What If?: The Turbine Had Not Been Invented

[oakfloor]

Re: What If?: The Turbine Had Not Been Invented

Well in motor racing, it hasnt. Piston engine technology is still here and growing, like F1, top fuel dragsters, motorcycles, ETC. I think there still would be P&W VDT or wright turbo-compound radials, and inline V-12s just more refined. I often wonder if someone like Honda motor co. could make a improved version of a RR griffon or a saber or a R-2800 wasp? Or if they all just kept on developing piston engines all these years. Could you imagine a 40 liter, turbo-charged, carbon fiber reinforced titanuim engine, putting 10,000 HP to a contra rotating , six bladed prop. Mounted on the front of a reno racer?

[Kahuna]

Re: What If?: The Turbine Had Not Been Invented

Well in motor racing, it hasnt. Piston engine technology is still here and growing, like F1, top fuel dragsters, motorcycles, ETC. I think there still would be P&W VDT or wright turbo-compound radials, and inline V-12s just more refined. I often wonder if someone like Honda motor co. could make a improved version of a RR griffon or a saber or a R-2800 wasp? Or if they all just kept on developing piston engines all these years. Could you imagine a 40 liter, turbo-charged, carbon fiber reinforced titanuim engine, putting 10,000 HP to a contra rotating , six bladed prop. Mounted on the front of a reno racer?

I can imagine that but Reno racers donīt have a 200 million - plus budget for every year like the big F1 teams have .

Willy

[kiwiracefan]

Re: What If?: The Turbine Had Not Been Invented

it would be extremely interesting to see what would have happened if the Turbine engine had not been invented... hmmmm a F1 team for around 200 million a year, that would be cheap haha.. i heard something here in NZ the Ferrari last year spent approx 600 million USD... and were out spent by toyota

[First time Juke]

Re: What If?: The Turbine Had Not Been Invented

I just Googled the RCV web site to see if it was still up, and if you go there and click on model aircraft engines, and click on the RCV 120, there is a exploded view and a good description of how it works, probably better than mine.

Larry

Larry I have .90 size one...prop in pic is 15/5. If used in a pusher I could actually use "deduction gear".

I have heard that engine has metallic sound and overheats quickly. Remarkable in a way...like axial vector engine..small size.

[First time Juke]

Re: What If?: The Turbine Had Not Been Invented

What if, for whatever reason, the turbine engine had never been invented and we had continued to develop the piston engine...

I think the first jet was invented before ( Henry Coanda 1910 ) axial thrust fan ( pusher like LF 2100) by Edson Gallaudet 1912.

Also the reappearance of the axial thrust fan ( XB-42 ) happened after jet engine invention ( Ohain and Whittle 1938 ) in 1943.

Jet engine was necessary to go fast...really fast and high too. This jet engine fever pretty effectively killed for instance the developement of axial vector engine that was proven to be twice as effective as any piston engine before. There has been people saying theat axial vector engine don't last long. Well you gotta bear in mind Concorde engines were changed after few flights too. Seems to me that Dyna Cam would have been 5 times more effective than a Rotax. What it means that if you have 1000 hr tbo in a Rotax and 500 hr in AVEC you would have travelled 4 times the distance with AVEC than with a Rotax ( avec engine home page says 40 000 TBO for their car engine...obviously some people see that as a hoax ).

I wonder if AVECs .50 cent stock will rise soon ?

[bluffman]

Re: What If?: The Turbine Had Not Been Invented

Juke, I ran both sizes 4 or 5 years ago, never had any overheating problems or any metallic sounds. Sold both of them, and bought another pair a few months ago for projects I am trying to find time for to complete. Putting an O200 together for F1/ Reno 09 that is taking more time than I expected.
Larry

[BellCobraIV]

Re: What If?: The Turbine Had Not Been Invented

Thanks guys... I can see the "how it works" now.. Still, from the aspect of sealling things, I can see a whole bunch of headaches using sleeves v poppets.. The amount of parts belies the amount of complexity that is lost in the simple up and down motion of the poppet valve.. They have proven reliable in engines for 1000's of hours... Looking at the sleeve valve, throw in some carbon deposits and it just looks like something that would work well.. in a lab...

GREAT discussion, and I'd love to hear from someone who has practical experience with both...

