[SoCalS2k]

Saw this interesting article on BMW's future heat energy recovery technology using 3 different ideas -- 1) reduce cold starts to reduce emissions, 2) convert exhaust heat into electricity, and 3) utilize waste heat to heat the car's interior.

For years, engineers have avoided heat in cars to protect components from overheating. Now, this goal is being turned on its head as automakers attempt to harness previously wasted energy for practical purposes such as improving fuel consumption and reducing CO2 emissions.

Even a highly efficient engine can only convert about one-third of the energy contained in fuel to actually propel a car. Two-thirds is lost as waste heat via the car’s exhaust and radiator, according to BMW.

To capture some of this lost energy, BMW is working on a number of promising projects that make use of heat normally lost. The first idea may banish cold starts forever to reduce emissions. The second approach can convert the heat from a car’s exhaust into electricity and the third idea uses waste heat to heat the interior of a car.

BMW engineers are working all-out on largely avoiding cold start conditions by fully encapsulating engines. Improved heat insulation of engines would prevent them from cooling down quickly and retain as much residual heat as possible for the next start.

In addition to the air flaps already on some production models, a prototype has already been developed that is completely surrounded by fully clad walls and panels using proven materials that are normally used in the car’s underfloor for insulation.

Thanks to this approach, the engine cools down much slower after being switched off and still has a temperature of approximately 40 degrees Celsius after 12 hours. Each degree Celsius above the ambient temperature reduces fuel consumption by 0.2%.

The next phase of BMW’s heat recovery technology is the generation of electrical power from wasted exhaust gases, which the automaker claims can cut fuel consumption by up to 2%.

We’ve already seen this in principle with BMW’s thermoelectric generator, which was presented last year. BMW is now presenting the next level of development in the form of an integrated component in the exhaust gas recirculation cooler. With the latest development, up to 250 W of energy are produced under typical driving conditions--equal to about half the on-board electricity consumption in a 5-Series sedan.

The device relies on a thermoelectric semi-conductor element that generates electrical voltage. The bigger the difference in temperature, the higher the voltage generated. Exhaust gas temperatures, which are usually between 300 and 900 degrees Celsius, are on the hot side of the generator, and engine coolant is used for the cold side.

Whilst still a prototype, the current solution gives engineers more information on the operating principles as well as obstacles yet to be overcome. According to BMW, between 3 and 8% of the total fuel consumed by modern cars is due to the rising number of electricity-dependent features, so there are potentially big savings to be made.

Finally, BMW is also working on an exhaust gas heat exchanger. With gasoline engines, it would be very effective in warming up the drivetrain more quickly to the right temperature, avoiding friction in, say, the gearbox. Such an exchanger conveys heat, or thermal energy, from one flow to another, in this case the heat of the exhaust gas to the oil in the automatic transmission, with additional heat being pumped in consistently from the start.

Diesel engines are now so efficient that the excess heat generated by the engine is usually insufficient to heat the interior of the car alone. It has become quite normal to fit cars with an additional electric heater, which increase fuel consumption.

To avoid this extra fuel consumption, hot exhaust emissions may be used by means of a heat exchanger close to the catalytic converter to provide an additional source of heat for the interior. Such a system may avoid the need for electrical heating modules which consume additional fuel.

Further down the track, we should be seeing more advanced features such as the aforementioned heat-energy recovery systems, as well as variable frontal aerodynamics, increase use of regenerative brakes, and even a satellite-aided traffic management system. This latter feature is designed to help improve efficiency by anticipating when acceleration or braking will be necessary, and smoothing out the transitions between the two, resulting in better fuel economy.

Source: BMW / http://www.motorauthority.com/blog/1...ery-technology

[bmw13]

their engineers never cease to amaze me, a step in a good direction

[VBMW]

That's a Great idea... Covering the whole engine..!

[EngPhys09]

Can I put a bbq grill on my engine and cook dinner on the drive home? 2000 rpm for medium rare?

[TheDarkone]

sounds like it works like Jiffy Pop. Wonder if it's hot enough to make grilled cheese sandwiches? haha

[GreenPlease]

Gee, I don't think I've ever seen anyone on the board mention thermal isolation as a path to greater efficiency

[samuraisaiyo]

Oh ho

[Imola.ZHP]

Hope the fuel savings is enough to overcome the additional weight...

