- The gasoline, diesel, rotary,
and even jet engines we have today have evolved from designs
that are over a hundred years old.
With the push in EV tech of late it's tending to think
the advancement of our internal combustion engine
has run its course.
The thing about engineers is it never stopped engineering.
And a brand new design called the entry-ignition-engine
could change the combustion game.
And on top of that, it's a two-stroke.
(motorbike roaring)
But not the type of two-stroke you might be thinking about.
Could a two-stroke engine, save us from EVs?
I don't know, maybe.
Watch to find out.
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- The appearance of a brand new kind of engine
is a rare and exciting event.
That's exactly what happened in 2020
when the entry-ignition engine design debuted
in the journal of Society of Automotive Engineers.
The way it works is a bit like an ordinary four stroke,
a bit like a diesel and a little bit like two-strokes
from over a hundred years ago.
I'm frigging (indistinct) over here,
just a little bit, a little dash of four-stroke!
(chemicals exploding)
A little bit of two-stroke!
(chemicals exploding)
A little bit of diesel!
(chemicals exploding)
(liquid boiling)
(chemicals exploding) Entry-ignition-engine.
That was my hacky part.
So don't understand the significance
of the entry-ignition-engine?
Let's take a quick look at a typical two-stroke engine
and why they haven't been used very often in cars.
And when most people think of two-strokes,
they imagined lawnmowers, chainsaws
or the good old dirt bike, yeah,
the kind of low-tech engines were premixed gas and oil
and no valves, but they do make decent power
and they go.
Those are incredibly simple.
And at their most basic a two-stroke engine can have
as few as three moving parts, a crank,
a piston and a connecting rod.
That's simplicity makes two-strokes lightweight
and inexpensive perfect for lawn care equipment.
Of course we like lightweight and inexpensive cars as well.
And over the years,
there have been a handful of two-stroke cars,
cars like the Saab Sonic, Subaru 360,
and models from German manufacturers like Trabant,
Wartburg and DKW which later became part of Audi.
But these engines have some drawbacks that make them
a poor fit for most road cars.
They're smoky, loud, inefficient
and not really designed to run for long periods of time
or under the conditions that ordinary road cars face.
Let's take engine breaking, for example,
that's when you let off the accelerator
and use the drag from the car's engine to slow the wheels,
instead of the engines combustion keeping the wheels turning
it's actually the wheels keeping the engine turning.
That's a perfectly normal thing to do
while descending a hill or slowing with traffic.
But in a two-stroke using premixed gas and oil,
there is no separate system to provide engine lubrication.
When you let off the accelerator gas and oil,
aren't going to the engine,
but all the parts in the engine are still moving,
wearing down their thin layer of oil.
In an ordinary two-stroke, that oil makes its way
out the tailpipe and with no throttle input,
isn't being replaced with new oil.
On a long up-hill that can lead to oil starvation
causing the engine to overheat or become damaged
from excess friction.
Gotta have that oil in there.
Well, you don't have oil, you have metal on metal,
and metal on metal it's like.
(metals cracking)
You need to lube it up.
Get lubed, bro.
With these two-stroke problems,
car makers either had to come up with solutions
or face the fact people could just go buy something else.
When your customers have choices,
you have to respond or you end up out of business.
Just remember Blockbuster could have bought Netflix
for 50 million bucks,
but thought there was no future in Netflix.
So most automakers use newer technology
to make their two-strokes better.
For oil starvation, some simply add in an oil pump
to keep lubrication flowing
even when the throttle isn't being applied,
the same technology has been in many two-stroke motorcycles
since the 1970s, or you could do what Saab did
and add a freewheel.
That's a mechanical device that disconnects drive
from the wheels if the wheels are spinning faster
than the drive source.
Bicycles use a ratchet in freewheel,
and that's why you hear a clicking noise
when you're coasting.
(bicycle clicking)
Cars that use a freewill instead of relying
on our centrifugal clutch freewheel.
