High-Voltage pulse for fuel thinning 1

[DHambley]

Have you seen the research from Temple University in Philadelphia? A high voltage pulse is driven through the gasoiline at the fuel injector output. This creates samller aerosal particles which combust more effeciently, allowing about 10% better efficiency in the engine.

DH

 

[dgallup]

http://www.rexresearch.com/tao/espray.pdf

 

[dgallup]

That's a really poorly written paper and it makes some totally unsupported claims. They show a typical 3 bar (43.5 PSI) gasoline port injector but then they test it at a very untypical 110 PSI. They use a very unconventional spray droplet measuring system that I have grave doubts about. I don't really see a significant difference between the two curves. The vast majority of the fuel will be contained in the large droplets where there is no separation. Only at the very low end is there any separation and that is too small a difference to have any significant effect on fuel economy.

The diesel injector is never shown but the test in that case is at a totally unrealistic 200 PSI. There is no diesel injection system that operates at such a low pressure, in fact the major improvements in diesel systems has come from a tremendous increase in injection pressure over the years. Again, there is no significant visible difference in the quantity of large droplets.

The claims on improved combustion efficiency are presented without any evidence to back them up. It would have been easy to make some dynomometer or highway tests with such a simple apparatus to verify the claims. I expect any improvements would be minuscule at best, certainly not the huge improvements claimed.

 

[jmw]

I thought: "what more research on this?"

But no, OK, so it's over the page now but Greg Locock's thread thread71-227286 already brought this research work to the fore.

JMW

http://www.ViscoAnalyser.com

 

[DHambley]

I agree with dgallup; the paper is poorly written. If he could have simply compared the effeciency with-v.s.-without the ionization using standard injectors at typical pressures then the correlation could be easier to see.

What about preheating for higher temperature diesel fuel at the injectors? Doesn't that also reduce the droplet size? I'm sure engine scientists must have had lots of experiments with that over the last 100 years.

 

[EdDanzer]

To my knowledge diesel engine manufactures have not experimented with heating fuel in the injector lines. We were forced to experiment with this as a cold weather starting aid for a Yanmar L100 1 cylinder air cooled engine. The results for the L100 and a Perkins in an excavator are that it works much better than glow plugs for cold weather starting. Once an engine is warmed up the fuel temperature goes up. With many diesels the fuel recirculation heats the fuel tank to the point of hot to touch on a warm day.

Ed Danzer

http://www.danzcoinc.com

http://www.dehyds.com

 

[patprimmer]

THey are claiming t solve a non existent problem. With current fuel injection systems and compression ratios and fuels, vaporisation is not an issue. A 10% improvement would typically give better than 100% efficiency re combustion of fuel.

Regards

eng-tips, by professional engineers for professional engineers
Please see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips Fora.

 

[Lou Scannon]

...a laudable goal, but I think the first and second laws would have to stand aside to allow that to happen.

 

[drwebb]

The apparently peer-reviewed version is referenced in LaCock's thread. It also raised many questions, but did include engine testing. Point of order- if that version is poorly written then the referees deserve at least half the blame. The next step in the process is to see if another lab can reproduce the results. Anyone who tries gets an automatic publication whether the results are positive or not . . .