Wave Disk Generator Hybrid Car Engine May Revolutionize Industry

Researchers at Michigan State University are giving Motor City executives something to squawk about, a new wave disk generator for hybrid cars that is twice as efficient as a traditional gasoline-powered engine.

According to Discovery News, “…researchers at Michigan State University have built a prototype gasoline engine that requires no transmission, crankshaft, pistons, valves, fuel compression, cooling systems or fluids. Their so-called Wave Disk Generator could greatly improve the efficiency of gas-electric hybrid automobiles and potentially decrease auto emissions up to 90 percent when compared with conventional combustion engines.

“The engine has a rotor that’s equipped with wave-like channels that trap and mix oxygen and fuel as the rotor spins. These central inlets are blocked off, building pressure within the chamber, causing a shock wave that ignites the compressed air and fuel to transmit energy.”

The part about no transmission makes sense since many hybrid vehicles already don’t use a transmission and they power an electric motor as well. Another part to this story that doesn’t make sense is that the new Wave Disk Generator is said to be 60-percent efficient in burning gasoline and traditional cars are only 15-percent efficient, which is odd since everything I’ve ever read points to average gasoline-powered engines being 25 to 30-percent efficient as burning fuel.

No matter whether the Wave Disk Generator is 2 times or 3.5 times as efficient as a traditional internal combustion engine, the new hybrid car engine is 20-percent lighter and 30-percent cheaper to manufacture.

This means that fuel efficiency will increase because of two factors. The first factor is the efficiency of the Wave Disk Generator (whatever the exact figure is) and the fact that it is lighter (about 1,000 lbs lighter than a traditional engine). Adding weight to any vehicle decreases the MPG’s and vice versa.

What is new about how the Wave Disk Generator achieves its 90-percent reduction in emissions and increased MPGs by the generation of shock waves in a spinning air-fuel mixture which increases compression.

If all goes as planned you will start seeing the Wave Disk Generator hybrid cars in showrooms in about 3 years. Here’s a Youtube video that explains in more detail why the Wave Disk Generator is about the revolutionize not only Detroit but the rest of the world as well.

Read more at Green Tech Gazette