High performance piston aviation engines have used water injection at high boost levels in the past to reduce knock and provide added cooling. How is this different other than using alcohol rather than water?

Bill

This is not new astounding science, but Volvo capitalizing on their turbo experience.
Is the baseline 11 liter diesel engine NORMALLY aspirated?
Methanol has a very high octane rating and high evaporative cooling.
Much higher (on both counts) than ethanol and even more compared to “gas”. So this allows higher (diesel like) compression ratios.
When fuel economy was not an issue, durable diesel engines were still the choice even with their very low specific output, so now, durability and fuel economy are key.

"which is sufficient to produce a torque output equivalent to or greater than more highly turbocharged heavy duty diesel engines operating lean with significant EGR."
arn

This seems like a very promising approach to improving the fuel economy of ICE engines.

-This is all existing technology. Direct injection and ethanol are here now.
-I glanced through the material on EBS' website and didn't see anything that indicates that this technology is exclusive to acqueous ethanol. The ability to use acqueous or "wet" ethanol would improve the EROEI

Anyone care to speculate as to what sort of engine downsizing would be possible? E.g. would this boost technology allow for a move from a (gasoline) 3.0L V6 to a 1.0L I4 while maintaining power/torque? What sort of fuel savings would this represent? The smaller engine should have greatly reduced internal friction and pumping losses, not to mention that the BTE is higher witht the higher CR.

@Roger:
Read where ULSD fuel has decided less lubrication qualities than high sulfur fuel...this could reduce the life of the diesel engine.

They're backwards. I don't care if they are MIT; they're still backwards. Use a little gasoline injection to start the danged thing; and, then run straight ethanol, or e85.

I like ethanol injection because you might be able to use wet ethanol which is less costly and time consuming to produce than dry ethanol.

Greenplease, oil is "going away;" thus, it's getting expensive. Ethanol, on the other hand, is going to get cheaper, and more plentiful. It's, also, more powerful than diesel when utilized in a high-compression engine.

It's weakness is cold-starts. It burns too cool. That's the only reason you need to mix it with gasoline. If you're going to do a dual-fuel injection, anyway, you might as well make ethanol your "Primary" fuel, and gasoline your secondary.

Looks like they're betting that in the future it would be cheaper to use ethanol from waste biomass to provide liquid fuel for HDVs than biodiesel from Soy/etc on cropland.

@kum

I see. This system would be able accomodate such a regime, though the ethanol fuel tank would probably have to be enlarged. In their literature, EBS states that the fraction ethanol used can be increased "...up to 100%."

One more comment. Downsizing really must not be forgotten, otherwise much of the efficiency will be squandered away. The V-8 should be shelved. The 330hp, 360ft*lb 1.9L engine would be plenty enough for midsize trucks etc. But I could see compacts using 100hp 800cc engines with this. And for small series HEV or PHEV a 250cc generator would be enough.

The comment above by (no name given) is somewhat accurate. Downsizing the engine is a key factor in this scheme. However, a turbocharged 1.5L engine can make upwards of 1500HP with proper design and be reliable enough for F1 racing. At what point is the balance between power and truck like reliablity met? I suspect it is at a very low specific output.

Some here may not know what goes on inside an engine. For instance, the torsional stress on small crankshafts making big power reduce lifespan to mere hours. Aircraft piston engines of fairly low output, but high loading, (say 200HP) have massive crankshafts with dual torsional dynamic dampers to prevent certain destruction.

Thanks, Franklin, for stating the much-needed response.

Heavy-duty diesel engine is already very much downsized in comparison to private automobiles. 11-liter engine for 60,000-80-000-lb gross vehicle weight rated. This, in comparison to a 7000-lb SUV having a 7-liter engine, meaning that the SUV is 7 times over-engined in comparison to a tractor-trailer rig. It is ridiculous to consider downsizing further a HDV diesel truck. When an engine is already working at high BMEP during cruise as in a HD truck engine, there will be nothing to be gained by further downsizing, while the reduction in durability and reliability will be certain.

The reason that big-bore truck engines are diesel and not gasoline is that big-bore gasoline engine would be much more susceptible to engine knocking (detonation) than smaller-bore automobile engines. The larger the SI engine bore, the higher likelyhood that a second flame front will be formed to collide with the one produced by the spark to produce engine knock. Piston aircraft engines have very low compression ratio of around 7-8, and require higher octane engine than 87 automotive engine, which is a lot more expensive, to prevent engine knocks. Water-alcohol injection was not new for WWII aircraft engines, and was used during takeoff and for War Emergency Power. This scheme is impractical for HDV use, since HDV engines frequently runs at maximum power during acceleration and during climbing even somewhat gradual grade, so, a lot of water or alcohol must be stored which would make it impractical.

Thanks, Andrey, for your input. Diesel's combustion is highly controlled and predictable, unlike SI engine's combustion which is highly unpredictable when susceptible to pre-ignition and detonation with tremendous stress on engine piston and conrod. Diesels are built sturdy due to the higher pressures involved, both from much higher compression ratio, resulted in higher combustion pressure. Gasoline SI engines have much lower compression ratio, hence much lower pressures involved and can be built lighter, but must be protected against detonation or pre-ignition which will destroy engine.

Fuel contamination of engine oil film is inevitable during engine start up, which requires a much richer mixture. Engine start up time is when most of engine wear will occur. The high lubricity of diesel fuel will help in this respect. Of course, gaseous fuels such as NG or H2 will eliminate this problem, however, data have shown that H2 has been hard on engine valve seats. Before more durable engine valve seat material was used, the lead used in gasoline has helped reduce engine valve seat wear.