BMW's 'Turbosteamer' concept for cars. Can save lots of gas!

[krispos42]

I read about this a few months ago in a car magazine, then was reminded of it last night in a discussion thread, so I though I'd bring it up. BMW is working on it, and it sounds like a really workable idea if they can mass-produce it.

Basically it's a tiny steam turbine engine linked to the engine's crankshaft. The heat source is the engine's exhaust manifold, which as anybody who's worked on a car knows, is hot as hell. The cooling source is the engine's regular cooling system, presumebly with increased cooling capacity.

By capturing what is usually waste heat from the combustion process and converting it into rotary motion, the demand on the engine (and thus gasoline comsumption) is significantly reduced.

The system works best on steady driving such as highway cruising, the kind of driving where the battery system of a hybrid is mostly useless.

In a published test from December 2005, BMW claimed that a 1.8-liter 4-cylinder engine had a 15% decrease in fuel consumption while making 10 kilowatts (about 13.5 horsepower) more in static testing.

This is important because for highway cruising, your average car only needs about 30-40 horsepower to push the air out of the way. If 15 of that can come from the Turbosteamer, you're well on your way getting drastically improved highway milage.

With Congress about to pass some significant CAFE increases, something like this can be developed, built, and sold a lot easier and cheaper than a complex hybrid system. If Ford, GM, and Chrysler get their asses in gear, this could be on every engine they make, from the little Zetec in the Focus to the big 5.4 Triton V-8, increasing fuel milage across the board.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turbosteamer
http://www.motoring.co.za/index.php?fArticleId=3047964

[Rick Myers]

1. Leave it to BMW to develop the Steam Punk car!!!

It actually sounds perfectly logical... I expect Exxon to announce it owns the oceans if this thing works!!!

[Greyskye]

2. I like it

I wonder if anyone is looking into creating a hybrid Stirling engine?

[krispos42]

4. Wow, I never heard of the 'Stirling' engine, which is a little upsetting...

Seeing as how I went to engineering school and all, but the Wikipedia article looks pretty neat.

I think they want to go with a turbine because the engine will not have to try to force a cold steam engine turn over, thus costing energy. The turbine, for example, can simply spin almost freely when the steam pressure is low, whereas a piston-type engine might drag more. You wouldn't need gearing, for example, because steam turbines can spin much faster than you usual car engine.

[Greyskye]

5. yeah, Stirling Engines are cool beasts

It was invented in the early 1800's, and the materials they had to work with at the time limited their usefulness. I get the impression that that is why they've been mostly ignored for the past 200 years. There is the potential for some really cool uses of these - they even make one for powering submarines: http://www.kockums.se/Submarines/aipstirling.html

I think as we keep improving our material science, we'll see more hybrid (or tribrid?) applications with new and ignored technologies.

[krispos42]

6. I think they could use them to tap power from the ocean

or rivers or such. Cold end in the water, hot end in the sunlight, maybe with mirrors around it to focus the sunlight.

Hell, we can use them in space! One end in shadow, one end in sunlight. Might be cheaper than a large solar array. Or at least less prone to damage.

[Greyskye]

7. i LIKE that idea!

The Stirling Space engine. Seems like the absolutely ideal environment for it!

:thumbsup:

[krispos42]

8. You heard it here first

NASA, bring on the royalty payments....

[IDemo]

9. NASA link

http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/tmsb/dynamicpower/doc/stirling_deepsolar.html

[krispos42]

10. Waaaaaaaah!

<sob>

There goes my lifelong dream of living off the government teat!

Hmmmm... is Halliburton still hiring?

[Greyskye]

12. at least your idea was validated!

:thumbsup:

Thanks for the link IDemo! :toast: to NASA. They need some props once in a while.

[krispos42]

13. Why yes, that is true, isn't it?

***warm and fuzzy***

[IDemo]

14. Read this book if you want to learn more about Stirlings

A bit dated, but well worth the read: The Next Great Thing: the Sun, the Stirling Engine, and the Drive to Change the World

[GreenPartyVoter]

3. Return of the Stanley Steamer

[Schema Thing]

11. Sounds pretty cool. One point of argument:

Hybrids are not especially complex; in some ways they are very simple. Basically they are a wedding of two very established technologies, and they seem to be a marriage made in heaven, engineering-wise.

[DarkTirade]

15. It's a similar premise to the regenerative braking in hybred/electric cars.

they're just taking energy that's already there and using it rather than letting it go to waste. :)

[sofa king]

16. Interesting idea.

Particularly if the idea were also used to charge batteries in a hybrid system rather than simply pour it all into performance.

I wonder if this path of research spawned from a mistake (of sorts) that BMW made back in the 1970s. When virtually all other auto manufacturers were stealing each others' designs for catalytic converters, BMW sought to meet the new emissions standards by using the aptly named "thermal cracker."
[br />The high temperatures involved led to lots of leaf fires under cars and heat damage to the vehicles. But perhaps they learned something from it.