The internal combustion engine. Love/hate.

[Gregorian]

Even though I post my loathing for what has happened to the world, I am a mechanical engineer, and a machinist.

The last few days I have been on Youtube looking at radial engines, primarily. It started when I was sitting here thinking about the carbon footprint of world war two. Imagine that! It's hard to imagine. Entire continents full of factories devoted to the production and support of the war machines. It may take an engineering background to fully visualize the entire set of processes required to create the machines that have contributed to the situation in which we find our planet. But even without the knowledge of how sodium filled valves are made, or the steps required to make an engine block, just seeing one of the 3000 horsepower engines in the Youtube videos can give some sense of the magnitude. It's easy to see a plane in the sky. But getting up close and seeing one of the monstrous parts that makes it fly does give a perspective. Imagine hundreds of these. Thousands of these engines.

Imagine the Berlin air lift. Nearly 300,000 flights. I'd do it again. But what was that carbon footprint? And Iraq?

A few short videos. I don't think many people think about this stuff.

Check out the counter rotating propellers on the one plane. Just incredible.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2d4HQ8ZM_2k&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AqrbtxcNqbM&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QqK8aAJpIY0&feature=related

[imdjh]

1. I thought they were going to make the truck go with the propeller.

I'm a bit disappointed.

[opihimoimoi]

2. As a Rich Nation, we should be looking for newer and more efficient means of Torque

Until now, the internal combustion means has prevsailed cept for 3 other Mega means, Hydro, Steam, and Nuke Plants....

If we produce the proto types of more efficient engines...other Nations will follow

[OffWithTheirHeads]

3. This could be interesting.

I Am a Union Sheet Metal Worker. Most of my time is spent trying to implement the ideas of "Mechanical Engineers". Mechanical Engineers who, It seems to me, profit from running the costs of a project up because they get paid as a percentage of the total job cost rather than good design.

Mechanical Engineers who think a pencil line has three feet of free space around it instead of the 1/4" that actually exists.

After over 40 years in this industry, I am convinced that engineers come out of M.I.T.with the dictate "Prove Euclid Wrong!". Two objects, in fact, CAN occupy the same space at the same time.

Except that they can't, I don't care what the engineers say.

[Gregorian]

6. I was a machinist first.

I thought it would make for a more logical engineer.

To be honest, I think a lot of professionals have narrow minds and skills. I'm actually more of an accidental engineer than anything else. I stumble along and learn from mistakes. I only wish I could have really learned from those classes like some of the others. Man, what I could do with all of that power.

I know how to file. And hammer. And turn nuts. I fix stuff. I guess I'm not one of the elite. Hey, it sounds like I'm apologizing! :)

[frogcycle]

4. 'nother ME here

cool stuff.

I agree with the need not to keep burning fossil fuel just to schlep people around, but boy, do I like the sound of a big gas-gulping fire breathing monster cranking up.

[pscot]

11. This might appeal to you

But I don't think they're going to be putting it into a Prius.

http://people.bath.ac.uk/ccsshb/12cyl/

[frogcycle]

15. wow

thanks

[napoleon_in_rags]

5. I was talking to a mechanic buddy about going carbon free, and he says internal combustion is not..

...going anywhere no matter what, its just too good a design in general, nothing compares. I think he's really right, the main thing is that we have so much invested in that format including trained mechanics. I'm not thinking that a big breakthrough in engine design would be good even if it was right around the corner for that reason. Clean combustibles look more appealing, just as a way to utilize all the existing infrastructure built up around gas powered cars.

[AdHocSolver]

7. Reality check: The internal combustion engine is wasteful of resources, overly complex, polluting...

and overly expensive to maintain.

Comparing a gasoline engine to an electric motor, the gasoline engine, to run efficicently, has to run at a high operating temperature (180 to 190 degrees F.). A large percentage of fuel burned is merely to keep the IC engine at operating temperature.

Since the IC engine is a low-torque device, it requires a complex transmission to convert high RPM's to enough torque to move the vehicle it is used in. Electric motors can be designed to produce high torque at low RPM's. The Prius hybrid car uses an electric motor to propel the car from a standing position, which is one reason it gets good gas mileage.