When the drive shaft is spinning,
centrifugal force moves clutch pads outward,
completing the connection with the wheels.
But when the drive shafts spin slower than the wheels,
those pads release,
allowing the engine and wheels to spin independently.
But that does make engine breaking ineffective,
but it lets the engine idle normally when there's no load.
So it still receives a small amount of fuel and oil
preventing that oil starvation.
I'm so hungry for oil feed me.
The point is, is that two-stroke motors
don't have to be like the ones found in lawnmowers.
In our previous episode,
we explained how designed a two-stroke engine
that solved all of the typical two-stroke stroke problems
back in 1994.
They implemented modern engine technology.
They added an oil sump, which prevents starvation,
and reduces smoke in emissions from burning oil.
They added overhead valves to stop unburned fuel
escaping during the exhaust stroke
and prevented exhaust gas from lingering
in the combustion chamber.
They even added a supercharger for a little extra punch
to make up for that pressure boost loss
by not routing air and fuel through the crankcase.
It's not just Ferrari that continued to try out
two-stroke designs.
In 1990 GM showed a prototype Miata Fighter called
the Micro.
Hell, yeah, Micro machine.
And in 2014, Renault unveiled a supercharged
two-stroke diesel that made 107 foot pounds of torque
with just 0.7 liters of displacement.
That's tiny dude.
But here's the thing, none of these designs
have made it into production.
The reasons are similar to why we won't get
two-stroke F1 cars.
four-stroke engines are what everyone has put decades
of development into.
Nobody's going to adopt a drastically
different engine design now,
unless it has some huge benefit,
like a massive increase in efficiency.
Massive and efficient?
Stop it.
And a huge increase in efficiency is exactly
what the inventor of the entry-ignition-engine
claims to have done.
But unlike Ferrari,
instead of just looking to modern technology
to build a better two-stroke,
they've also incorporated two-stroke ideas from the past.
(Burton clears nose)
Sometimes you got to learn from your mistakes, am I right?
See two-stroke and four-strokes are general terms
for how often an engine makes power.
In a two-stroke, every downward movement of the piston
is a power stroke.
In a four-stroke, every other downward movement
of the piston as a power stroke.
But in another way, in a two-stroke
there 1-power stroke for every 360 degrees
of crank rotation, in four-stroke it's 720 degrees
of crank rotation.
That's if you're into degrees, heck yeah.
Apart from that, the specific details of combustion,
how that power stroke happens can vary.
Most car engines use a spark plug to start the burn.
Those are called spark-ignition-engines,
and that includes both two and four-strokes
using the Otto cycle.
That's O-T-T-O not A-U-T-O,
and it's name from Nicholas Otto, the German inventor,
who first harnessed that thermodynamic process
to extract energy from fuel with an engine
all the way back in 1876.
That was a hundred years after America was born.
What do you think about that?
Now instead of spark, diesel engines use heat produced
by high pressure in the cylinders to start the burn.
Those are compression-ignition-engines
and they use the diesel cycle,
another thermodynamic process described by yet,
another German inventor Rudolph Diesel.
Compression ignition engines also come in two
and four-stroke varieties.
What makes the entry-ignition-engine unique,
but not entirely new is that it doesn't use a spark plug
or pressure to start the burn.
It actually uses the Brayton cycle,
something more often associated with jet turbines.
That's yet another thermodynamic process
named from George Brayton, an American inventor.
Heck yeah, dude America is in the frigging chase, man.
Yeah, we had two Germans, we got one America.
Bryton's original design in 1872,
used pistons, not turbines,
and the entry-ignition-engine is a Brayton cycle engine
operating with the same principle.
And here's how the EI entry-ignition-engine looks like.
It's got four cylinders, all different sizes,
that's pretty unique,
but it isn't really a four cylinder engine.
Only one of those cylinders that is creating combustion,
but two of them are producing power.
