To best understand the evolution of MicroBlue® engine technology is to look at its beginnings. Several years ago, when MicroBlue® first arrived, we were contacted by Aerodyne Research. They asked if we were interested in participating in some of their engine and drivetrain projects.
We agreed and what ensued was a journey we never expected. Each had specific goals, and two objectives were made clear. One, improve mechanical efficiency and two, increase reliability. They emphasized that both were critical to the survivability and efficiency of our troops on the ground. And so the journey began.
Started several years prior, Aerodyne Research was developing a small, hand-held generator which was designed to be carried in the battlefield and provide power for a personal communication devices. The challenge was it was powered by butane gas and had to be commercially available, so the addition of any lubricant wasn't possible. After several tries, the combination of MicroBlue® with a cylinder/piston surface modification solved the problem. That outcome did not go unnoticed by others.
All future efforts were coordinated by Aerodyne and strict timelines were put in place. We started with a basic four stroke engine design, focusing solely on improvements in combustion efficiency. Diesel engines were then added to the plate, an ARMY TARDEC designed Duramax, which was used in Humvees at the time. Other programs with DARPA and the Office of Naval Research (ONR) soon followed. For us, it was an interesting and rather unusual time, but what we learned would be the foundation for all our future efforts.
That’s when things got interesting. The first results were an eye-opener, since they differed significantly from the accepted fundamentals of combustion dynamics, the accepted formula used to this day. During a conversation with Dr. Kurt Annen from Aerodyne, he made the following statement:
“It's becoming clear that the paradigm of combustion, as we currently understand it, is in a state of transition”
Think about that for a minute. What he said is that the existing laws defining combustion efficiency were no longer valid, coming from a man that has spent a career on that very subject. We asked what that meant and here’s what he had to say:
"A piston draws in a fixed amount of fuel and air. That mixture can only create a fixed amount of energy, which we measure in the form of BTU's. That energy can only go to 1) crank rotation, 2) heat transferred to the engine and 3) out the exhaust".
"What we are seeing and don't fully understand yet, is more of that energy is being transferred to crank rotation, therefore there is less energy available to go into the engine and out the exhaust".
"The observed increase in energy going to the crank is outside our modeling parameters and needs further investigation".
And with that one sentence, a few things made sense to us.
This explained three things:
1) We saw significant drops in engine EGT's in all engine types, which now makes sense since there's less heat go out the exhaust. So we asked Kurt if engine EGT's were an accurate measure of combustion efficiency, is lower better? "Yes, lower temperatures are better". So much for those that think higher is better.
2) We have consistently seen that when we use our custom cylinder/ring process, we see a 10-20 psi increase in compression.
3) It's understood that 4-stroke motorcross engines will overheat if they're not on the move. If there's less heat going into the engine, will we see a drop in coolant temps? We took our own Yamaha YZ 250F and started it up. It sat there for 20 minutes with no signs of overheating, none.
This is important:
During a previous prototype project engine project, Aerodyne measured a significant increase in airflow when a single compression ring piston was substituted with a two ring design. Nothing too surprising there, but was interesting to them was the fact that of the total increase in airflow, 60% came from the improved vacuum properties during the piston downstroke.
Aerodyne's data revealed that due to the improved ring/land seal properties MicroBlue provides, they came to understand that ring seal is far more critical during the downstroke since there is no outward pressure forcing the rings to seal.
They then turned their attention to the vacuum dynamics of the downstroke. Why was this important to them? Because they could find no existing research work that focused on the vacuum characteristics of piston rings, only data that detailed the effects of combustion pressure on ring seal.
To which Kurt remarked. " since there's no existing data, we will have to create it"
10 YEARS TO THE DAY OF 9/11, THANK YOU!
NEXT READ: WHAT WE DO WITH PISTONS AND RINGS