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 Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=17539