Engineering TV

Thanks for the video update on the Cyclone Waste Heat Engine (WHE).

Promising technology indeed.

Harry Schoell is amazing!

This is an amazing development. You could run a car off the high pressure engine and the air conditioning with the waste heat engine to cool the car. This is the engine of the future, nowl

What is the efficiency of this device in terms of btus  in to hp out?

More specifically: geo-coupled heatpumps for residential heating and cooling are said to be running at 4+ COP in terms of hp-in to btus-out, Is this unit better than 25%?

The name should not  be "Waste Heat Engine" because no combustion takes place in it. It's a motor, not an engine.

Also, it does not run on heat, but on the momentum of the input gas flow. That gas flow's temprature doesn't matter. The demo unit in the videos uses compressed air... that's not too hot. The heat of the moving input gas does not get harnessed and put to work; it gets wasted. What moves the pistons is fact that the input gas is moving.

Therefore, the product is a pneumatic motor.

A cool pneumatic motor; one that is radial-piston in design and capable of being driven by a gasoline, diesel or turbine engine's output exhaust; but still a pneumatic motor. A pneumatic motor capable of driving the vehicle's alternator or other loads; but still a pneumatic motor.

Remember, a turbocharger is also a pneumatic motor which drives a built-in pneumatic air pump. It does not harness the heat of the engine's exhaust gas. The movment of that gas is what drives the exhaust rotor. The exhaust heat still gets wasted. Same with the Waste Heat Engine.

Nevertheless, this product is cool... green. It should be in EVERY internal combustion (or external combustion) powered motor vehicle.

There are three companies that I know of with great new engine technology.  They are Cyclone Power, Axial Vector (AXVC) and Turbine Truck Engines (TTEG).  They all can burn multi fuels, claim higher efficiency, high torque, fewer parts and low or no lub and cooling requirements.  

weight, cost, and space usage probably will exclude this engine from most vehilcles.  The most promising suggestion is using it to provide solar electricity at 20% of the cost of photovoltaics.

As far as I can tell, they are not building or selling these engines any time soon. Too bad.

"The name should not  be "Waste Heat Engine" because no combustion takes place in it. It's a motor, not an engine."

Uhhh...as I understand it, the thing is an external combustion steam engine. If there's no combustion, no heat, no steam, no workie...What's with this pnuematic stuff? And as far as that goes, somewhere upstream of a compressed flow of gas you can bet your bippy there was combustion somewhere unless the juice that produced it was hydroelectric in origin.

"weight, cost, and space usage probably will exclude this engine from most vehicles."

No transmission, no radiator, no water pump, no oil pump, etc......have you really thought  this through?

how about its installation?

Well, this thing is decidedly a motor more than an engine--but that is semantics. If it's construction and design are such that it can extract useful work ('member Physics 101?) out of exhaust, then this is truly a spectacular piece of work. As for adding weight, if it runs cool; i.e., significantly cooler than fossil fuel engines, then you can make the thing out of lightweight plastics, composites and ceramics.

Excellent idea for heat recovery

Response to the comment quoted below:

"Also, it does not run on heat, but on the momentum of the input gas flow. << No. momentum has little to do with things.  At zero rpm -- therefore no gas movement, and no momentum -- there would still be torque.>>  That gas flow's temperature doesn't matter.  The demo unit in the videos uses compressed air... that's not too hot.  <<True.  The demo unit is a pneumatic motor -- as you well point out.  However, in regular operations things are different.>>  The heat of the moving input gas does not get harnessed and put to work; it gets wasted.  What moves the pistons is fact that the input gas is moving.  << It moves because of the pressure... and heat.  Movement and momentum have almost no part here.  Please see below.  >>

Therefore, the product is a pneumatic motor. "  <<In the demo yes.>>

<<As in an IC engine or a turbo power is derived from heat and pressure.  Also remember that Pressure is an expression of heat; they overlap.  PV=nRT or roughly P~ T.  As one goes up, so does the other.

In a turbo the pressure helps keep hot gasses near the vanes so that the hot atoms can deposit their kinetic energy to the vane; both the heat and the pressure drive the vanes.  

The same should be somewhat true here.  HOWEVER, in the video the inventor dodges the efficiency question…. So, it might be mainly a pressure engine, which can load down an upstream IC engine.   Efficiency = 1- heat flow out / heat flow in.  EG. 1- (500 deg K out / 550 Deg K in = .091 (or 9% eff).  >>

Hope that helps.  

Such a device as this is certainly needed.  For example, the catalytic converter in an automobile wastes a lot of heat burning CO to CO2 -- probably enough energy to run the air conditioner.

However, your article does not really and truely explain how the device actually works.  You should provide some sort of reference to a more detailed explaination of its theory and operation.