Wayne,
While conversing in a nap recently with Da' Doc, he told me that Roy Fedden thinks you don't understand, but that's just RF's opinion. Smokey Yunick thinks you should be working on a head that has disc valves. and Da' Doc is thinking solenoid controlled valves that are timed electronically to vary with engine demands are possibly the way to go. We need to get started though, with a Trillion dollars in grants available, I'm in line looking for ideas.

BTW, Paul Morgan insists on Crew Chief control without pilot input. Scoville and Zeuschel were out to lunch but not together.

[W J Pearce]

Re: What If?: The Turbine Had Not Been Invented

Wayne,
While conversing in a nap recently with Da' Doc, he told me that Roy Fedden thinks you don't understand, but that's just RF's opinion. Smokey Yunick thinks you should be working on a head that has disc valves. and Da' Doc is thinking solenoid controlled valves that are timed electronically to vary with engine demands are possibly the way to go. We need to get started though, with a Trillion dollars in grants available, I'm in line looking for ideas.

BTW, Paul Morgan insists on Crew Chief control without pilot input. Scoville and Zeuschel were out to lunch but not together.

You know, Fedden was quite happy working 200 hours a week to resolve whatever issue lay before him. He did not let the fact that there were only 168 hours in a week slow him down.

Personally, I agree with the Doc. While I think sleeve valves did offer advantages over poppet especially in the days of crappy fuel and would have been the next step had the jet not come about, I think the ultimate valve would be some sort of large, electromagnetic actuated port where open and close timing as well as duration would all be computer controlled and matched to what the engine was doing.

It is clear in my mind and the voices tell me it will work well.

By the way, I stumbled across some figures the other day. Bristol produced no fewer than 143,000 sleeve valve engines during WWII and over 1.5 million sleeves. 200 million horsepower was generated by WWII sleeve valve engines from Bristol and Napier. Perfecting the sleeve-valve only took 5 years of research and testing at a cost to the Air Ministry of 2 million pounds. Whittle's jet cost the Air Ministry only 1.3 million pounds.

[AAFO_WSagar]

Re: What If?: The Turbine Had Not Been Invented

I'll have to go back to the manual but I'm pretty sure BeerNazi's BMW has electronic controlled valves.. unless I'm remembering wrong, (neever.... ) the engine plays between the throttle by wire and the valves to give optimum performance/economy.. I'll vouch for both! Never ceases to amaze me that this little 2.5L 6 pulls around an all wheel drive 325 xi at over the speed limit (ahem) and gives an honest 30mpg (highway) all day long.. no slouch either!

Can we only imagine what the experts would have come up with given 40+ years to play with piston engine tech!

[eeyore]

Re: What If?: The Turbine Had Not Been Invented

Interesting thread. You realize that with the invention of the turbocharger the turbine was obvious. There are kits to turn old car turbos into small jet engines and yes they run. That being said the demands of racing have driven interal combustion engines far ahead of the 1940s. I'd love to see it applied to Unlimited Air Racing

[BellCobraIV]

Re: What If?: The Turbine Had Not Been Invented

I'll have to go back to the manual but I'm pretty sure BeerNazi's BMW has electronic controlled valves.. unless I'm remembering wrong, (neever.... ) the engine plays between the throttle by wire and the valves to give optimum performance/economy.. I'll vouch for both! Never ceases to amaze me that this little 2.5L 6 pulls around an all wheel drive 325 xi at over the speed limit (ahem) and gives an honest 30mpg (highway) all day long.. no slouch either!

Can we only imagine what the experts would have come up with given 40+ years to play with piston engine tech!

Stolen material posted here as a notation;
"BMW has also used a cam phasing system, called VANOS (Variable Onckenwellen Steuerung) for several years. Like the other manufacturers, this system only affected the intake cams. But, as of 1999, BMW is offering its Double VANOS system on the new 3 Series. As you might have guessed, Double VANOS manipulates both the intake and exhaust camshafts to provide efficient operation at all rpm's. This helps the new 328i, equipped with a 2.8-liter inline six, develop 193 peak horsepower and 206 pound-feet of torque. More impressive than the peak numbers, however, is the broad range of useable power that goes along with this system."

