The decreasing fuel reserves and increased utility of automobiles has posed a need for better alternatives. MIT researchers are developing a half-sized gasoline engine, which will work on boifeul and will have a better performance than the present engines with increased fuel efficiency up to 30%. The engine has a technique to use ethanol to suppress spontaneous combustion and essentially remove the knock limit. Knock limit is a limiting criterion, which obstructs the designing of a fuel-efficient system.
When the engine is working hard and knock is likely, a small amount of ethanol is directly injected into the hot combustion chamber, where it quickly vaporizes, cooling the fuel and air and making spontaneous combustion much less likely. According to a simulation developed by Bromberg, with ethanol injection the engine won’t knock even when the pressure inside the cylinder is three times higher than that in a conventional SI engine. Engine tests by collaborators at Ford Motor Company produced results consistent with the model’s predictions.
There are two big advantages of knock elimination. First, the engine is highly turbocharged so engine of a given size can produce more power. Second, the engine can be designed with a higher compression ratio, getting more energy out of a given amount of fuel. These will nearly double the power of the engine.
These small engines could be on the market within five years with just an added cost of $1000. The MIT researchers are trying their best to minimize the added cost of these engines and make their use more convenient to the users by using well-established computer models.
These engines will surely be appreciated by all the consumers and they will be in great demand due to their cheap fuel alternative and high performance.
Via: physorg
