Look Mum, no piston rings!

[Old Koreelah]

While engineers beaver away trying to get the best out of traditional designs, these people thought laterally:

 

http://www.motoring.com.au/news/2013/aussie-invention-eliminates-piston-rings-40773?WT.z_csource=Outbrain&WT.seg_4=Outbrain

 

 

[kgwilson]

It sounds promising so I hope they get it to work. Sometimes great ideas get killed off by companies with deep pockets and a vested interest in keeping the status quo.

 

 

[turboplanner]

"Dynex has brought the technology to the proof-of-concept phase, in which virtual modelling of the “air-sealing” principle looks promising enough to get to work on the real thing."

 

That's a bit of a worry; I've come up with a few hydraulic ideas over the years which have failed the "real thing" test, mainly because of the multi dimensional nature of fluids and the ability to think of all the aspects at once.

 

However the ring issue has been solved in RC Aircraft motors for 60 years or so where these engines are able to use smooth sided pistons, the chambers being fed from a venturi into a hole in the crank, so maybe Dynex has discovered a different version of the principle.

 

A smaller cooling system, and greater power output, is significant in current car and truck design, and even more significant if the designer uses the extra efficiency to trade off some of that power for greater fuel economy.

 

It could keep the internal combustion engine in service for a few more years, although Honda (Clarity) and Toyota both have working Fuel Cell power units in operation now, and that will take us away from the ever increasing price of post-peak oil.

 

Interesting times.