Why Only Use Internal Combustion?

Cyclone Waste Heat Engine

Posted March 12 2009 02:46 PM by jason.thompson
Filed under: Miscellaneous, Trend Observations

Your diesel engine wastes 70% of the fuel it burns. Just as much energy goes into producing heat 30% as goes into producing torque 30%.

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Here is an interesting scenario. A person could take their engine disconnect it from the transmission and still be able to make the same amount of power by just using the wasted heat energy.*

Back to reality. Cyclone Power Technologies just released its waste heat engine (WHE) (pronounced like the new video game thing). They are an inventing firm and do not produce the motor but maybe you could. What's cool about it is it can operate at low temperatures 200-600 degrees and low pressures 25-200 psi. It comes in all different sizes and power levels from lawn mowers to yahts. The one we like weighs only 18 pounds and can produce 6 Kilowatts of electricity. The engine can reach 12% efficiency.

It also comes with an APU combustion chamber that burns diesel fuel. So you can turn the big engine off instead of idling.

Plus you no longer need a gille with holes in it. Why would you want to push all that air anyways.

This is the ulitmate intercooler, tranny cooler, differential cooler, egr cooler, power steering cooler, a/c condenser, and oil cooler. If you think about it the only thing these things do is take power away from the wheels.

You could use the power for accesories, hydrogen on demand, or powering a toaster oven.

The bearings only need water for lubrication so the engine won't produce emissions.

Its shaped like old aeroplane radial engines.

The lead picture is from greensteamengine.com This steam engine design looks super cool. I bought the plans but still have not put it together. Has anyone out there built one of these yet?

*Maybe that is a little far out because it would be tough to capture all the heat energy but if you put the engine inside an ice chest, use steam and thermoelectrics....

Sources:

AVL Powertrain Engineering, Inc.
"A Quantum Leap for Heavy-Duty Truck Engine Efficiency-Hybrid Power System of Diesel and WHR-ORC Engines"
By: Gerhard Regner, Ho Teng, and Chris Cowland
Year: 2006

"A Manual Of the Steam Engine and other Prime Movers"
By: William John Macquorn Rankine
Year: 1866

"High Engine Efficiency at 2010 Emissions"
By: Christopher R. Nelson
Cummins Inc.

Cyclone Power Technologies
http://www.cyclonepower.com/waste_heat_engine.html

http://www.greensteamengine.com/

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Reader Comments:

1. Thanks for the nice words. I'm with Cyclone and I just wanted to add a few comments.

Cyclone's waste heat engine (WHE) is a low-temp, low-pressure engine that can take exhaust (wasted) heat (from a truck, oven, etc.) and turn that into mechanical energy. This compact engine is about 12% efficient, and the company is currently producing beta models for cogeneration and solar thermal applications.

Cyclone, however, has other engines that run at higher temps, pressures and efficiencies, including a supercritical engine that can reach efficiencies above 30% - similar to diesel engines. We see these engines - made for automotive, power generation and other major market applications - and which can run on any fuels in an environmentally-clean manner, as the engines of the future.

Oh, and the guy in the cannoe - looks fun, but that's not ours.

Thanks and keep up the great work!

cyclonechris - Posted March 13 2009 06:56 AM

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