Future of Technology in Transport Industry

Introduction

 

        ICE – the most popular powerplant of our vehicles. They have many flaws, pollute, and require serious maintenance while electric motors have fewer parts, fewer fluids, create less heat and are far more efficient. In this blog, I would like to show you a few designs of conventionally fueled engines that make them more efficient and less polluting. There are some manufacturers that took a step ahead of the crowd and created or still develop ICEs that are far more superior to what we use now.

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"The world's first mega-gt and

Koenigsegg's first for four" [1].

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        Let’s take a look at Koenigsegg's new engine that powers the Gemera model. It’s a hybrid supercar with a 2.0 litre in line 3 cylinder and three electric motors that all together produce 1677 hp and 2581 lb-ft of torque sending the Gemera from 0-62 in 1.9 seconds while being a four-seater [2].

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        I’m going to focus on the tiny 3 cylinder that has rather big displacement for a 3 pot. The main factor that allows this motor to produce this kind of power is most likely twin-turbocharging, but that’s not new. Each turbocharger has it’s own manifold meaning two exhaust pipes per cylinder. That’s how you spool up two turbochargers with only 6 exhaust valves. Freevalve keeps one of the valves closed until it’s time to build more boost and after fully spooling the first turbo (which happens at 1700 rpm) it starts to operate the second valve and powering the other turbo. What is truly innovative is Koeningsegg’s new freevalve tech. It’s a system that uses solenoids to activate intake and exhaust valves. What does it mean? No camshafts, and cam belt driven by the crank pulley which means no power loss from the cam assembly. Brilliant. It has no throttle body as well because everything is controlled by the valvetrain. Solenoids controlling the valves can open or close them almost instantly while normally camshafts open and close them gradually. It also makes variable valve timing and lift to have no limits. Combined with cylinder deactivation – which was also used in e.g., Hemi V8 engines [3] – it minimizes fuel consumption while not under load. The petrol engine itself is about 20% more fuel-efficient than any other 2.0 litre because of the freevalve and being a hybrid it pushes the fuel economy to the next level. What about pollution? It can run on CO2-neutral fuels, which combined with freevalve give almost zero emissions and that's what we are looking for [4]. More power and less emissions. There is so much more to this car, but this blog is focused on innovative engine design.

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"There is a common misperception that two-stroke engines, by their nature, are dirty and noisy.  Achates Power engines not only meet the most stringent environmental standards in the world, but they are also used to demonstrate that substantially cleaner transportation engines are possible [5]."

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        The other unusual type of engine is an opposed-piston engine. I know it is not a new design, as the first engine of this type was built in 1907. It was commonly used in aeroplanes, ships, trains, and in other forms of transport or military vehicles such as tanks during WW II. But speaking of today, Achates Power and Fairbanks Morse work on improving this engine [6].

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        It’s a 2.7 litre, 2 stroke, 3-cylinder twin charged diesel engine which means it is turbocharged and supercharged at the same time. Power output is 270 hp and 480 lb-ft of torque. A hundred horses per litre of displacement are impressive considering it's a diesel. By opposed-piston engine, I mean an engine in which two pistons move towards each other and are mounted on two separate crankshafts. This engine is simpler than the normal block and head construction as it doesn’t have camshafts and valves. Two opposed pistons compress the air and fuel mixture which then explodes. Crazy efficient as it’s a diesel and being a two-stroke engine has a power stroke every rotation of the crank. The piston instead of having a head, has a second piston above, so the combustion doesn’t go to waste but powers the second piston and generates useful work. The engine is a 3 cylinder for a reason. This configuration is optimal for gas exchange. Two cylinders would have bigger gaps in exhaust delivery (which hurts the turbo efficiency) and four-cylinder would have exhaust and intake overlapping problems. It is possible to make two-, three-, four- and five-cylinder engines although it needs more parts and engineering to it. The three-cylinder engine is perfect for efficiency and is relatively cheap to build compared to the other options. It is a direct-injection engine and has very low emissions due to its high effectiveness on fuel [7].

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        These are two really different designs and different approaches as one of them has an upgraded head and the other doesn’t have one at all. As we can see, ICEs are still being worked on and further developed. In my opinion it all comes down to using alternative fuels. ICE for the win!