The system Bill and I were discussing would have no camshafts, no deflection of metal inside the engine to vary or break, just an electronic module to fail and cause silence. Each individual valve would have a solenoid NOT a camshaft that would operate it. When and how much the valve was opened would depend on a performance map that was developed and programmed into an engine control module. The triggering for the fuel injection, ignition, and valve events would be off a modified flying magent trigger system.

Think it is too Jules Verne? Just think once upon a time elevators and submarines were thought to be too Jules Verne. In fact just such a system might just be waiting to be funded, the world may never know..........

[AAFO_WSagar]

Re: What If?: The Turbine Had Not Been Invented

The system Bill and I were discussing would have no camshafts, no deflection of metal inside the engine to vary or break, just an electronic module to fail and cause silence. Each individual valve would have a solenoid NOT a camshaft that would operate it. When and how much the valve was opened would depend on a performance map that was developed and programmed into an engine control module. The triggering for the fuel injection, ignition, and valve events would be off a modified flying magent trigger system.

Who would have thought distributorless engines would be common today.. I like it!

[440_Magnum]

Re: What If?: The Turbine Had Not Been Invented

The system Bill and I were discussing would have no camshafts, no deflection of metal inside the engine to vary or break, just an electronic module to fail and cause silence. Each individual valve would have a solenoid NOT a camshaft that would operate it.

IIRC, there have been some experimental solenoid-actuated valve engines that have run, and run as advertised with valve lift profiles completely divorced from the engine rotation so that you can get any arbitrary combination of valve lift and timing that you want. Again, going from memory some of the problems encountered have been:

- noise, noise, noise...
- heat dissipation in the solenoids and associated driver circuits (if you calculate the amount of power it takes to operate the valves, its not small and consumes a lot of electricity)
- longevity.

Honda VTEC, which changes valve lift profiles by shifting oil pressure to an interlock pin, and the Chrysler (MDS) and GM (DoD) systems of deactivating cylinders by diverting oil pressure at the lifters all point out an advantage of hydraulics (you can throw in Navistar's HEUI diesel injection system in that category too, actually). It makes a lot of sense to let *small* electrical solenoids flip some oil valves around, and then let oil pressure (which is there already, created by a robust pump and drive system) do the "heavy lifting" to actuate a lifter, change which cam the follower follows, operate the diesel unit injectors, or maybe even lift the valves. It would still be very hard to get full-range valve actuation this way, but it could give you several steps of valve lift from a mechanical cam just by changing the effective length of the valve lifter through switching hydraulic feeds to the lifter.

[BellCobraIV]

Re: What If?: The Turbine Had Not Been Invented

IIRC, there have been some experimental solenoid-actuated valve engines that have run, and run as advertised with valve lift profiles completely divorced from the engine rotation so that you can get any arbitrary combination of valve lift and timing that you want. Again, going from memory some of the problems encountered have been:

- noise, noise, noise...
- heat dissipation in the solenoids and associated driver circuits (if you calculate the amount of power it takes to operate the valves, its not small and consumes a lot of electricity)
- longevity.

Honda VTEC, which changes valve lift profiles by shifting oil pressure to an interlock pin, and the Chrysler (MDS) and GM (DoD) systems of deactivating cylinders by diverting oil pressure at the lifters all point out an advantage of hydraulics (you can throw in Navistar's HEUI diesel injection system in that category too, actually). It makes a lot of sense to let *small* electrical solenoids flip some oil valves around, and then let oil pressure (which is there already, created by a robust pump and drive system) do the "heavy lifting" to actuate a lifter, change which cam the follower follows, operate the diesel unit injectors, or maybe even lift the valves. It would still be very hard to get full-range valve actuation this way, but it could give you several steps of valve lift from a mechanical cam just by changing the effective length of the valve lifter through switching hydraulic feeds to the lifter.

From what has been told to me, there have been engines run this way with success in the 2, 8 and 10 cylinder models. Is the science perfected not by any means, but this would without argument change the playing field in sports class racing. Even though I think the Merlin could have the solenoids described to me retrofitted with some ease.

[Skyracer]

Re: What If?: The Turbine Had Not Been Invented

IMHO - All of the variable valve timing, lift, etc., serves great purpose for engines where their application demands performance and efficiency across a broad RPM range. However, aircraft engines operate in a narrow RPM band and are optimized to reliably do just that. What would the advantage be of a technologically advanced valve train?