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Car engines could soon be fired by lasers instead of spark plugs, researchers say.
A team at the Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics will report on 1 May that they have designed lasers that could ignite the fuel/air mixture in combustion engines.
The approach would increase efficiency of engines, and reduce their pollution, by igniting more of the mixture.
The team is in discussions with a spark plug manufacturer.
The idea of replacing spark plugs – a technology that has changed little since their invention 150 years ago – with lasers is not a new one.
Spark plugs only ignite the fuel mixture near the spark gap, reducing the combustion efficiency, and the metal that makes them up is slowly eroded as they age.
“In the past, lasers that could meet those requirements were… big, inefficient, and unstable” Takunori TairaNational Institutes of Natural Sciences, Okazaki
But only with the advent of smaller lasers has the idea of laser-based combustion become a practical one.
Ceramic powders
A team from Romania and Japan has now demonstrated a system that can focus two or three laser beams into an engine’s cylinders at variable depths.
That increases the completeness of combustion and neatly avoids the issue of degradation with time.
However, it requires that lasers of high pulse energies are used; just as with spark plugs, a great deal of energy is needed to cause ignition of the fuel.
“In the past, lasers that could meet those requirements were limited to basic research because they were big, inefficient, and unstable,” said Takunori Taira of the National Institutes of Natural Sciences in Okazaki, Japan.
One Comment
Henryk mongialo
For 15 years there is a U.S. patent for a plasma ignition, none of the
automotive companies are not interested in him and did not examine its
superb capabilities. Everyone preferred the hybrid.
New spark plug -plasma spark plug reduce 70% fuel reduce CO2 zero-O-
emissions CO2 !!!!!
For years now, I have wondered where and when the next Edison with a
bright idea will appear and invent a "lean, green, driving
machine
I have finally found such a man. He lives in Farmington Hills,
Michigan, and his name is Robert Krupa
We have all heard the saying, "If something sounds too good to be
true, itsually is". The amazing new spark plug designed by Mr Krupa,
which he named "FireStorm", is the exception to this rule.
named "FireStorm", is the exception to this rule.
I know that when it comes to buying spark plugs, they are all
basically the same except for the price.
So, why make the same except
for the price. So, why make a big deal about another new spark plug?
Fire Storm Capabilities
First, let look at what Krupa FireStorm spark plugs give an
internal
combustion engine:
More horsepower;
44-50% increase in mpg;
Dramatic decrease in emissions.
Second, let see what FireStorm plugs eliminate:
Smog pump;
Catalytic converter;
Radio frequency interference (RFI) and the use of resistors in the
centre
electrode;
Gap growth;
Exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) systems;
Misfire/hesitation/detonation/stutter and stumble.
How, you may ask, is all this achieved? In a word, plasma. The
revolutionary design of FireStorm spark plugs creates an electric
plasma
that fills the entire combustion chamber like a firestorm. It allows you
to take an internal combustion engine from the standard 14.7:1
air-to-fuel
ratio to an incredibly lean 24:1,30:1,40:1. At this ratio, all the
air/fuel mixture
is burned much more efficiently without increasing heat, thus
giving an engine more power and fuel economy while creating much less
pollution.
The bad news is that you can buy a set of FireStorm spark plugs
anywhere right now.
http://www.libertypost.org/cgi-bin/readart.cgi?Ar…
http://web.archive.org/web/20051216110959/www.rob…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abwXApkLhbc
http://contest.techbriefs.com/component/content/a…
Interview w/Robert Krupa – Firestorm spark plug
http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/5372687