To understand how all that works,
we need to start right in the middle.
Unlike most two and four-stroke designs,
the EI design doesn't mix intake, compression, combustion,
and exhaust in a single cylinder.
Suck, squeeze bang, blow.
A skinny cylinder handles intake and compression,
and the wide boy next to it handles the rough stuff,
combustion and exhaust.
The two pistons move together, so on the downstroke,
skinny is doing intake, wide guys making combustion.
On the upstroke skinny is making compression,
big boys pushing out exhaust.
So if it's not spark or compression,
so what starts the burn?
How do we get this thing going from the jump?
Well it's right in its name.
The first piston draws in air and compresses it.
That pressurized air moves through a valve
into the nixing chamber where fuel is injected.
Another valve opens and that compressed air fuel mixture
rushes into the combustion cylinder.
And it does this because the combustion cylinder
is at a lower pressure, and air naturally moves
from areas of high pressure to low pressure.
But it's also very hot in that cylinder,
that's because the exhaust valve is designed to close
before all the hot gases from the last round of combustion
are pushed out.
Like in a diesel engine,
it's the heat in the cylinder that starts the burn.
Igniting the intake charge on entry to the cylinder
hints entry ignition.
And because the pressure is higher in the mixing chamber,
the flame only travels downward towards lower pressure
in the piston.
Look at that, you guys now learned a new engine, cool.
A Brayton cycle engine separates compression
and expansion in different parts of the engine.
That division of labor is exactly what's happening here.
And because every step intake, compression, combustion
exhaust, or as I say, suck, squeeze, bang, blow
is happening with every rotation of the crank,
like Brayton's original piston engine,
this is a two-stroke engine.
There's one power stroke for every 360 degrees
of crank rotation.
So what's what these other two cylinders out here.
Well, those are sort of helpers that maximize
the thermal efficiency of the engine.
That's the amount of energy from the fuel
that's actually converted into work and not lost as heat.
So increasing thermal efficiency,
not only improves miles per gallon,
it also increases power per gallon.
Didn't think of power per gallon as a metric, did you?
The first cylinder gives the engine two stage compression,
almost like forced induction.
The piston compresses air before sending it
to the second cylinder, which compressed even further
for combustion.
And the reason those are two different sizes
has to do with heat loss.
A larger cylinder, a greater surface area
creates a charge with lower temperature
than the smaller second cylinder.
That extra compression increases the amount of oxygen
delivered to the combustion cylinder
and more oxygen means more energy
can be extracted from the fuel.
I can hack, yeah, men.
You guys gotta get pumped about engineering, man.
This (beep) is cool, man.
This is why I went to engineering school.
And this is why I do donut now.
So I can get you guys jacked up.
Just (beep) pumped.
Just (beep) psyched, new engine technology.
This (beep) engineering is sick, dude
just like (beep) bashing, like best bro stuff.
(breathes deeply)
Are we cool?
Yeah, cool, cool, cool, cool.
Using a separate cylinder to pre compress air
was part of one of the very first two-stroke engines
developed in 1880 by Scottish inventor Dougald Clerk.
In fact that design laid the foundation
for most modern two-strokes.
We sometimes describe those as using a modified Otto cycle,
but really they're the Clerk cycle,
the name just never caught on.
Dang!
I just got you all jacked up about engineering
and now we find out that when you invent something,
sometime people don't use it, that hurts.
It's like a stab to the engineer's heart.
It's okay though, we'll give Clerk his due.
History is written by the videos you put on YouTube.
Now the final cylinder is there to extract energy
from the exhaust that most other engines let go to waste.
The gas force out of the cylinder during the exhaust stroke,
hasn't reached atmospheric pressure.
It's still compressed.
The sound of your car's exhaust is actually
the sound of wasted energy.
It's those gases expanding.
The EI engine harvest that normally wasted energy
in a really large cylinder to make room for their expansion.
