OK, I tweaked the site a bit. The animations now work for the two installations of IE that I have tested with.
(one animation is about 4.5 meg, so I put it on a seperate page, to make it easier on folks with dialup connections)
Now, the discussions- use grinder to help slow vehicle? I'm not sure that's the best way to use the stored energy... but in this case, maybe it is?
Having a compressor, then a combustor, then an expander- Haven't there been investigations for automotive use?
As depicted in Melchor's concept, there are low-pressure inlet valves (he suggests reed valves- I suspect that there are good reasons reed valves aren't used in 4-stroke engines already...) then an intermediate valve.
I am not sure what you would call the intermediate valve, but it looks like it, along with the second-stage compressor, acts like an injector.
A diesel injects fuel into a combustion chamber full of hot compressed air.
Here, you would inject hot compressed air into a combustion chamber which has fuel in it. In this case, biomass dust is the fuel.
Since the air is compressed highly, then expanded somewhat into the combustion chamber to ignite the fuel.
Seems that there would be some losses in that process, making it somewhat less efficient thermally than a conventional diesel.
comments?
Jay Maechtlen