The transmissions used in IC vehicles are complex, and in the case of automatic transmissions, produce enough heat so as to require cooling lines to the radiator to remove the heat.

Electric motors require no radiators, coolant, complex transmissions, can recapture some of the energy used to start the vehicle moving by means of regenerative braking, do not have to waste fuel just to keep themselves at operating temperature, require no tuneups, no catalytic converters, no mufflers, no tailpipes, and produce zero emissions. Whereas IC engines and their necessary transmissions require hundreds of parts, an electric motor vehicle can be made with only dozens of parts.

IC engine vehicles require oil changes, tune-ups, muffler replacements, as well as continual fueling with ever-more expensive gasoline.

The IC engine is the most expensive, wasteful, polluting method for transportation imaginable. The auto and oil companies have done their best to ensure primacy of the IC engine to ensure continuing huge profits to themselves. Car maintenance provides a large amount of profit to auto and oil companies and car dealerships.

With electric vehicles, you wouldn't have those maintenance costs.

[napoleon_in_rags]

9. I'll believe that when I see it.

I'm not a mechanic or engineer, but I know a lot of things look good on paper that don't work in practical contexts. Electric cars have been around for like 160 years now, and have never taken off. Batteries have been around at least as long, and are still heavy and don't compare to gasoline as far as energy to weight ratio. I agree gasoline is bad, but what we are talking about is combustion, which can any combustible material including hydrogen. And honestly besides, what I'm talking about is what WILL happen, not what should. Ultimately the technology we go with will be the one that preserves the profits of the current major corporations, and their investment at this point is in combustion engines.

[AdHocSolver]

13. The technology for practical low-polluting vehicles and mass trsnsit has been available for years.

The corporations have been actively sabotaging mass transit and electrical vehicle development for decades.

In his book "Internal Combustion", author Edwin Black describes how General Motors bankrolled the buying up of financially troubled municipal light rail systems in the 1930's and 1940's, and then tearing up the tracks and burning the trolley cars.

In the 1990's, in response to the state of California's project to encourage development of a Zero Emissions Vehicle, General Motors designed and produced the EV1 electric car. Between 1996 and 1999, a total of about 2,000 of these cars were built and leased to individuals to test drive. These cars were well liked by those who drove them, and many wanted to buy them.

The popularity of the EV1 "scared" GM management, which kept insisting that there was no market for an electric (or even a hybrid electric ) car, so that by 2003, they recalled almost all the EV1s and destroyed them. A movie titled "Who Killed the Electric Car?" was made about the EV1.

The EV1 was designed to be a two-seat commuter car. The first generation cars used lead-acid storage batteries, which were later updated, and later cars used nickel metal hydride batteries. With lead acid batteries, early models got 55 to 75 miles per charge, later increased to 75 to 100 miles per charge. With NI-MH batteries, the EV range was increased to 75 to 150 miles per charge.

The EV1 could accelerate from 0 to 60 MPH in the eight second range, and had a top speed that was limited to 80 MPH.

Hybrid electric prototypes of the EV1 were also developed which increased the range to 300 to 400 miles and achieved fuel economies of 60 to over 100 miles per gallon.

The auto companies make huge profits in selling parts and maintenance. That profit comes out of our pockets. Electric vehicles require very little maintenance as I outlined in my original post. The auto companies also want to protect the profits of their buddies and partners at "Big Oil".

The internal combustion engine stranglehold on technology and the economy is destroying the environment and ruining this country. The trouble and wars in the Middle East relate directly to the auto-oil industry control of resources and technological development.

If we don't have the government force these companies to improve technology to reduce the current waste of resources and reduce the bad effects on the environment, life on this planet is going to become very problematic. There is a precedent for this when the government set fuel efficiency standards in the 1970's.

By the way, I worked in the electronics field for many years and I have been doing my own car repair for many years. The corporations don't promote technological development. They actually work very hard to suppress technology that would reduce their profits and control.

[napoleon_in_rags]

16. "life on this planet is going to become very problematic."

