in theory, although the super-fast seamless shift trannies are doing all the work. The FIA has decided that allowing too much automation takes away from the sport and is too costly (they've instituted some cost-cutting measures, some of which have backfired).
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
Interesting how we use something super modern like ceramic lasers to optimize something super old like the combustion engine. Seems a bit ironic.
My God can beat up your God. Just kidding...don't take offense. I know there's no God.
If it gets 45mph highway, that's probably the reason that it hasn't caught on in America. You'll get run over by trucks going twice your speed!
Wow complete and utter BS. Even if that were true what does that buy you over EFI? Tell that to the car manufacturers that get 500hp out of a 4 liter engine and still deliver 30mpg on the highway. You forgot to mention the fact that with a carburetor you have no control over how much fuel one cylinder gets vs. another. You also neglected to even mention direction injection.
If there is no rule against it, is it really cheating? I would call it creatively working inside the rules to create an advantage.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
What we should be doing is moving away from internal-combustion engines entirely. This just amounts to some expensive "sustaining engineering" for a nigh-unto obsolete technology. How about they put all that ingenuity, effort, and money into hydrogen fuel-cell technology and room-temperature superconductors? Think about how efficient an electric motor would be if it were built with superconductors! And while one might argue that a hydrogen fuel-cell is just another form of combustion requiring fossil fuels (which is a bit of a stretch), if we have highly developed and incredibly efficient electric motor techonology, we can always replace the power source with something else later on, like fusion, for instance, or battery technology with such an amazingly high energy density that you only have to recharge it once a month (or better).
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
If that's your argument, then the cars should be completely standardized and from a single provider.
Do any of you know how much energy is required to get a laser to ionize air ? let alone ignite compressed vaporized gasoline.
The more they over-think the plumbing, the easier it is to stop up the drain. I, for one, do not really want lasers firing my spark plugs, no matter how much they tout their effieciency. Some things are better left simpler. When you're broke down on I-70 in Wyoming with defective lasers, in January, at 3 AM, a hundred miles from Cheyenne, please call me so I can go "ha Ha"
I had no idea F1 was so restrictive. Are there any racing groups that allow pretty much any modifications? Although I do get the idea of limiting the speed, and shrinking the engines over time as people start to figure out how to get more power from the same size. These efficiencies could go straight into production cars, seems like.
Ask most sports fans (inside the USA) soccer is not even a sport.
Why would I ask opinionated outsiders such a question. And why would I pay attention when they said something stupid like "NASCAR isn't racing"?
Granted, I'd like to see NASCAR changed. Instead of the stupid restrictor plates, they should have limited the amount of fuel that each team can have, but it is still a race. You have cars starting at the same time, and the winner is the first to cross the finish line. How is that anything BUT a race?
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
Believe it or not. Carueretors are not better a providing an atomized fuel mixture at any throttle condition compared to DIRECT INJECTION. Nascar is effectively stock car racing so they are considering direct injection now that has become available on automobiles that are not $200,000 italian supercars.
You forgot about the chronic amounts of smug it puts out.
Also unless you're my grandmother I think you mean 45mpg highway.
My concern would be that getting the materials to build enough lasers to outfit all cars would require being at the mercy of Chinese export controls. Like rare earth magnets, we're looking at a future where the materials are only being generated from a country that may decide they need to keep them for their own production.
Cars with ABS crash more than the same models without ABS. It's unknown if there is some confound (people who consider themselves worse drivers may select ABS when presented the choice) or if ABS causes crashes. But the real-world data is that ABS doesn't prevent crashes.
The primary goal is to keep the speeds down for the driver safety. The secondary goal is to encourage passing to make the races more interesting (some races look more like a follow-the-leader with the winner chosen by pit strategy rather than driving skill). And the engines in F1 are divorced enough from production fuels and constraints that there isn't much that would ever end up in a production car. And that's why I suggested something like local pump fuel as a constraint, to get them back to tech that could someday reach the rest of us.
Learn to love Alaska
I bought a diesel. My 2001 VW Jetta TDI gets about 45mph highway. No spark plugs, no lasers, no problem. *shrug*
I believe madam may find that the screaming noise goes away if she changes gear...