Diesels ---- the cars of the immediate future

Sorry I'm late, my wife threw the newspaper away; but I was able to find the article on the website.

http://news.independent.co.uk/business/news/story.jsp?story=529625

The hydrogen-powered cars will carry a pressurised gas tank and be refuelled at designated filling stations.

McT

PSD is shorthand for the Navistar PowerStroke 7.3 & 6.0 litre diesel engines. The 7.3 holds 14 quarts of oil. Had they put in 21, that puts you at the very real risk of engine damage.

If you ran it low on oil without catastrophic damage, that is a miracle, especially with the PSD's oil-triggered fuel injectors.

Mctag, sounds like H2 powered cars will need some " mainspring" work to control gas permeability in the pressurized fuel lines. Like cars have an auto shutoof for the fuel pump, H2 tanks will need some heavy foot valves to keep every fender bender from turning the car into a n incendiary bomb.
Jarlaxle, thanks for the information. Is Navistar the name that the old IH used to be?

Yes, Navistar is International.

Curtis, We have a problem in communication. Whether Cummin diesels use glow plugs is not debatable. It is a question of fact, not opinion.

Some time ago an alternative to glow plugs was developed. It is called the Intake Manifold Heater Grid (or something very close). It does what its description says "It heats the air coming in to the Intake Manifold.

There is a problem in the word "ignition." Someone wrote that all engines have to have an electrical ignition system, at least to get started (meaning glow plugs). Well, the Cummins diesel, as well as other diesels, do not. The fuel explodes as a result of intense heat created by compression, not a spark or "electrical glow," Maybe it's hard to believe, but diesels do not have to have an ignition system.

As the following description points out:


"Power and Performance Features"

The engine responds faster to changes in accelerator pedal position as a result of Cummins' proprietary engine control system and a state of the art common-rail electronic fuel injection.

A gear driven injection pump delivers a fuel to the rail that is electronically controlled to optimize fuel pressure at the individual injectors. The system provides injection pressures up to 23,200 psi (1600 Bar) that are less dependent on engine speed than the traditional pump-line injection system. The result is cleaner combustion and higher low speed torque with better vehicle response and acceleration.

Cummins' controls and the electronic fuel injection ensures that the engine combines optimum fuel economy and performance with emission control capabilities to meet increasingly stringent emissions regulations. In addition, the common-rail architecture and electronic controls are capable of providing new features, such as multiple injection pulses, and independent control of injection pressures. This provides both noticeably quieter operation and improved cold start capability..

Both engines share a higher compression ratio that contributes to the increased power and torque. For the standard-output engine, the increase to 17.2:1 is almost one full ratio.

Figure 3: High-Pressure Common-Rail Fuel Injection System

Improved combustion and fuel systems management, and a higher compression ratio provide better cold starting capability at extremely cold temperatures. Benefits include:

Reduced wait-to-start" times up to 15 seconds less at temperatures below 20 °F (7°C)

Significantly reduced cold cranking times

Reduced manifold heater power consumption

For cold starting, the engine continues to use an electronically controlled intake air heater grid, mounted at the inlet to the intake manifold, that is inherently more reliable than the glow plugs used in competitive engines."

Yes Billy, I thought everyone knew that about diesel engines. The glow plugs, when fitted, are only to help vaporise the fuel when the engine is cold. When it's hot, they are not needed and the fuel ignites under high compression alone.

By the way, as a point of interest and mainly for Jaraxle, who likes driving big autos that come out best in a head-on smash:

In my paper today there was a quotation from the mayor's office in Paris, France, to the effect that they wish to ban SUVs and 4x4s from driving in the city. "You have to wonder why people want to drive around in SUVs", Deputy Mayor Denis Baupin said. "We have no interest in having SUVs in the city. They're dangerous to others and take up too much space. Our idea is to limit the circulation of the most polluting vehicles. That means SUVs and lots of other vehicles that don't meet European pollution standards."

Look out, this may come to a city near you.

Here's a penny, call someone who cares. Unless I'm on the clock, I don't drive in cities unless absolutely necessary.

McTag,

You're helpful in giving reasons for not needing glow plugs, UNLESS . . . . .

The factual thing that Jarlaxle and I are hoping to get across is that there are no glow plugs in the Cummins' and other diesels.
The intake air heater grid is superior to glow plugs. There are no glow plugs in Cummins diesels. There is no reason for them. They are antiquated. They are unnessary. They're finished. Overwith. Done.

Reminds me of an Irish joke. I returned the village I was born and baptised in. I went to the pub to see if my friend Paddy O'Rourke was still around. The barkeep said, "Oh, no. he's gone. He's dead, you know.
Disceased, finsihed, six feet under, in his final resting place." I said, "He' dead, then?"
"Oh" said the barkeep, "he's definitely finished, six feet under, gone, not with us any more, you'll not be seeing that scowl anymore."
I said "How old was he when he died?"
"Well," said the barkeep "If he'd lived til next thursday. he'd been dead a month."

