Cargines promises fuel saving by insufflating air to engine valves
Swedish company Cargines has announced that they have readied a new engine valve technology that they promise will be quite revolutionary. According to their website and a brief piece of news in the Swedish car press, the technology features pneumatic control of engine valves. According to the company, this gives individual and very precise control of valve timing and opening. Although no numbers were announced, the company claims that the new system reduces fuel consumption and CO2 emissions. The first implementation of this technology won't be going to be any super efficient tiny car but into supercar manufacturer Koenigsegg's CC model. Thanks to Orjan for the tip.
[Source: AlltonMotor & Cargine]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Yikes 8:38AM (3/18/2009)
I remember Honda and Renault doing that on F1 engines decades ago.
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MikeW 10:45AM (3/18/2009)
All F1 engines did was ditch the coil spring for an air spring.
That helped raise the redline & decrease the power requirement of the valvetrain.
BoneHeadOtto 8:42AM (3/18/2009)
Insuflating huh?
The biggest technical hurdle is what to use as the bladder on teh value. It would need to flex quickly, and survive extreme heat and massive air pressure. Plus it would need to maintain exactly the same volume over the life of the engine so the valves would shut tight. If they got it to work i guarantee this will be a big reliability issue. But here's to hoping they figured those issues out
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MT 9:50AM (3/18/2009)
There's been work on solenoid-actuated valves for over a decade. I keep waiting for that to come to market. These types of valves offer some very cool opportunities. The obvious one is total control over valve timing and lift, not just a couple profiles like the VTEC systems offer. This could really allow optimizing for power or efficiency (and anything in between) based on conditions. Also, a large part of the resistance to turning an engine at startup is overcoming the compression strokes. Valves like these could all be opened for a moment to start spinning the engine and then sync back up to fire the engine for startup. With less starting force required, the alternator might be able to take over the job of the starter. There's even the possibility that with direct injection that you could start the engine by closing the appropriate valves, injecting fuel, and firing the appropriate plugs/cylinders to start the engine with no cranking via a starter at all.
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Julian 10:13PM (3/19/2009)
Actually all F1 cars are made this way. The engines RPMs are too fast for the mechanical lifters and camshafts to open and close in time to seal off the combuston chamber. Pretty amazing stuff. They use superfast pneumatic valves which are always going to have the same sweep from open to close every time, and probably just use metal instead of something like rubber which flexes and degrades.
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Some Dipshit 10:24AM (3/18/2009)
Insuflating... I had to look it up!
BTW, according to Merriam-Webster it is properly spelled "insufflating".
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Concept Cars 6:09AM (3/19/2009)
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