X-Message-Number: 17539
From: 
Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 02:52:40 EDT
Subject: Invention--NOT & The War of the Roses (water)

My Would Be Invention:

Several days ago I posted on an idea I had about potentially increasing the 
output of internal combustion engines and suggested the reason this idea may 
not have been done/tried in the past may be due to its being so "thoroughly 
counterintuitive."  Turns out it has been done before, and in fact, it helped 
us win a war by boosting the performance of fighter aircraft engines (W.W.II, 
I believe.)  The idea was to supplement the fuel/air mixture with WATER.  
Yep, water.  Counterintuitive enough?  It had been for me.

The basic concept was to combine an internal combustion process with an old 
external combustion process.  The water would turn to steam/vapor/gas and 
thereby rapidly expand right along with the ignited gas & oxygen reaction, 
and perhaps thereby better utilize any excess thermal energy in the system 
from the explosion.  After all, we actually use engine power to eliminate 
this heat via water (and sometimes oil) cooling systems.  The question would 
be: Is there extra heat available or is the thermal energy versus fuel/oxygen 
expansion curve all ready optimum? And if not, would water help?

This could potentially allow for a lesser amount of fuel and air/oxygen per 
piston cycle, and therefore increased mileage.  (Rusting?  Well, the major 
byproducts of combustion are largely CO2 and H2O anyway.)  Have you noticed 
that rainy days or misty days can sometime boost the performance of an 
engine.  I have.  I had recently found that after removing the air filter 
assembly I could spay seemingly unlimited amounts of water mist from a spray 
gun without negatively affecting the engine's performance at idle.  
Encouraging, but no cigar.  However, if the BMW's Motronics control system 
immediately compensates and lowers gas injection times lengths, that would be 
interesting to know.

I did an evening of research on the web hoping I would turn up nothing, but 
it was not to be.  Turns out, "my idea" is helpful, but only secondary by 
far.  The real boost occurs where ignition temperatures exceed 1,600 degrees 
(a little high for the typical car engine) where there is a dissociation of 
water into its constituent parts of oxygen and hydrogen in the presence of a 
catalyst like platinum or nickel.  Extra oxygen in the system is not bad at 
all, but the introduction of hydrogen gas is very much so an advantage. It 
appears that substantial power increases have been attained by this system.  
Water to gas ratios have exceeded 50% in some cases. An Excite search with 
combustion and water as key words will pull up what I got.  One website 
showed a depressing number of similar looking patents stretching back to the 
late 30s.

I may still play with this a bit.  If I can demonstrate as high as a 5% 
increase in either power or gas mileage (or even a smoother engine, I may 
look at it more seriously since the design and manufacturing could be pretty 
simple.  While I am at it, I may also see if a large thermos bottle of LN2 
could be persuaded to efficiently cool air destined for the manifold via a 
light weight heat exchanger system since cooler air has a higher oxygen 
content.  Oxygen handling is the major bottle neck in the performance system 
as I understand things, hence turbos which force/compress additional air in 
the cylinder each time.

The water would be in the form of mist or "atomized" water injected under 
pressure via a hypodermic needle-like apparatus inserted into any rubber boot 
prior to the intake manifold.  (The idea here is to make it ultra simple to 
devise and easily retrofittable to any vehicle engine.)  It could be 
accomplished by relatively low pressure as found on a windshield spray/washer 
assemblies and reservoir, or alternatively with negative pressure (via a Much 
wider gauge or specialized needle) which would take advantage of the vacuum 
force inherent in that airflow system.  The vacuum idea would get two birds 
with one stone as it might allow for some degree of self-regulating and would 
eliminate the need to pressurize and regulate a tank of water.  
(Alternatively still, just run tubing from the air conditioner water 
elimination duct and allow it to be vacuumed into the boot via the needle.)  
We'll see.


Rose Water Debate Results

Having read all the posts, and after due deliberation, this part of the 
peanut gallery casts 90% of its vote in the debate to the Ettinger / Pascal 
team.  Findings of Fact:  It is more likely that the funeral director made a 
slip of speech (i.e., misspoke) rather than to have used rose water, lanolin 
or rose water and lanolin during a perfusion at any time, while the Platt et 
al. team accomplished an approximate 10% margin for doubt in the issue.

Oh, yeah, that reminds me:  For the record, I currently would estimate there 
is slightly over 50% odds for the success of the Cryo/Nano Combo technology.  
However, the likelihood of reanimation drops to somewhat under 50% in light 
of all cumulative hazards over the interim which includes airliner bombs.

Regards,

David C. Johnson

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