The Internal Combustion Engine Hasn't Changed Much Until Now.....
I wonder how long it will be before this company gets bought out and this disappears......
The split-cycle engine cuts this four-stroke cycle into two parts. It uses 'paired' cylinders, with each cylinder in the pair doing half the work. We first covered the concept a few years back, after Scuderi completed a prototype.
In the first cylinder, air is drawn through an intake valve, where it mixes with fuel injected into the cylinder. As the piston returns, a different valve opens into a special port. The mixture is pushed through, where it's drawn into the second cylinder through another intake valve.
The valve then closes, the mixture is compressed by the second piston, and ignited in the power stroke. As the piston returns again, the mixture exits through the exhaust valve as it would normally.
Emissions are reduced, and Scuderi predicts up to 65 mpg would be possible from a small-capacity unit.
Wow! Twice the moving parts! Increased weight! What's not to like?
ReplyDeleteLooking at the link, the text quoted above is wrong.
ReplyDeleteThe first piston does the compression, the other the power-stroke.
Not sure I REALLY see the utility, though I guess it COULD run at half the RPMs of a normal engine since it's firing on every rev instead of every other...
Still.......