Alternatives for Gasoline Internal Combustion Engine

Alternatives for Gasoline Internal-Combustion Engine

An internal-combustion engine is an engine in which the combustion of the fuel takes place within cylinder (see fig 1). An internal combustion engine has one or more cylinders in which the process of combustion takes place, converting energy released from the rapid burning of a fuel-air mixture into mechanical energy. The first person to experiment with such an engine was the Dutch Physicist Christian Huygens , in 1680. In 1885, Gottlieb Daimler constructed what is generally recognized as the prototype of the modern gas engine: small and fast, with a vertical cylinder, it used gasoline injected through a carburetor. In 1889 Daimler introduced a four-stroke engine with mushroom-shaped valves and two cylinders arranged in a V, having a much higher power-to-weight ratio; with the exception of electric starting, which would not be introduced until 1924. Most modern gasoline engines are descended from Daimler's engines. The gasoline internal-combustion engine was selected for the automobile due to its flexibility over a wide range of speeds, reliability, compact size and range of operation. Also it could be produced by economical mass-production methods. Even though, the gasoline internal combustion engine has these positive values, when it comes to the negative side of the gasoline internal combustion engine, it is clear that these positive values are not enough to balance the scale.

Why do we need an alternative engine to replace the well known Gasoline-

Internal Combustion engine?

Fig 1.http://www.cardesignonline.com/images/renault-inline-3.jpg

As a very ambitious automobile enthusiast, I asked this question myself more than a thousand times and I could not give an answer till now. Once my professor asked us to write a research paper, I immediately decided to research this topic stated. My audience is anybody who drives an automobile and my purpose is to inform them about the alternatives that they can choose over gasoline internal combustion engine. In today's world, there has been a growing prominence on the pollution producing features of the gasoline internal-combustion

Engines and rapidly growing demand for the fuel, gasoline which will be limited to only few reserves in the near future. Now the majority of the automobile industry of the world is searching for alternatives for the internal-combustion engine and some of these alternatives have made their way to the production already. There are lots of ingenious designs and concepts circling inside the automotive world. Among many concept prototypes, only a few found promising results such as biodiesel engine, hydrogen fuel cell engine, battery-electric engine, and hybrid-gas and turbojet-turbine engine.

Biodiesel engine is one of the few engines that already made its way to production.As Georg Kacher predicts the very first will be the Volkswagen TDI-B and will step on the US soil in mid 2008. According to the national biodiesel board, biodiesel, which is the fuel for the biodiesel engine is produced by a chemical process, which removes the glycerin from the oil. And the final product is a fuel comprised of mono-alkyl ester of long chain acids derived from vegetable oil or animal fats; designated B100. Also these biodiesel should meet the requirements of act-ASTM D 6751. Biodiesel can be operated in any diesel engine with little modifications to the engine and the fuel system. For example;According to Mr. Duncan Dauglas, The Montgomery County Transport Authority has joint venture with General Motors and added buses to the county transit system. They now comprise 25 percent of our Ride On bus fleet.Another alternative engine that made its way to production is the hydrogen fuel cell engine. A hydrogen fuel cell engine is an engine, which uses hydrogen as its primary source of power. Hydrogen is usually obtained from decomposition of methane, and sometimes from water using electrolysis. The main benefit of this engine is that it uses oxygen from the air to produce only water vapor as exhaust, leaving the engine zero emission. It is the only sustainable fuel that can be reproduced in a cycle, "water-hydrogen-water". BMW (Bayerische Motoren Worke), or in English, Bavarian Motor Works, is a committed group that develops innovative concepts for a sustainable mobility of tomorrow. In doing so, they have opted for the fuel of the future, according to the BMW group, hydrogen. The BMW hydrogen 7 is the first hydrogen vehicle, which handed into a selected small group of individuals for further testing purposes(see Fig 2). In her article, Tanya Palta predicts that the complete change from a fossil fuel infrastructure to a hydrogen economy will require decades, but with the Hydrogen 7, BMW shows that bringing hydrogen technology to the road is indeed feasible. Honda, a leading Japanese automaker, with the zero emission FCX became the first and only fuel cell vehicle certified by the US EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) and CARB (California Air Resources Board) for commercial use (corporate.honda.com). The US president made a statement to people to begin running cars on hydrogen as soon as possible, and has allocated over one billion dollars for researches.

Fig 2. www.bmw.com

Fig. 3. http://www.uvcountry.com/navigation/hires_e6Side%5B1%5D.JPG

Battery-electric power plant is also a completely different alternative for the gasoline internal-combustion engine. Idaho National Laboratory has been testing plug-in hybrid electric vehicles for more than a decade and made a huge advance in the battery-electric power plant. It is a simple electric motor driven by battery power. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration technically defines it as a "Low Speed Vehicle". Even though it is only approved for urban use, which should not exceed 25mph limit, it has the best fuel efficiency in urban driving (see Fig. 3). Only hybrid electric vehicles, which combine a relatively small internal

combustion engine with an electric propulsion motor, made their way to the market till today because of the higher speed requirements