Where are these engines now? 6

[enginesrus]

What new cars or trucks are now cruising around the freeways using these engines for power? The Achates, and the HCCI Mazda engine. This is years later, what happened?

 

[RodRico]

3DDave, I spent 3 decades designing, proposing, and leading development of deployed systems, some of which included test stations. I designed and personally wrote the winning technical volume for the ALR-69A(V) Radar Warning Receiver proposal in 2001 (the program kick-off meeting was disrupted by the events of 9/11). The Low Rate Initial Production contract wasn't awarded until 2009. The first real production program with DOT&E approval wasn't awarded until 2012, and the long anticipated billion dollar production contract wasn't awarded until 2018. I also designed and wrote proposals for quite a couple of other programs I'm not free to discuss, and every one of them took a decade to full operational deployment. One is still in the pipeline even now after seven years of retirement.

Some of the worlds world's most efficient engines are opposed piston two strokes. They have pretty elaborate schemes for metering lubricating oil to prevent it from being scraped out the exhaust ports, a problem that has plagued the architecture since the Junkers Juno engine. The technology required to manage oil the way it's managed in modern opposed piston engines didn't exist until comparatively recent times. The US Army's team lead summarized the objectives of the program saying "The results of the ACE engine utilizing an opposed-piston design architecture will provide significant improvement in thermodynamic efficiency over commercial-off-the-shelf engines while increasing power density, improving vehicle mobility, and reducing fuel consumption and thermal burden". Whether these objectives are met is TBD, but the fact they're awarding follow on contracts is a good sign.

 

[RodRico]

Brian Peterson, It's clear that electric will continue ascending insofar as the charging infrastructure is in place. That's going to be quite some time out in the boondocks where they don't yet have broadband internet, and the military certainly can't assume infrastructure is in place during field deployment to combat zones (fixed military infrastructure is called a target by the enemy). The military will always want to bring their energy with them rather than depend on foreign infrastructure in a combat zone. I doubt they'll go electric until they can get 300 mile range in a 70 ton electric M1A2 tank that can be charged in ten minutes using a safe portable reactor.

 

[3DDave]

Good - we are even. Note that I avoid talking about any projects, for similar reasons. I'm impressed about solo writing a technical volume. Normally that requires a large number of experts. However, not every contract goes to a company that has enough Senators to drag it out.

 

[BrianPetersen]

Yes, military applications are their own separate situation, and there are certainly situations with road vehicles that are going to be difficult for all-electric to accommodate. But still ... recent pronouncements by VW and GM, among others, make it pretty clear that they're not going to be investing much in combustion-engine technology going forward - they're just going to go with what they've got. If the military needs to do something special, they may be on their own.

 

[3DDave]

I suspect the current crop of ICE consumer engines have such small margins for improvement that the extra complexity required outweighs the benefits while there are huge opportunities are now in electric power.

I see, looking back at the Achates press releases, 25% to 30% fuel use reductions and claims they are far less expensive to build, seemingly far into the territory that every long-haul trucking company would see as beneficial, but it doesn't look as if they are as excited about it as US Army Tank Automotive Research, Development and Engineering Center (TARDEC) is.

It looks like the originator of this effort shrugged off the mortal coil in Feb 2019, so I expect that took a toll on the process. RIP Lemke.

Anyway, for those interested in Achates:

https://patents.justia.com/assignee/achates-power?page=1

is a good collection; easier than the USPTO to scan through.