[335iTrace]

Thats a great idea, but the extra weight would make the cars center of gravity (the top being heavier) off by a lot i would think. I'm very interested to see where they go with this.

[3M TAPE]

Is that a new 5 series?

[Citizen Z]

Whatever happened to that ceramic engine block that the Japanese developed about 20 years ago? It operated at over 3300 degrees, lacked any sort of cooling, and applied twice the amount of energy from fuel to propulsion compared to conventional internal combustion engines. I remember hearing about it waaay back when but it was not cost effective to ever produce.

[Quick1 TO BE]

ITS RETARDED...

why dont they just do an electric car and forget about all this bullshit..its been done before by GM 8 years ago...all this crap is just gonna drive the price of the cars even higher and wont justify the .2% fuel savings.

Ash

[GreekMaverick]

Originally Posted by Citizen Z

Whatever happened to that ceramic engine block that the Japanese developed about 20 years ago? It operated at over 3300 degrees, lacked any sort of cooling, and applied twice the amount of energy from fuel to propulsion compared to conventional internal combustion engines. I remember hearing about it waaay back when but it was not cost effective to ever produce.

+1, Have heard about it my self.

[J-Raid]

Note there's camuflage in the front bumper. Could it be the F10 5 series? Hummm

in that case they gave some new info (about the front lights), as they aren't covered unlike the testing prototypes. And they don't look to be the 5GT...perhaps.

Other than that, the idea of recovering heat energy in one way or another isn't new, what is new is that finally someone took the plunge to work seriously on it and can make it economically viable. Thumbs up for BMW, and really hope it's already on the 5 series, along with other new measures for the Efficient Dynamics (ie. the new aero lay out around the wheels?)

Originally Posted by Citizen Z View Post
Whatever happened to that ceramic engine block that the Japanese developed about 20 years ago? It operated at over 3300 degrees, lacked any sort of cooling, and applied twice the amount of energy from fuel to propulsion compared to conventional internal combustion engines. I remember hearing about it waaay back when but it was not cost effective to ever produce.

Problems were that it was too fragile, too expensive and very difficult to manufacture...in fact it was almost impossible to build two identical ones (to current standard)

ITS RETARDED...

why dont they just do an electric car and forget about all this bullshit..its been done before by GM 8 years ago...all this crap is just gonna drive the price of the cars even higher and wont justify the .2% fuel savings.

Now thats the retarded comment. DO you think they spend the money elsewhere for fun?
Don't be overly and stupedly simplistic like some ignorant pseudo-ecologists.

While electric engines beat internal combustion ones in efficiency, simplicity, torque and other aspects, the problem with electric cars is that batteries are so undeveloped and "useless", with a really small energy density. Petrol is very dominant in that respect.

How many km do you think can be done with a electric car, and with a fuel tank?
Electric cars at best struggle to do more than 400km, while some efficient diesels have gone over 1500km. And most electric cars on sale don't even surpass 150km! Would you, or customers be up to that?
Whats more, would you be up to waiting for few hours (no less than 3, for example), while petrol refuelling takes you 3...minutes!?

Please get informed before saying BS.

The major challenge with E-cars is storage, which for now is rubbish and still needs lot of investment in new developments.

Whats more electric engines get the energy from somewhere, a pollutant source in the majority of cases too. In fact many times coming from coal, that is more pollutant than petrol!
Currently electric cars rather than solving the pollution/energy problem, simply change the place of contaminant emissions.

Lets not forget that while big energy powerplants can beat the 30%aprox efficiency of IC engines, the electrification and all the energy transport, which is then converted into chemical energy in the batteries and back into electricity doesn't overall get much better than IC. Actually only nuclear plants and gas combined cycles could be "winners" in this respect.
Needless to say that batteries add major weight to the car, overall increasing energy consumption.

Can I put a bbq grill on my engine and cook dinner on the drive home? 2000 rpm for medium rare?

