Discussion on:

New engine drastically improves driving range and cuts emissions.

Holy cow! If this lives up to its promises it could be huge. It would be great for aircraft engines. I didn't see anything about what kind of fuel it uses though.

Great things happening at MSU! Takes "Go Green" to a whole new
level. Keep of the good work!

Great idea I think. However special interests and lobbyists will
quash it in no time flat. No profit from this new invention, bye bye !!

Can you imaging what the performance of the Prius could become?

Both more fuel efficient when charging and more power when accelerating.

One of the fuel companies, or some faceless multinational
conglomerate will snap this up in no time.

I congratulate MSU and Norbert Mueller on their conscientious work which has brought us a breakthrough in drastically reducing our Foreign Oil Dependence! I have been hoping for such a breakthrough for many years. Could it run successfully on hydrogen - I hope?

...and I see the conspiracy theorists are already trolling. If
anything kills this, it won't be "big oil" or the usual-suspect-list
bugaboos; it will be technical or economic infeasibility or
regulatory incompatibility.

What this appears to be is a highly efficient turbine engine, which
have been tried in cars before. Historically for these kinds of
engines, the advantages have been low moving-part count. But
the big disadvantages have marginal economy, low torque, noise
and heat dissipation. If they can beat those problems, combined
with existing hybrid technology this could be a genuine winner,
although I wouldn't expect to see it in mainstream cars for another
decade.

Seals necessary for compression on this system are likely to be its weakest point - burning out rather quickly. Look for short engine life. Almost everything suggested from Mueller is on a theoretical basis. Making the process and materials preform in the theoretically projected and a pragmatic way has always been the downfall of these really high efficiency engines and is likely to be on this one as well. The scary part of this news release is that its coming before there have been many real world tests. If those tests had been done and were successful - there would be contracts already in place. Likely this is a funding needs news release. Even so, I'm glad someone is still trying to build a better internal combustion mouse trap.

Sounds like a perpetual motion machine. I will believe it when I see it (cranky old person here).

What's happening to all these new engine inventions? Two cylinder engines, Hydrogen powered engines and now this one. Get them out into the market and lets see which one works the best.

Contrary to the report, car powerplants are not 1000 pounds, nor are they clunky. Instead, engines are in the range of 500 pounds, maybe 700 if the transmission is included, and typically are long-lived, smooth, and quiet.

Better powerplants may well come, but not on the basis of misrepresenting modern engine technology.

...in fact, most of the stuff we see at SmartPlanet is, at best,
theoretical or are "funding needs news releases". But every good
idea has to start somewhere...

I agree to IMWeira. I have to see it working before I believe in it. If we can get higher efficiency than Carnot we would indeed have perpetual motion.

Anyway. 60% is lower than Carnot efficiency in a regular combustion engine. Could be possible in theory. But even Stirling engines have problems to get close to this.

I hoped to see it run... guess that was too much to hope for.

It would indeed be a great thing to have an engine so efficient that it wouldn't need a cooling system, but it looks like all they have are theories at this point.

A lot of engine designs have been tried over the years. I'm sure that someday we'll actually have something better than a reciprocating piston engine, and maybe this is it, but it's hard to believe that some automobile company hasn't already tried it, or something very similar. Contrary to popular belief, they do experiment. Chrysler worked on gas turbine engines for years, and could never solve the emissions problem. This engine, too, may produce unacceptable levels of NOx.

I'm not trying to be negative, though: I'd love to see it work out. The Otto cycle was a breakthrough in 1876, and the improvements to it have been great, but it's been 135 years since we've had a true breakthrough. Maybe we're due.

Qui va tuer celui ci dans l'?uf.

The audio was poor, but I think he said that unit would generate 35KW, impressive, if true. This equates to about 47 HP. If increased size would get more output, this means you need the equivalent of about 8 of these to fully power an auto with a/c, fewer if using hybrid technology. The real savings is in the conversion ratio! Full changeover could save more than half of our fuel usage.

While that video was uploaded to YouTube back in October 2009, the researchers have completed their prototype, unveiled it at an ARPA-E conference last week, and have already been awarded the $2.5 million funding.

@marvinlee: Herrman and Nguyen's article awkwardly restated the researchers' claim concerning weight: "The generator ... will replace nearly 1,000 lbs. of engine, transmission, cooling system, emissions, and fluids " (see project's PDF on arpa-e.energy.gov site).

Could have started as emergency home power generator units to demo the engine and build funds for larger projects.

For example, I'd love to have a backup home generator based on
mechanically simple and reliable technology like this.

And yes, a 47hp engine on its own would be inadequate for most
automobiles. But combined with hybrid technology, it would be.
Since it runs most of the time at it's optimal output speed, it would
spend most of its time charging a battery that would be called upon
when more than 47hp is required, which it little of the time.

Shockwaves are the best way to achieve efficient compression _of_anything_ as has long been known. Higher compression (and expansion) is the key to getting higher efficiency. That this turbine might reach 60% efficiency of thermal energy conversion is not putting it beyond Carnot efficiency, but such high pressure & high temperature combustion could lead to high levels of NOx (nitrogen oxides) emissions IF the gasses remain very hot and very compressed for an extended time... which they won't! That's another beauty of this beast: the combustion and expansion in each chamber will be all over in a few microseconds.

My only gripe at this stage is that this video needs to be subtitled, as he seems to switch to speaking German in a few spots. Even so, I *could* make out the power output figure he stated: "25 kilowatts", which equals 33 and one-half horsepower. Still plenty to get you down a level road at legal speed... even with the A/C on. [1 HP = 746 watts]

Thankfully this video is hosted by YouTube, as the SmartPlanet video servers don't work worth a damn... no video buffering, and no resume from stalled playback... one must re-start from the beginning. This is better, even though YouTube is far from perfect. The best option in either case would be to allow the consumer to actually _download_ the video in a more efficient container, such as MKV (Matroska) or Xvid AVI

Presumably these engines could be varied in size to get different power outputs or perhaps they could be ganged up with more than one rotor on a single shaft.

This research was made possible by Obama's stimulus funds.

Can you say "buying the future, with our taxes" children?

The Internet also came from "buying the future, with our taxes" children ?
As well as the MRI machine Telemetry in hospitals both from NASA

A potential to save the cost of fuel from being driven up dramatically as it becomes more scarce. This should also help to excellerate the electric car business if it can make them more capable of going longer ranges between charges. I look forward to seeing where this goes.