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Scuderi Group to Preview Enhanced Designs of Air-Hybrid Engine

Scuderi
Cylinder pairs in the Scuderi Split Cycle. Scuderi divides the four strokes of the Otto cycle across two paired cylinders, a compression and a power cylinder.

The Scuderi Group will exhibit further-developed designs of its Scuderi Air-Hybrid Engine next week at the Society of Automotive Engineers World Congress in Detroit.

The Scuderi Air-Hybrid Engine has been under development for the past three years, with the first gasoline prototype scheduled to be completed in January. As engineering and testing has continued, many potential enhancements have been explored, such as a waste-heat recovery system specifically designed for the Scuderi Air-Hybrid Engine.

Waste heat energy is generally recovered in combined-cycle engines which utilize the Otto cycle to generate power and the Rankine cycle to recover waste heat. Conventional combined-cycle engines must immediately utilize the recovered waste heat or discard it.

In contrast, the Scuderi Air-Hybrid Engine has the added capability of storing the waste, which is heat-generated energy in the form of compressed air in the Scuderi Engine’s air tank for later use. This capability further enhances the engine’s fuel efficiency and further reduces the engine’s emissions output.

The Air-Hybrid is based on the Scuderi Split-Cycle Engine.  In a conventional four-stroke engine, a single piston slides up and down in a cylinder through the intake, compression, power and exhaust strokes—each power stroke requires two revolutions of the crankshaft.

The Scuderi Split-Cycle engine divides the four strokes of the Otto cycle over a paired combination of one compression cylinder and one power cylinder. Intake air is compressed in the compression cylinder and transferred via a gas passage to the power cylinder for combustion.

By adding a small air storage tank with some simple controls, the Scuderi engine can also recapture energy normally lost during the braking of a vehicle. In addition, unlike electric hybrids, the Scuderi Air-Hybrid has the capability of recapturing energy from the exhaust of the engine, making it possible to utilize a Scuderi Air-Hybrid design in stationary applications such as electric generators.

Scuderi expects its Air-Hybrid Engine to deliver a significant increase in performance, efficiency and environmental impact over today’s internal combustion engines. The Scuderi Air-Hybrid Engine is adaptable to diesel and gasoline automobiles, commercial vehicles and any other applications powered by internal combustion engines.

The Scuderi Group says that it has reached a number of significant milestones during the past year, after making its debut at last year’s SAE World Congress. The engine’s patent portfolio continued to expand, with protection secured in key global markets including Japan, Taiwan, China and Russia. The patent portfolio now includes seven issued US patents, five US patents pending and multiple international patents pending in over 45 countries.

Comments

Mike Z

I'm sorry, but you should be able to build a working prototype for under $1 Million.

K

It seems like this engine has been proposed for years w/o results. That makes me doubt the fundamentals.

Perhaps the tranfer between cylinders is where the difficulties emerge.

tim

seems like the air compression cylinder would creat more friction on the crankshaft and slow down the cycle, wouldn't it? wouldn't the stroke of the intake cylinder oppose the stroke of the power cylinder?

Bud Johns

How do these articles even get posted on this website??
Let me get this straight...Toyota, Honda, Nissan,etc. have overlooked a major design like this. Uh Huh. I know, we will see this and it will work great by the year 2017............

Warren Heath

The control, simplicity and efficiency of the series hybrid EV, will be much more economic and viable than these complex mechanical schemes. I don't see any numbers on actual efficiency of the system.

andrichrose

their just desperate to keep that old ICE going in one form
or another , 100 years old and still poisoning our children!

Paul Dietz

One issue with this class of engines, I've been told, is cooling. The second cylinder presents difficulties, since it never has ambient temperature air flowing into it.

Henry Gibson

The Scuderi engine is just a Piston Actuated version of a turbo jet engine and a newer version of a Brayton Cycle engine. The Scuderi company has had enough money to avoid actually building even a small prototype of the engine for quite a number of years and has relied on expensive computer simulations instead. It is ordinarily assumed that computer simulations don't prove anything, so a bad simulation result will not diminish the enthusiasm for a device nearly as much as a failed model, so the raising of venture capital can continue for quite a few more years.