You don't need that. Actually it is widely "tradition" in summer in Sevilla (southern Spain) to fry eggs and other stuff over the car hood. The good thing is that they don' need to start the engine, cause that heat is coming...from the "horrible" sunshine there!

[BlueSander]

GM is full of retards hence all their executives are making tons and our national debt is on the rise. I have encounter many bad examples, through work, of all the bullshit GM came up with and many of that aren't pretty. Anyhow, I wonder if the amount of electricity from heat will be able to run the AC during summer for the car. That would save 1-2mpg easily. Also, how the hell they can prevent the engine from over heating with all that surrounding closure?

[J-Raid]

Originally Posted by GreenPlease

Gee, I don't think I've ever seen anyone on the board mention thermal isolation as a path to greater efficiency

That's called adiabatic process, and anyone with basic thermodynamics knowledge knows its effects on efficiency

Anyway, I'm looking forward that not only they come up with this, but rather soon put on production KERS' brother, the HERS (Heat Energy Recovery System), and not just with a thermo-electrical device, NASA-inspired, that they brought a few months ago, but a pure, more powerful one, using a small turbine and heat exchangers takeing heat from exhaust, oil and coolant.

By the way, the thread-starter text was taken from a more complete document of BMW about the cars of the future, which can be found at https://www.press.bmwgroup.com/press...tem=node__2367
(download press kit at the bottom of that page)

It talks about other stuff, like new lighting systems, etc.

[jusjankey]

Now thats the retarded comment. DO you think they spend the money elsewhere for fun?
Don't be overly and stupedly simplistic like some ignorant pseudo-ecologists.

While electric engines beat internal combustion ones in efficiency, simplicity, torque and other aspects, the problem with electric cars is that batteries are so undeveloped and "useless", with a really small energy density. Petrol is very dominant in that respect.

It's for profit not efficiency. Oil companies obviously want to use every drop of oil before switching to electricity. Batteries are more than ready for use in the auto industry and we should already be driving in electric vehicles. Sadly the oil companies have bought the patents for those batteries and will release them when they feel fit.

This is a great idea if it was 1978

Do you think coal power plants will be around forever? Electricity is the obvious choice for auto propulsion.

Im sure everyone except J-Raid knows that if it wasn't for greed, power plants would be 90% less polutant, and vehicles would run off electricity in 2009..hek 1995.

[J-Raid]

Originally Posted by jusjankey

It's for profit not efficiency. Oil companies obviously want to use every drop of oil before switching to electricity. Batteries are more than ready for use in the auto industry and we should already be driving in electric vehicles. Sadly the oil companies have bought the patents for those batteries and will release them when they feel fit.

This is a great idea if it was 1978

Do you think coal power plants will be around forever? Electricity is the obvious choice for auto propulsion.

Im sure everyone except J-Raid knows that if it wasn't for greed, power plants would be 90% less polutant, and vehicles would run off electricity in 2009..hek 1995.

I love conspirancy theories, but that one is a really bad one. May have happened with some patents, could be. But even if it was the case, you prove you know very little about engineering or even single physics/thermodynamics.

Please, before speaking get a bit of serious knowledge. Start studying from the Carnot cycle and so on

The fact that powerplants and cars don't get enough efficiency has got nothing to do with greedy oil companies. Nuclear plants and gas plants, for example, are out of control, no way they slowed down as much as you say the development (bear in mind that electric companies are almost as powerful, and would not accept to spend X if they can spend far less. Same with laptop or mobile phone companies)

The thing is that simply nature is how it is, with lots of imperfections, and we humans are only starting to understand it and know how to use it.

Coal plants won't be forever, but there are actually more resources of coal than petrol, so even if cars are "electrified", they will still run under energies that are as bad as petrol. And don't come to me with the "alternatives energies". I've worked with some companies of that field, and got recognized more than once that managing to produce even 30% of the total electricity would be a panacea. Not only because they have low ratio of efficiency or are very expensive, but also could not match the demands, because normally those energies depend on very variable fluctuations (ie wind), which is a small nightmare for the regulation of the electric net.

90% less pollutant? ROFL so hard! You discredited yourself there so much, let alone any single scientific knowledge.

