by Joseph Love

Created on: April 08, 2008   Last Updated: April 14, 2008

Engines of tomorrow.

The car of tomorrow may run on ethanol, electricity, air, or even gasoline, but what do the engines of tomorrow have to offer? Today's gas and diesel engines leave a lot to be desired in terms of efficiency, pollution, and even noise. Engineers are coming up with some tricky designs that are lighter, quieter, more efficient and longer lasting than the engines in most cars today.

Today, nearly all cars are internal combustion engines running on either gas, diesel, or some form of natural gas. These engines are mainly reciprocating piston engines, but a few exceptions run on the Wankel design. Reciprocating engines run by burning fuel move pistons up and down. Pistons constantly moving up and down lowers efficiency because the pistons are always changing directions. Additionally, reciprocating pistons achieve maximum efficiency only at one precise point, and they only hit this point once per turn of the engine.

The Wankel design (also known as rotary engines) is an attempt at making the piston (or rotary) move in a circle rather than a reciprocating path. Wankel engines do some things well, but overall they fail to make the pistons move in a perfect circle. Additionally, Wankel designs have been traditionally plagued with reliability problems causing the engines to prematurely fail.

A newer design, known as the round engine, effectively moves the pistons in perfect circles within a dough nut shaped cylinder (known as a toroid). In a round engine, energy is not wasted by the pistons constantly reversing course. Additionally, this engine allows for maximum efficiency of the piston throughout the entire revolution of the engine. The round engine has many other advantages, including the ability to effectively adjust the size of the engine while running- something a reciprocating engine could never achieve. The round engine runs on gas, natural gas, or even air. For more information on the round engine, visit www.roundengine.com .

Another engine design is the electric engine, currently used (at least part of the time) in hybrid cars. These cars turn electricity into magnetism that causes the engine to move. These engines can run at maximum efficiency at all speeds, and can even save some of the energy lost during braking. Some of these engine designs even completely do away with the need for a transmission , eliminating one of the most expensive components in most cars. Electrical engines do have a down side though. Currently, a purely electrical car runs on batteries only, and the costs of those batteries alone can run tens of thousands of dollars. Hydrogen fuel cells, or other designs can create energy to run an electrical engine, but those technologies are still in their infancy. For now, a hybrid design that uses a gas generator powering a electric motor is the most practical design.

Maybe some day, we will be running on anti-gravity drives or harnessing worm holes, but for now, the Wankel, reciprocating piston, round engine and electrical engine are all conceivable engines of tomorrow. Other engine designs are currently in the works, and who knows what innovations will be available in the future. Wikipedia.com has many articles about all of the above mentioned engine types, and I recommend reading some of them. The more we all think outside the box of current design, the closer we come to the epiphany of the next great engine design.

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