A Revolutionary New Engine: the Wave Disk Generator

[nissangirl74]

Introducing the Wave Disk Generator. It's a gasoline powered engine that you can hold in your hand. It's fuel efficient, reduces emissions, and the design came from the United States, specifically the University of Michigan. Make sure you watch the video at the bottom of the page. Off to find out more info. Check this out

researchers at Michigan State University have built a prototype gasoline engine that requires no transmission, crankshaft, pistons, valves, fuel compression, cooling systems or fluids. Their so-called Wave Disk Generator could greatly improve the efficiency of gas-electric hybrid automobiles and potentially decrease auto emissions up to 90 percent when compared with conventional combustion engines.


http://news.discovery.com/tech/new-car- ... 10405.html

[s0m3th1ngAZ]

Wonder what it sounds like...

[orangeNblue]

I'm curious to see its output

[MinisterofDOOM]

The entire world seems to have forgotten that there's more to an engine that fuel economy. In fact, it almost seems like people have started to believe the PURPOSE of an engine is fuel economy. It isn't.

Michigan State's team of engineers hope to have a car-sized 25-kilowatt version of the prototype ready by the end of the year.

25 kilowatts?!?!?!?! Are you kidding me. That's 33 hp. That's not "car sized." It's barely golf-cart sized.

Sorry, pipe dream ends here. 33hp would barely move a VW Beetle, let alone a modern safety-laden compact. If you can't package the power small enough, it doesn't matter how efficiently it sips at fuel. And when you're making miniscule amounts of power like that, you start to run into the problem of wasting much of that power just to carry the weight of the engine itself. It's idle operating efficiency might be 3.5 times that of a standard piston engine, but let's see it do that inside a 3,000lb hybrid. It's a pretty big leap from power-output efficiency to motive efficiency. Ion engines are fantastically efficient, but NOT suited to moving automobiles. This is no different.

Sorry, just like every other magic motor idea out there, it's not really what it appears to be. Set it on a table and it looks nice, but in practice it's not going to work.

There is more to automobile engines than efficiency. This applies even within the ranks of piston engines themselves. If you build the motor to provide MOTION and do it well, the efficiency aspect will fall in line on its own. It's a side-effect, a secondary attribute. It should never be the focus.

Researchers estimate the new model could shave almost 1,000 pounds off a car's weight currently taken up by conventional engine systems.

Bullpucky. Piston engines are almost entirely aluminum these days (unless you're Mitsubishi ). Even heavy ones don't cross the 400lb mark by much unless they've got lots of "extras" on their own. And if you're thinking "what about the transmission" well...you can't just have this wave engine hooked straight to the axle. Used as a generator, you're going to have electric motors, generators, batteries, etc. Used in a direct drivetrain you'll need a transmission. 1000lb my a**. Maybe if you put it in a Veyron and replace it with 2 motors and a 25kw generator, but then the Veyron's going nowhere in a hurry.

[PapaSmurf2k3]

Developed in the USA by a German!
No doubt in my mind, this dude is a hard core badass. Look at some of this:
"He recently became the faculty advisor of the MSU SAE chapter with Formula Team and Baja Team and the faculty advisor of the Solar Car Team. He has received his Ph.D. from Technische Universität Dresden, Germany in 1999.

His teaching interests are in the thermal-fluid science and engineering, such as gas and fluid dynamics, thermodynamics, turbomachinery, energy systems, refrigeration and HVAC and design."

If I read his profile and it said the he was book worm him whole life, I'd probably dismiss this design because he most likely wasn't telling us something, but the fact that he is the staff advisor for Formula SAE AND Baja leads me to believe that this guy actually knows what he's talking about, and can definitely relate it to the real world.
Add to that the Technische Universität Dresden is an AWESOME school, and he worked for MTU for a while. Sounds like he knows what's up.

Thanks for posting Bex!

[PapaSmurf2k3]

25 kilowatts?!?!?!?! Are you kidding me. That's 33 hp. That's not "car sized." It's barely golf-cart sized.

Well, its a decent scale-up from where they are right now... basically they are just trying to produce a larger (but not massive) engine that they COULD put in a vehicle. But I agree with you... if you are going to scale up, why not go for at least 100hp?

Realistically, having this on a vehicle such as a Leaf could be quite beneficial. The engine could basically be running the entire time to replenish whatever inefficiencies there are in the regenerative braking system, as well as air friction. Agreed, 25 Kilowatts isn't enough for a real world vehicle straight out of the box, but it would definitely help extend the range of an EV.
The Leaf "burns" 34 kwh per 100 miles, so in theory, if it had this engine, it could go roughly 70 miles per hour indefinitely. I don't really believe that, seeing as how the 34kwh per 100 mile rating is has probably ISN'T at highway speed... but it gives you an idea anyway.

Extra battery power could support burst acceleration, and this thing could GREATLY improve the overall range/efficiency of a hybrid. Remember-you aren't using anywhere near your total power just cruising.


In reality, this guy could making a killing in the portable generator market (as is). Something that small, light, and efficient?! Contractors would be all over it.

[MinisterofDOOM]

I've always liked the idea of an always-on engine powering a generator in EVs and even hybrids (see my many Volt rants). If they can make this work there, It'd be neat. But even with batteries as a buffer as Mueller describes (and as I've advocated many times in the past) you're still looking at a lot less power than you'll need to actually match what's needed by the motors themselves. Volt's motors have a peak power output of 111kW, way more than 25, and it has a real 1.4 liter 4 on hand to produce that on-demand. Even the Leaf's engine uses 80kW. BIG leap. Unless you're just using it as a range-extender where you build charge as you go to prolong the inevitable, which is I guess a nice stopgap for the whole "batteries are a crummy storage medium" issue.

The engine itself is neat, I just have serious doubts about its place in the world of cars.

[alms24sebring]

can you put a turbo on it?

[s0m3th1ngAZ]

To be fair...it's still early in development, so it's tough to speculate on how much power the final product will be able to make.

[PantherRacer]

can you put a turbo on it?

if it's so much more efficient, I want a 600hp version. Time will tell though.

[sbird1]

They could at least show it run or make some kind of graphic or something of it in motion. I don't understand how it works, but that's beside the point. I have images in my head of future cars powered only by one of these and having some really funky design to fit an enormous motor... 120 hp!