Laser spark plugs
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From: SE VTecville
Laser spark plugs
What do the technical boffins think of this then?
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.
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.
Joined: May 2002
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From: Sunny Norf*ck
Igniting more of the fuel present presumably. By clever use of mirrors getting the energy into every corner of the cavity? I suppose a spark, being at one point, has it's energy dissipated by the molecules near to the spark getting ignited microseconds before the more distant ones? Just musing ...
edit: some bright spark will be along shortly to explain no doubt
edit: some bright spark will be along shortly to explain no doubt
Joined: Oct 2005
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From: Banbury, Oxfordshire
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/04...er_sparkplugs/
Huzzah! No more diesels.
The spark plug is the limiting factor on how "lean" - how low in fuel - the mixture can be: in order to ignite a leaner mixture the spark must be hotter, and past a certain point this destroys the electrodes.
But designers would like to make leaner-running engines as this would improve fuel economy and cut down on emissions.
Lasers would potentially offer hotter ignition, and they have other advantages too. The timing of ignition would be more precise than with sparkplugs - on the very brief timescales over which cylinder mixtures change, the exact point at which a plug will spark is quite unpredictable.
Ignition by photon beam would also offer the option of focusing the hot spot in the centre of the cylinder rather than generating it at the top. This would allow the "flame front" of the exploding mixture to spread out in all directions and act more efficiently
But designers would like to make leaner-running engines as this would improve fuel economy and cut down on emissions.
Lasers would potentially offer hotter ignition, and they have other advantages too. The timing of ignition would be more precise than with sparkplugs - on the very brief timescales over which cylinder mixtures change, the exact point at which a plug will spark is quite unpredictable.
Ignition by photon beam would also offer the option of focusing the hot spot in the centre of the cylinder rather than generating it at the top. This would allow the "flame front" of the exploding mixture to spread out in all directions and act more efficiently
The tech ought to permit much more efficient, lower-emission petrol cars in years to come - perhaps swinging the pendulum back towards petrol and away from diesel engines, which in recent times have become the fuel-sipping low-emissions choice.
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From: Southampton/Reading
Ummm, I'll believe it when I see it, running lean generates a massive amount of heat, you burn less fuel but it burns much much hotter so the cooling system and materials required to cope with that heat would be the limiting factor, not the spark plug.
Interesting concept but I don't think we will see it anytime soon.
Interesting concept but I don't think we will see it anytime soon.
