By Rob South, WKAR
EAST LANSING, MI –
Researcher Norbert Muller on the Wave Disk Generator, a new engine design developed at Michigan State University that may be considerably more efficient than the piston design found on cars today.
AUDIO
Norbert Muller
Mechanical Engineering at Michigan State University
MULLER: The wave disk generator is a new engine concept that incorporates internal combustion, like we know it from the piston engine, with extraction based on turbo machinery like blades and jet propulsion, and also utilizing shockwaves on top of this for internal energy transferral.
Overall we expect a very efficient cycle here, which is the so-called Humphries cycle, where we have the combination of confined combustion and complete expansion which leads us to higher efficiencies from the get-go.
The engine is supposed to generate power.
First, mechanical which you can transform into electrical power.
And with this you can use it almost everywhere, where you want to do so, as long as you have fuel and an oxidant to combust the fuel.
That's what the engine is, it's very light weight, easy to manufacture, and small.
And this gives it some advantages that allow its use or preferred use in many places including portable power and even stationary generation.
It's also proposed as a back-up generator for solar and wind and things like this, so I think the uses are almost endless. We have only one rotating part, and if you want to we have no solid part touching another solid part. This is obviously much less friction.
Frictional losses as we know it from the internal combustion engine, the piston engine we have today, where we have plenty of parts in there and they need to be oiled and lubricated, and they have services. Ten years down the road I wish all the cars would have this engine and of course with the higher efficiency, everybody is happy with it.
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