Some of your readers say this is a motor, not an engine.  If we accept their definitions of motor and engine, then James Watt really invented the steam motor, not the steam engine.  And Detroit should be called the "Engine City," not the "Motor City."

Perhaps the semantic critics would explain what one would call a measurling engine.  Or a ruling engine.  Or Babbage's difference engine..

Ken

The WHE is definitely an engine... a steam engine, although it can use working fluids other than water. This particular design incorporates several innovations that make it particularly effective. First, the Cyclone condenser (very impressive) is very effective, compact, and lightweight. Second, there is no oil lubrication which solves a long-standing problem in steam systems. Third, the engine is a uniflow (no exhaust valve in the cylinder head), but with no compression... the steam exhausts through the piston... this both increased efficiency and mean effective pressure (which enhances the power/weight). Finally, the design is a very elegant, compact, lightweight package.

I had viewed this engine , motor or whatever you want to call it and no real pointed questions were answered. I was told the larger engine can make upt 92 hp and torque of 2800 which I personally think is way off. Does he mean 2800 ft. pounds of torque for like 1 second? No dyno tests exist and no working model in any fashion other than the test engine in a controlled setting.

Questions that were asked about letting anyone do any outside testing were met with resistance. This steam engine is not much different than ones 100 yrs. ago and it maybe 100 years before he lets anyone test it. I would guess that if an outside test were shown that this engine did not do what is claimed their penny stock would be about 1 penny.  

If it proves out I will be the first to buy one but I am not going to wait 100 years to get it.

Mark H, I must assume that the "larger engine" that you're referring to is the mark VI Cyclone engine. I make this assumption only because the 2800 ft lbs torque value that you cite applies to the maximum starting torque of this engine. Incidentally, you must have misunderstood whoever was communicating with you as the mark VI engine is designed for a maximum hp of 330 hp, not 92 hp.

To answer your question, this high torque value is primarily a function of the speed of the engine, and occurs only at extremely low rpm. While this torque value seems high, one should not be surprised. After all, a fluid at 3200 psi admitted to the face of a 3" piston with a 3" stroke can easily generate this kind of force, and as long as the speed of the engine were very low this torque could be maintained indefinitely. Incidentally, the torque profile (especially the high starting torque) exhibited by this engine obviates the need for a transmission.

As far as your claim that this engine is no different than 100 year old steam engine technology, well, I'm not sure where to begin. Suffice to say that if you truly believe this, then I must conclude that your understanding of steam power is simply insufficient to address your claim here. But I would be willing to discuss the Cyclone engine if you contact me via my YouTube account, user name mariasman100.

I'm very skeptical of the claims made for this device. The heat-transfer and mechanical losses alone would likely render this un-economical. As for the idea of running A/C on vehicles, a better way might be direct conversion of waste heat via an ammonia-cycle A/C system. No premium mechanical power needed. As for augmenting engine output; direct conversion of waste heat to steam has been proposed already (BMW). I think people have a tendency to overestimate just how much power can be got from low-grade heat by-products. There's a reason that coal-fired boilers needed to be stoked continuously: It takes a lot of energy to drive a piece of rotating machinery.

It's a modified radial airplane octo engine running on the same priciples of the compressed air of an air car.  

We need real advancement.  

The Waste Heat Engine provides an economical means to produce mechanical energy from relatively low temperature heat sources. There are innumerable sources of heat that cannot be currently tapped because all available options are too costly, both in initial capital outlays and in ongoing operational costs. If a heat source is presently not used, then the question of whether or not the system is economical boils down to the value of the energy generated over the life of the system vs. the net costs of the system. So the bottom line comes down to how much does the WHE system cost to purchase and to maintain, and is the source of heat sufficient and at a sufficient temperature to make up the net costs incurred by the system? It all depends on the application.

for me a thermic motor that run whitout have a possibility to use fully the elastic energy that is a energy of comprimed air,

like a second part of a bryton cicle motor,

the first just a compressor

have not a future...

If this Waste Heat Engine really works, will it work on a parabolic cylinder solar collector? If it will, it seems to me that one or two of these 16 HP WHEs could supply the power needed to run a home.

Morris Ratliff Wrote

"If this Waste Heat Engine really works, will it work on a parabolic cylinder solar collector? If it will, it seems to me that one or two of these 16 HP WHEs could supply the power needed to run a home."

And there in lies the genius of this invention.  Every home can be installed with WHE engines just like an air conditioning unit and in the tropical countries solar heat will be a great source of that WH.  Every village, every location where there is human habitation can benefit from this invention.  Most delevlpoing countries won't have to spend huge resources for electricity grids.  They can develop on the cheap and unleashe the human potential this machine will engender.

I don't see what the big deal is. This looks like an overly complicated pneumatic motor.

Where can these engines be purchased? Are they available. I'm in the seafood business. The cyclone engine sounds like a god energy saver if used in line with a string of refrigeration compressors.