Much has been made about pneumatic valves...

"TheOnelectronic" (theoneelectronic) 01/06/2014 at 03:57 • Filed to: None

0

8

What about electromagnetic/electrostatic valves? The problem is that traditional camshaft-driven valvetrains can only rev so fast before the valve can't keep up, but if you simply imagine a speaker with a valve for a cone, it could work.

My first thought is that a valve might be way too heavy to move with the sort of frequency that a small speaker cone can.

This is completely barring my insanely outlandish idea of transferring motor power via induction coils and motors rather than a crankshaft...

Ian Duer (320b) > TheOnelectronic 01/06/2014 at 04:09

0

I pondered this years ago and still wonder about it from time to time. Maybe one of these days I'll pull out my old physics texts and see if there is some obvious reason why it wouldn't work or be feasible.

Tentacle, Dutchman, drives French > TheOnelectronic 01/06/2014 at 04:12

1

The coils needed to move the valves, plus the electrical power required, would be massive. That would be a hefty weight penalty, both for the huge alternator and small melon-sized coils you need per valve.

Compressed air has a much better power density and can be achieved with much less weight, and taking up less space. The coils needed to control the compressed air are easily within a power and size budget.

And as far as your outlandish idea... isn't that what an electrical motor is?

TheOnelectronic > Tentacle, Dutchman, drives French 01/06/2014 at 04:23

0

That was my main concern: the amount needed to drive something as heavy as a valve.

And no, my idea is still a reciprocating piston engine, just using induction instead of a crankshaft.

I haven't really thought it through at all.

Tentacle, Dutchman, drives French > TheOnelectronic 01/06/2014 at 04:31

0

You mean induction to drive the pistons up and down, instead of combustion?

That might be less weird than you think because if you use induction to drive pistons, you can power every stroke , instead of 1 stroke out of 4.

Still, the amount of reciprocating mass will kill it off, once you compare it to a conventional electrical motor, but as a proverbial engineering finger excercise, it'd be fun.

TheOnelectronic > Tentacle, Dutchman, drives French 01/06/2014 at 04:34

0

The other way. Using induction to harvest the energy of the pistons.

Of course, getting them back up...

Tentacle, Dutchman, drives French > TheOnelectronic 01/06/2014 at 04:44

0

You could do that with an opposed piston.

And you've not been alone in thinking of that concept: http://www.treehugger.com/cars/super-eff…

Arch Duke Maxyenko, Shit Talk Extraordinaire > Ian Duer (320b) 01/06/2014 at 07:40

1

Santiago of Escuderia Boricua > TheOnelectronic 01/06/2014 at 09:35

0

I think it could work on a small engine with small valves. Possibly <1000cc motorcycle engine that needs to rev as fast as possible. The speaker analogy is pretty spot on. I think at some scale it could possibly rev faster than pneumatic.