Very good. The Irish are very droll, to be sure. I had a similar experience in Dublin, once.

I put that bit in about concerns over pollution in Paris because there are widespread concerns about climate change everywhere caused by, chiefly, burning of fossil fuels. So, economy and downsizing are obviously factors to consider, as well as new technologies. Diesel would be more widespread in the States if gas (our term, petrol) was priced as it is elsewhere in the developed world, at about twice or three times US levels. Our price here is over seven US dollars per gallon.

I have heard that in cold climates (Scandinavia, for example) diesel tanks need heaters in them to stop waxy deposits forming.
Are these devices common in the States/ Canada?

Cold weather diesel starting
McTag

In cold climates, the oil refineries put additives in diesel fuel to keep the fuel from gelling.


We have had four diesel cars including our present 1996 VW Passat with 250,000 miles on it. It still starts at zero degrees F, gets 45mpg, and burns about 1/2 pint of oil in 3,000 miles.

They add a significant amt of MTBE in New england. this is about the dumest ass thing to do environmentally since the amount of costs to clean up a normal gas spill in ground water is anywhere from 50 t 100 K. if you add 10 to 25% MTBE the gas (and diesel) is soluble in the ground water and can travel for greaat distances at great seepage speeds (up to 1 ft/day). thus a little additive can cost an oil company millions. They could just as easily add toluene .
We were doing a long pump test at a dewatering project at a mine in Quebec in winter of 2000. We had a big Tohatsu mine equip diesel generator and a big 20" od sub pump .We were going along well until the tank heater crapped out and the fuel gelled right in the middle of the test. The temp was a balmy -10 F. we added another kind of ether to act as an anti gell , fixed the heater and then restarted.
These forestry trucks that have their camel diesel tanks in their beds seem to be vulnerable to viscosity probvlems in very cold weather, so Im sure they add ethers or alcohols or toluene to their tanks

For very cold weather, kerosene will keep diesel from gelling.

Some semis do have tank heaters.

yeh but the problem with kero is that it cant be surcharged by the oil company like MTBE can. It costs x to make MTBE and the chem division gets 3x when they sell it. There is no reason why many oxygenating agents like alcohol cant be used for antigel, oxygenating , and getting rid of water. That would be too simple and wouldnt make anything for the oil company , ADM would make the profit.

I just mix it myself. 1 gallon K1 in each tank of my truck.

ANyway, lots of winter-blend is basically an 85/15% mix of #2 & kerosene.

if you live in New England youve had diesel with 10 to 155 MTBE for years. Thats why winter diesel smeels like gas up there

Never noticed it in any of the many diesel vehicles I drive daily. Hasn't hurt the engines, either (over 500,000 on one tow truck at work, 355,000 on my truck).

emissions
Which hybrid car gets better emissions, Toyota Prius or Honda Insight?

I beleive that the Honda Insight gets better gas mileage, but what about emissions?

Diesels ---- the cars of the immediate future.

From Consumer Reports:

In the last two decades, however, diesel technology (available to subscribers) has been improving, resulting in better performance and lower emissions, noise, and vibration.

Another promising sign for diesels is that the U.S. government has mandated the production of low-sulfur diesel fuel, beginning in the fall of 2006. The low sulfur content will allow the use of emissions-cutting catalysts, which may allow diesel vehicles to further improve their emissions.

"It will make a dramatic difference," says Chet France, Director of the Assessment and Standards Division at the Environmental Protection Agency's Office of Transportation and Air Quality. "Emissions from model-year 2007 diesels will be comparable to those from gasoline engines. There will be near zero particulates leaving the tailpipe."

DaimlerChrysler's Mercedes-Benz group is developing a selective catalytic reduction system that it says can convert NOx into nitrogen and water in the exhaust after the injection of an ammonia-based compound into the exhaust. Volkswagen is working on a NOx storage catalyst system. These automakers hope to have these systems installed on their U.S. diesels for the 2007 model year.

"Switching to low-sulfur is like the switch to unleaded gas in the 1970s," says France. "That led to more than 90 percent reductions in most tailpipe emissions, and the new-generation diesels will be more than 90 percent cleaner than current models."

A recent article from Stanford Univ compares the effect of modern diesel vs. gasoline engines on photochemical smog:
Geophysical Research Letters, 2004, 31(2), L02116 1/5 - 5/5
I've only read the abstract--I don't currently have access to the whole article. The general conclusion in the abstract is that modern diesel engines would lead to increased smog levels (=> increased global warming) due to diesel's higher NO2:NO ratio and higher NOx compared to gasoline. Current technology to reduce diesel NOx reportedly results in increased particle emissions.