Replacing spark plugs...... with lasers?
Replacing spark plugs...... with lasers?
Excerpt:
Spark plugs in petrol engines are set to be replaced by laser ignition systems, following development of new manufacturing techniques by Japanese boffins.
The new research is to be presented to the world at an optics conference in Baltimore next month by Takunori Taira of Japan's National Institutes of Natural Sciences and his colleagues. Taira and his team have been working with spark-plug firms and Toyota subsidiaries to address the problems facing ordinary petrol-engine ignition.
Discuss.
:biggrin:
IS200 Sport - Sold
Mazda 6 MPS - Zoom Zoom!
Modifications
Completed:
Currently 280bhp/295lbft; 3" Meercat custom exhaust; KW Suspension; FMIC; SSP; HPFP; Custom Stainless Steel Dials - for the moment, the only set in the world!! (Till the group buy for MPSOC anyway :lol: )
In Progress:
E-Tuning remap ongoing via Cobb Accessport; Braided brake lines; Stubby aerial; Tinted repeaters and sidelights; 3 Port Boost Control Solenoid; 3" HTP Intake
Full article here
Excerpt:
Spark plugs in petrol engines are set to be replaced by laser ignition systems, following development of new manufacturing techniques by Japanese boffins.
The new research is to be presented to the world at an optics conference in Baltimore next month by Takunori Taira of Japan's National Institutes of Natural Sciences and his colleagues. Taira and his team have been working with spark-plug firms and Toyota subsidiaries to address the problems facing ordinary petrol-engine ignition.
Discuss.
:biggrin:
IS200 Sport - Sold
Mazda 6 MPS - Zoom Zoom!
Modifications
Completed:
Currently 280bhp/295lbft; 3" Meercat custom exhaust; KW Suspension; FMIC; SSP; HPFP; Custom Stainless Steel Dials - for the moment, the only set in the world!! (Till the group buy for MPSOC anyway :lol: )
In Progress:
E-Tuning remap ongoing via Cobb Accessport; Braided brake lines; Stubby aerial; Tinted repeaters and sidelights; 3 Port Boost Control Solenoid; 3" HTP Intake
The spark plugs inside an internal combustion engine erode and need to be replaced regularly because high voltages are required to ignite the engine fuel.
Colorado State University in the US hopes to create longer-lasting plugs by replacing electrical ignition with pulsed laser light, fed into the cylinders by glass fibres.
But so much energy is needed to ionise gas and create a spark that conventional optical fibres disintegrate. So the university is patenting a new fibre that promises to be strong enough to feed laser power to spark plugs.
The fibre is hollow, 700 micrometres in diameter and filled with helium. The internal surface of the tube is coated with a 0.2 micrometre layer of reflective silver.
The silver coating should stop light from escaping and the inert helium should prevent the creation of any sparks inside the fibre.
Infrared light from a neodymium-YAG laser is fired into the tube, which carries it round bends and into the engine cylinders where a lens focuses all the energy onto a fine spot. This triggers the electrical breakdown of gas inside the cylinder and generates a plasma spark that ignites the fuel.
Read the full patent here.
Those darn yanks have already patented the idea as long ago as 2005!!!! Probably take Jap engineering to make it work.
"Life's goal is not to arrive safely at the grave in a well preserved body. But, rather to skid in sideways........
totally worn out and broken, shouting 'Holy ****, WHAT A RIDE!'"
FirebirdPhil
10-03-2019, 02:57 PM #2Laser spark plugs
The spark plugs inside an internal combustion engine erode and need to be replaced regularly because high voltages are required to ignite the engine fuel.
Colorado State University in the US hopes to create longer-lasting plugs by replacing electrical ignition with pulsed laser light, fed into the cylinders by glass fibres.
But so much energy is needed to ionise gas and create a spark that conventional optical fibres disintegrate. So the university is patenting a new fibre that promises to be strong enough to feed laser power to spark plugs.
The fibre is hollow, 700 micrometres in diameter and filled with helium. The internal surface of the tube is coated with a 0.2 micrometre layer of reflective silver.
The silver coating should stop light from escaping and the inert helium should prevent the creation of any sparks inside the fibre.
Infrared light from a neodymium-YAG laser is fired into the tube, which carries it round bends and into the engine cylinders where a lens focuses all the energy onto a fine spot. This triggers the electrical breakdown of gas inside the cylinder and generates a plasma spark that ignites the fuel.
Read the full patent here.
Those darn yanks have already patented the idea as long ago as 2005!!!! Probably take Jap engineering to make it work.
"Life's goal is not to arrive safely at the grave in a well preserved body. But, rather to skid in sideways........
totally worn out and broken, shouting 'Holy ****, WHAT A RIDE!'"
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