Electricity is not such an obvious choice for auto propulsion, no wonder why fuel cells (ie.hydrogen ones) are still a very strong alternative in the development and investment.

Batteries are as heavy and inefficient as hell. I recommend you to take a close look at what has happened in F1 this year. And no matter how much we develop them ion-lithium has physical limits that are impossible to cross, and that are still very far from lets say liquid fuels.

Less BS, more knowledge, thanks.

PS: For the record, my father collaborated in the scientific Renault council back in the 70-80s and already then electric cars were the main issue. He has told me repeatedly that the problems back then were so freaking huge that no way a feasible car (with decent autonomy for road trips) could be achieved, let alone many other problems, even for the long term.
For the record, he is a nuclear engineer and knows quite well about of this issue, and has been always clear of the pros and cons of nuclear energy. Same thing about energy in general.

All in all electric cars may be the vehicle of the future, but certainly a very distant future, unfortunately. I would love to have them asap more than you (I actually work on energy efficiency stuff), but I'm realistic...and with knowledge of the situation.

PS2: I too hate greedys, and not just oil company ones, but also the counterparts from the financial camp, that not only created this crisis, but also piss off us everyday...but thats another, off, topic

[ianbiz]

KERS would be nice

[Bimmer Nerd]

Originally Posted by siwon66

Is that a new 5 series?

i think it really is, in the 2nd to last pic there is a test mule right next to it at the left side, i really DO THINK that this might be the front of the f10 5 series.

[JasonCSU]

Originally Posted by J-Raid

Note there's camuflage in the front bumper. Could it be the F10 5 series? Hummm

in that case they gave some new info (about the front lights), as they aren't covered unlike the testing prototypes. And they don't look to be the 5GT...perhaps.

Other than that, the idea of recovering heat energy in one way or another isn't new, what is new is that finally someone took the plunge to work seriously on it and can make it economically viable. Thumbs up for BMW, and really hope it's already on the 5 series, along with other new measures for the Efficient Dynamics (ie. the new aero lay out around the wheels?)



Problems were that it was too fragile, too expensive and very difficult to manufacture...in fact it was almost impossible to build two identical ones (to current standard)



Now thats the retarded comment. DO you think they spend the money elsewhere for fun?
Don't be overly and stupedly simplistic like some ignorant pseudo-ecologists.

While electric engines beat internal combustion ones in efficiency, simplicity, torque and other aspects, the problem with electric cars is that batteries are so undeveloped and "useless", with a really small energy density. Petrol is very dominant in that respect.

How many km do you think can be done with a electric car, and with a fuel tank?
Electric cars at best struggle to do more than 400km, while some efficient diesels have gone over 1500km. And most electric cars on sale don't even surpass 150km! Would you, or customers be up to that?
Whats more, would you be up to waiting for few hours (no less than 3, for example), while petrol refuelling takes you 3...minutes!?

Please get informed before saying BS.

The major challenge with E-cars is storage, which for now is rubbish and still needs lot of investment in new developments.

Whats more electric engines get the energy from somewhere, a pollutant source in the majority of cases too. In fact many times coming from coal, that is more pollutant than petrol!
Currently electric cars rather than solving the pollution/energy problem, simply change the place of contaminant emissions.

Lets not forget that while big energy powerplants can beat the 30%aprox efficiency of IC engines, the electrification and all the energy transport, which is then converted into chemical energy in the batteries and back into electricity doesn't overall get much better than IC. Actually only nuclear plants and gas combined cycles could be "winners" in this respect.
Needless to say that batteries add major weight to the car, overall increasing energy consumption.



You don't need that. Actually it is widely "tradition" in summer in Sevilla (southern Spain) to fry eggs and other stuff over the car hood. The good thing is that they don' need to start the engine, cause that heat is coming...from the "horrible" sunshine there!

Well said.

[MCMLXXXIX]

Originally Posted by Bimmer Nerd

i think it really is, in the 2nd to last pic there is a test mule right next to it at the left side, i really DO THINK that this might be the front of the f10 5 series.

it looks like an x6. that front bumper has that weird step in it. i dont remember seeing that in anything related to the f10 5er