It is of course much easier to invent and build a successful engine than it is to to get it adopted by a large or small automobile company. If the price is just the slightest bit higher than the lowest price of an engine produced in the millions of units already, no car maker will adopt it. They have no reason to adopt it when there is no actual price incentive for them to do so. Most car buyers do not care about how much gasoline is used, and gas economical cars have always been sold at such a premium price, so that it is truly more economical to buy a nearly junked used car every year or so and then another one when it fails and pay for the extra gas required. And if you have a lot of money and can afford to buy a Hummer; you can afford to buy the gas. Almost no one would buy a true economy car now days. It is possible, with modern alloys, to build a diesel powered VW 1960 car that meets US highway standards and uses half the fuel per mile of the original and has an electric hybrid option, but it would not be sold in the US because it did not have the new features the customers want, especially lots of horsepower and computer gadgets.

The Scuderi engine would be a very good and useful engine, and the hybrid engine version of it has the advantage of not requiring additional heavy motors or batteries. The Scuderi hybrid engine would not even require a starting motor, and if for some reason the pressure in the air tank were depleted a small battery powered air compressor could pump up starting pressure in a few minutes even from a few standard akaline D cells if the regular battery had failed. There is no weight advantage of a large pressure tank compared to a bunch of small pressure tanks of equal total capacity, so all spaces no matter the shape or size could be used for compressed air storage even hollow body support members.

The ability to recover exhaust energy is also a high efficiency feature available. In fact exhaust heat could be saved in a high temperature heat storage device and the car could run for minutes without burning any fuel at all during those minutes. Electric heaters could keep the highly insulated heat storage device hot so that a car could drive from your garage in the morning for a few minutes to a store and back without burning any fuel at all.

The Capstone microturbine uses a heat recovery device on most of its microturbines and increases their efficiency substantially. A half sized Capstone microturbine should be built into a Tesla car and get rid of half the battery. The Capstone turbine does not produce particulates, like a diesel engine does, even when running on diesel and practically sucks polution out of the air. In thick freeway traffic, the air comming out of its exhaust has less smog and smog producing elements than the air going in. Every commecial building and every large apartment building should have had Capstone turbine built into their heating systems with energy recovery, but low first cost is more important to developers than efficiency. It is the final owners not the developers who have to pay for low efficiency as it is with cars. Only legal efficiency standards for both buildings and cars will eliminate this energy waste.

The hybrid scuderi type of engine would allow you to have a standard transmission, and you would never have to use your clutch at all when creeping in a traffic jam. The car computer would calculate when a spray of fuel and a spark was necessary every few minutes or so.

HG..

John

I am all the way on the Island of Jamaica, and do really believe that this piece of technology is gonna help save the world. I just wished they had already built the prototype and had it for veiwing both by picture and in operation.
I'm hoping that Hks, jun, A.E.M etc, will still be able to sell aftermarket parts that helps to make unbelievable horsepower for all our different racing events (especially drag).

private

Can someone please help point me in the direction of where and how to report Scuderi. My husband has gotten caught up in investing in this company, along with other family members. I think they are a crackpot company who are just bilking the public out of money. ANd have been doing so for years. They tell investors that they have to form their own LLC so that Scuderi won't be scrutinized by the SCC, why wouldn;t Scuderi want to be scritinized by the SCC, is they were legit, they wouldn't have a problem going public or letting the governement know that they have 100's of little investors, they have just made 40 of these investors from a LLC so they are seen only as 1 investor by the government. and they tell the investors that Ford and Chrysler, blah blah blah, all want to buy into them...trust me if one of those companies wanted in, why not take THEIR money, instead of the little christian persons money, which by the way is the majority of the people that Scuderi hits on for this. This engine is 40 years old, and they have NEVER made a prototype...they always say..oh just a little more money, just a little more money...They were given a bone by their politician frined in Mass, who sent them 1.2 million dollars of our government money , which was hidden under the guise of "homeland security funds". He is thier buddy this politician, and happens to be a holder of a piece of the pie. Not sure bout you, but I think they are crooks taking $$ from the little guy, living lavish lifes. If you know who I should go to to investifgate this company, please let me know.

