Inside Bruce Crower’s Six-Stroke Engine

[TheBigDog]

Bruce Crower has lived, breathed and built hot engines his whole life. Now he’s working on a cool one—one that harnesses normally-wasted heat energy by creating steam inside the combustion chamber, and using it to boost the engine’s power output and also to control its temperature.

 

“I’ve been trying to think how to capture radiator losses for over 30 years,” explains the veteran camshaft grinder and race engine builder. “One morning about 18 months ago I woke up, like from a dream, and I knew immediately that I had the answer.”

 

Hurrying to his comprehensively-equipped home workshop in the rural hills outside San Diego, he began drawing and machining parts, and installing them in a highly modified, single-cylinder industrial powerplant, a 12-hp diesel he converted to use gasoline. He bolted that to a test frame, poured equal amounts of fuel and water into twin tanks, and pulled the starter-rope.

 

“My first reaction was, ‘Gulp! It runs!’” the 75-year-old inventor remembers. “And then this ‘snow’ started falling on me. I thought, ‘What hath God wrought…’”

 

The “snow” was flakes of white paint blasted from the ceiling by the powerful pulses of exhaust gas and steam emitted from the open exhaust stack, which pointed straight up.

 

Over the following year Crower undertook a methodical development program, in particular trying out numerous variations in camshaft profiles and timing as he narrowed the operating parameters of his patented six-stroke cycle.

 

Complete Article

 

Bill

[infamous]

Cool article BigDog; This sort of engine technology has always interested me and I'm anxious to see where Mr. Crower goes with it. I've long suspected that the use of water to generate steam within the operation of the traditional internal combustion engine could be of some advantage. Hopefully Mr. Crower will work out all the kinks..........................Infy

[Turtle]

Cool article BigDog; This sort of engine technology has always interested me and I'm anxious to see where Mr. Crower goes with it. I've long suspected that the use of water to generate steam within the operation of the traditional internal combustion engine could be of some advantage. Hopefully Mr. Crower will work out all the kinks..........................Infy

 

Kewl indeed Infy! Amazing no one tried this before in a piston engine. We have a power plant in town that uses a "Combined-cycle combustion turbine", which uses an extra steam driven turbine on the shaft to recover & use heat normally lost. Here's a link to the plant specs:

http://www.clarkpublicutilities.com/AboutUs/ourPowerSupply/rRGPFacts

As turbines are impracticle in small autos, this may really scoot the boot.:)

[CraigD]

The Autoweek article fails to note that, more than improving vehicle efficiency by eliminating the weight of water jacket, pumps, pipes and radiator, cooling an engine with injected water directly improves its efficiency because it’s total heat output (exhaust and radiator) is much lowered.

 

Lots of engine designs have used water injection for this reason – the McMaster motor is a particularly novel one – nearly the opposite of Crower’s design direction.

 

Others have eliminated cooling systems by making the engine of high-temperature materials, such as ceramic, and allowing them to run at thermal equilibrium, though this approach is less efficient, since heat loss via exhaust gas is increased.

 

You can even get aftermarket water injection kits (usually injected at the carburetor/throttle body) to install one on the engine already in your car or truck, though I wouldn’t recommend this - water’s not good for the inside of the cylinders of an ordinary engine, and intentionally injecting it there is asking for trouble.

 

What’s unique, to the best of my knowledge, about Crower’s motor is that it dedicates a separate piston stroke/crankshaft revolution for the water-to-steam action. Only a skilled and well-equipped motor builder would try something like that!

[maxc]

There's an easy way to make an internal combustion steam engine. Without even changing an engine internals.

[TheBigDog]

There's an easy way to make an internal combustion steam engine. Without even changing an engine internals.

And that is...

[maxc]

I'll tell you after I get my "investor" I already had a 15% increase in power with flow rates of 2% water to fuel.

[GAHD]

I'll tell you after I get my "investor" I already had a 15% increase in power with flow rates of 2% water to fuel.

:cup:

[Qfwfq]

The use of water to improve efficiency is an old idea, many have experimented with it but usually without finding it worthwhile. I believe that it would be worth the effort if the engine were appropriately re-designed. The next time I'm rich, I'll work on it, currently I can't take the venture...

[Pangolin]

Popular Mechanics has been promising me a new super-duper ICE every few months for my entire life. The last one I got suckered into believing was the quasiturbine engine. Until this guy puts this thing on a dyno it's just another curiousity.

[maxc]

Hi all,

It will be put on a dyno in about 2 months.

regards

mark