Horace, > You will find that 570 kJ/kg, is close to the bottom line. Assuming > conservation of energy, the high expansion ratio merely extracts the 370 > kJ/kg energy available from gas expansion.
I disagree, as do the the researchers of the report cited yesterday and others who are actively working on this. I hope to get around to typing in some of their findings later today. You are trying to pigeon-hole this into existing heat engine technology. It won't fit. This is not a technology that normal automotive thermodynamics and Carnot cycles explains very well. It is a different animal. > Further, when dumped directly into an ICE, the cold temperature *reduces* the thermal expansion obtained by burning the fuel. Again, VERY misleading !! Reduces the thermal expansion only on the fuel side but GREATLY increases its own expansion parameters so that there is a HUGE net gain. The effective psi in an ICE is far less on average than the effective psi of the liquid fuel (~3000 psi) > If injecting liquid air into an engine were economical, engines should > include an air liquifaction plant. They don't because it is more > economical to simply gain a higher compression ratio, and retain the > compression heat, as diesel's do. Had gasoline prices been this high a decade ago, we would probably already have liquid-air hybrids on the road today, but not with the cryo-air produced aboard the vehicle itself- that is very wasteful. A Dewar tank is sufficient for CA produced elsewhere, ideally using wind energy - at least that is my contention until good evidence arrives that this is not the best use for wind energy. Why do you think that all of the top drag racers inject liquid nitrous into their engines, if the boost from that is not very substantial and was instead dependent on BTU content which is neglible in nitrous? If it were a thermodynamic or BTU thing they would inject methane or butane instead, but only cold liquid nitrous oxide gives that huge boost. > (Gee a little aftershock just occurred. Things are lively here today!) Now that is something I can sympathize with, living in earthquake country. Let's hope that the stimulus of your quakes is not the Indonesian quake, and that this is somehow moving eastward in resonance. Regards, Jones