Your engine points aside, do you ever just stop and look at what's going on and oh my god I can't believe this is happening? I can't believe shit is THIS BAD. I mean, I just came from a train of other bad news. Holy shit. What a fucking mess everything is.

First, I agree with you on the corporations. Everything is so corrupt, its not conservative free market anything, not public serving socialist anything, its just ... WOW.

I'm sorry I'm just so overwhelmed at the moment at how completely fucked up everything is. You make good points and I wanted to respond, I had a thought I wanted to raise the topic of clean internal combustion engines (like hydrogen) or maybe utilizing something else with built in sequestration technology or something but DAMN. I mean I guess I'm saying that in part because of course you're right on the broader theme, things could be so much better. ANYBODY who with even a passing interest in science who has looked at the world can see that, but we are not going to make it, we are not going to be able to implement that society because we are completely under the thumbs of people who have no understanding whatsoever of what they are holding back, and what is coming. Or they don't care. And that is the 900 pound gorilla in the room.

[krispos42]

14. All of that is true

However the reason they are used is because they are able to have both range and power that batteries cannot yet match.

Gasoline has a very high energy density, which allows a car to travel several hundred miles without refueling. And when the car runs low on fuel, it can be refueled in a couple of minutes. The fuel and the means to put it in the car are standardized; there are no compatability issues in bwteeen Portland, OR and Portland, ME, or anyplace in between. And stations that sell it are plentifully available.


I know that gasoline doesn't have a lot going for it besides what I outlined above. But it's what makes the difference.

I want an electric car, and I have great hope that quick-recharging ultracapacitors will be able to give electric cars the quick-recharge capability that batteries don't have. If an electric car with ultracaps can go, say 100 miles on a charge and quick-charge at a service station in, say, 15 minutes, that car would be a workable replacement for the IC engine. And, of course, you could plug such a car into your home's power circuit to trickle-charge it overnight.

But I fear that until then it's going to be IC engines dominating new-car sales.


If you're interested, I did a little thinking about this a couple of years ago and outlined a car that I thought we could make with present-day technoloy.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=2336543&mesg_id=2337457

[XemaSab]

8. I'll freely state:

I love having a car.

I didn't have a car until I was 25, and having to walk home after I missed the last bus, or walk ANYWHERE when it was 100 degrees out, or mooching rides off of friends to go anywhere more than 2 miles away, or having to walk to the grocery store every day because I needed food for that day and a day's food was all I could carry... these are things I don't miss.

[Gregorian]

12. Yes, but there is another side to it.

When I was 21, I had a girlfriend who was from Tehran. I was enthralled with my little sports car. I had begun the evolution of building it into something really amazing. But being an outsider, she had a perspective on California that I hadn't reached yet. I fully didn't understand her when she said that California was car-crazy.

It took me a while to grow into my grave disappointment of the modern lifestyle on a massive scale. I've lived in a place where a blue sky can be turned into a gray veil of dispersed contrails by the end of the day. I actually miss my 11 mile commute by bike, sunny or rainy or even snowing. I miss the silence. And I don't just mean that trivially. I earned enough money that I could leave the city. And one of my goals was to escape car noise. Not just engines, but the tire noise. And for the last fifteen years I've moved and moved and moved, and been unable to achieve that goal. And I've lived in some remote places not even near roads. This was really my point behind posting this thread. That would be that most people don't realize that what we lost was worth more than what we gained. The arguments against what I claim seem to be so solid. Just like the seat belt and drunk driving laws. There seem to be no arguments at all. But I claim that the car has brought us diseases and social decline that among other things like ecologic disaster, make it more like a plague than almost anyone can realize.

There was a time when it was working for us. But we have been irresponsible with it. Like my dad always said, "It's a tool". It's a great collection of engineering and inventions. Utterly beautiful. So is alcohol.

Sorry. I didn't mean to post this at you. I love having a car too. But the idea of two billion cars that are shortly going to be operating on this planet, has a very bad taste to it.

[trof]

10. Don't give me a P-38

The props they counter-rotate.
She's smattered and smitten from Burma to Britain.
Don't give me a P-38.
;-)