The expanding exhaust gases, push on that extra piston,
and that means more power going to the wheels
instead of out the tailpipe.
That power also happens on the off stroke,
the non combustion non power stroke.
So the EI engine is still making power
even when no combustion is happening.
Oh, dude, I'm telling you guys, this is sick.
Those two extra cylinders help the EI engine
extract more energy from burnt fuel,
and the effect is a major increase in thermal efficiency.
Ready to talk about, well, that's good.
According to the inventor, Peter Cheeseman,
the EI engine has a theoretical thermal efficiency
of 63% giving this Cheesman cycle two-stroke engine
a 15% advantage in efficiency and potentially power
over the usual auto cycle for stroke, the Cheesman cycle.
Let's get this thing going!
Let's go!
(tools crashing)
"So what's the catch Jerremiah?
What, are you gonna tell me about this cool sick technology,
there's gotta be a little string associated with it."
Well, the string is right now it only exists in theory,
there's no working prototype, just the idea.
And theory, and fact, don't always line up
and some pretty important facts could get in the way here.
One potential problem with the EI's division of labor
is that it takes four cylinders to do job of one
in an ordinary engine.
That makes the engine incredibly complex.
To get the equivalent of a V8,
you need an engine with 32 separate cylinders.
Not only would that be incredibly heavy
with all those different sized pistons,
that engine would be a huge challenge to balance.
Critics of the design have already popped up
in the scientific community as well.
A follow-up analysis by a team of automotive engineers
claimed that once more realistic assumptions are added,
much of the EI's theoretical efficiency gains disappear.
Those assumptions include things like internal friction,
high temperatures in varying engine loads.
According to that follow-up analysis,
these facts about how an engine operates in the real world
drop the EI's engine efficiency to the same levels
or even worse than that of an ordinary engine.
And while the emissions do improve, in one sense,
the same analysis claims the EI design
simply trades a reduction in nitrous oxides
for an increase in carbon monoxide.
But what might be the nail in the coffin is one fact
we never seem to get away from prayer.
Friggin, money, money, money.
A completely new engine design is already starting
at a deficit.
Current engines have over a hundred years of development,
and getting an unproven design like the EI
to get to the same level could take decades
and billions of dollars.
Everyone, they're trying to squeeze the last bit
of efficiency out of cars.
That's why companies are investing so much
of their R&D dollars into electric solution.
A brand new unproven internal combustion engine,
even one with potential for efficiency and emissions gains
is unlikely to attract the investment it would need
to become a viable alternative to the old,
but well tested design.
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What do you guys think?
Did I burst her engineering heart's love and bubble.
I know I got my heart bubble busted with this.
I hope the guy actually makes it.
I mean, the guy's named Cheesman.
For (beep) say that's the best last name
I've ever heard in my life.
Cheesman?
Get outta here!
I might change my name to Cheesman.
I just want a shirt that just says Cheeseman on it.
Hey, where are you going?
Gonna go hang out with Cheesman.
Yeah, I'm getting married to Cheesman.
His name is Cheesman., it doesn't get much better.
Just say Cheeseman once.
Guys, like one of the best foods on the planet.
Cheese, Cheese, Cheesman!
He could shorten his name to Cheese,
and he'd just be the sickest dude.
Just saying what's up?
It's Cheese over there.
Yo, Cheese, Cheese means money too, he's money man.
Cheeseman the money, man, come on!
(Burton laughing)
Thank you guys so much for watching this episode of B2B.
We love you, man.
We appreciate you guys watching these videos,
that really helps us out, lets me keep my job.
So if you could hit that like button if you like it,
hit the not like button if you don't like it,
that lets me know that,
hey, I don't want to see this stuff.
We wanna see other engineering type videos.
If you wanna see more of us here at Donut,
follow us on Instagram at Donut Media.
We got a whole team of, all team meme makers,
and it's one guy named Brett.
Follow me on Instagram at Jeremiah Burton until next week.
Bye for now.