PS Please excuse my horrid typos on the above post!

The fundemental laws of energy and energy creation as we know them completely dismiss this horror story as a realisticlly possible in its current state. Truth, it holds potential but then again so does my cup. you don't see me filling it with gas, and expecting it to power my iron horse do you?, well, do you?
Think about it.

investor

First of all, you need to get your facts straight (2 posts above)The government $ you speak of, 1.2 million, was never taken by the Scuderi Group. Had Scuderi Group taken the money, the government would have had all sorts of claims against their patents. So kudos to the Scuderis for telling the government thanks, but no thanks.OUR government money was never used to fund this.

You (or your husband without your knowledge)took a risk when you signed the papers and handed over your hard earned money to invest.The Scuderis are not crooks as you say, and they certainly dont live lavish lives. They have been straight forward from the start. Is it taking longer than first expected? Yes, but they are trying to change the world.I am also invested and beleive there will be a working prototype this year... but I knew I took a risk when I handed over my money.

Its easy to hide behind a computer screen and slander someone like you have.


PB

Scuderi management has been nothing less than spetacular on handling the development of the company and the engine. The different teams chosen by the Scuderi's have all excelled in their respective functions(Southwest Research, Topaz Partners, Nick, Sal and many others not mentioned). Some people are impatient and others are skeptical but the Scuderi's will not rush this engine without proper testing and patent protection. If I was a investor I would be overly happy about the progress as it will be coming to fruition in 2008. The Scuderi's and their organization are nothing less than incredible and their father Carmelo Scuderi a genius. If I had an investment in this company I would be very excited.
genius

Rangani Yogesh

I don't know about this type of scientific terms ,but every thing you are doing is best!

Peter Hill

Where to start?

Lets start with Patent US7121236 by Mr Salvatore C. Scuderi (B.S., J.D) and Mr David P. Branyon. How to describe this? Well it can be summed up by one word.

CRACKPOT

Yes it's a crackpot crank. Mr Scuderi is supposed to be an Engineer. They can produce a displacement diagram in Fig 15 on sheet 14 and then demonstrates they can produce a Velocity diagram for this cam in Fig 16 on sheet 15. A layman would have left it at the displacement diagram, only an engineer would take the step of producing a velocity diagram. Anyone worthy of the title "Engineer" would then use the same method to obtain Acceleration diagrams. Mr Scuderi and Mr Branyon have for some reason chosen not to.

No matter, the destruction of this device is readily apparent from the Velocity diagram in Fig 16. There are sudden changes in velocity, labeled 254, 255, 257 and 258. These apparently instant changes in velocity require infinite acceleration. Force = mass x acceleration so infinite forces will be produced that hammer the cams guiding the big end pin to bits in a very few revolutions of the crank - possibly while dry cranking. (It will be the fault of the people that made the test engine, law suits will fly or it will demonstrate the huge uncontainable excess of power the engine made)

A brief google for "SVAJ cam mae" gives a good primer on cam design from Western Michigan University and why the work presented in US7121236 is not a viable design.
Fundamental Law of Cam Design
1 The cam function MUST be continuous through the first and second derivatives of displacement across the entire 360° interval
2 The jerk function MUST be finite across the entire 360° interval

Analysis of the REAL thermodynamic cycle that the Scuderi Air Hybrid engine can achieve will show large departures from the ideal Brayton cycle, resulting in losses that render it completely unworkable.

I can only suspect that the staff of The Scuderi Group are well aware of this deficiency or they wouldn't be engaged in the wild and desperate measures seen in US7121236 to extend the duration of the transfer phase to the power cylinder.

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