China unveils world’s 1st diesel engine with 53.09% thermal efficiency

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Lakados

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https://interestingengineering.com/innovation/china-diesel-engine-thermal-efficiency

This is just neat, I know they have been putting a lot of work into cleaning up and modernizing their massive fleets of trucks.
China is a huge country and they make everything for everybody so that means big-time logistics and trucking, so getting those big engines cleaned up is a high priority.
China is very aware of its air quality issues and more so of the soil contamination problems surrounding its food supply, cleaner diesel engines, and replacing ancient tractor equipment with cleaner ammonia-based units is something they really want to be done for 2030.

It's good to see they are making progress on the Diesel side at the very least.
 
LigTasm said:
Yeah, nah. 99.9999% chance this is faked and fudged just like literally everything else China copies builds.
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While I would generally agree, the previous high-efficiency engines built by Weichai Power have been tested internationally and they hold up within a few fractions of a percent, so it's accurate enough. So it might not hold up at 53.09 but it would at worst based on their other engines land in the high 52's. Which is still way better than Cummins which is between 43 and 46% depending on your options there. Weichai is not a small player in the engine market, they make some big things and they are well known for long lives in tough conditions, and given their recent attempts to enter the US market might explain why the DOE has been pumping money into Cummins for the past few years trying to get them up to a 55% efficiency mark.
 
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Higher thermal efficiency does not necessarily translate into a cleaner running engine. Just means it's turning more of the heat into useable power.
 
LigTasm said:
Yeah, nah. 99.9999% chance this is faked and fudged just like literally everything else China copies builds.
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It could be true, but this might one of those situations where we get more fuel efficiency but at the cost of these engines not lasting. There are a number of ways to make an engine more efficient, but they always comes at a cost. A lot of engines like the ones found in the Prius have the Miller cycle, which reduces compression but takes full advantage of the power stroke. Of course this reduces torque and makes the vehicle dangerous to drive, which is why these systems are often found in hybrids cause the electric motors makes up for that. The other is to lean out the engine, which is where direct injection comes in. This allows the manufacturer to use the fuel as a way of cooling down the combustion chamber while also keeping the engine running lean. The problem is that manufacturers realized that direct injection sucks at lower RPM because it doesn't give the fuel enough time to mix with the air, and at higher RPM it really doesn't give the fuel enough time to mix with the air. This is why modern vehicles have both port injection and direct injection, plus it helps clean up the valves. The need to go leaner is causing a lot of problems with modern engines, especially when talking about 3 or 4 cylinder engines where manufacturers try to push these engines to make 300 or more HP. The extreme conditions in these engines with turbos are creating a lot of heat, which makes the head warp and causes head gasket problems. If not that, then blown valves. So the question is how lean are these Chinese engines and how long before these motors blow a valve or break a head gasket?
 
DukenukemX said:
It could be true, but this might one of those situations where we get more fuel efficiency but at the cost of these engines not lasting. There are a number of ways to make an engine more efficient, but they always comes at a cost. A lot of engines like the ones found in the Prius have the Miller cycle, which reduces compression but takes full advantage of the power stroke. Of course this reduces torque and makes the vehicle dangerous to drive, which is why these systems are often found in hybrids cause the electric motors makes up for that. The other is to lean out the engine, which is where direct injection comes in. This allows the manufacturer to use the fuel as a way of cooling down the combustion chamber while also keeping the engine running lean. The problem is that manufacturers realized that direct injection sucks at lower RPM because it doesn't give the fuel enough time to mix with the air, and at higher RPM it really doesn't give the fuel enough time to mix with the air. This is why modern vehicles have both port injection and direct injection, plus it helps clean up the valves. The need to go leaner is causing a lot of problems with modern engines, especially when talking about 3 or 4 cylinder engines where manufacturers try to push these engines to make 300 or more HP. The extreme conditions in these engines with turbos are creating a lot of heat, which makes the head warp and causes head gasket problems. If not that, then blown valves. So the question is how lean are these Chinese engines and how long before these motors blow a valve or break a head gasket?
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This is the previous model of that engine it doesn’t seem terrible…
But I understand it uses Ceramic ball bearings to lower friction which would not be fun to replace.

https://en.weichaipower.com/product.../truck/dump_truck/202003/t20200326_61634.html
 
Lakados said:
This is the previous model of that engine it doesn’t seem terrible…
But I understand it uses Ceramic ball bearings to lower friction which would not be fun to replace.

https://en.weichaipower.com/product.../truck/dump_truck/202003/t20200326_61634.html
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I've seen ceramic bearings, but not ceramic ball bearings. I'd imagine that would also cause the engine to wear out sooner. There are manufacturers like Toyota who made engines with less tighter piston rings, which again increase MPG but also causes the engine to burn oil and eventually wear out the cylinder walls. The idea here is you can increase MPG, but at the cost of the longevity of the engine. It's why a V8 engine can achieve 1 million miles and why a turbo 4 cylinder making over 350 hp will not make it to 100k miles. Yes 4 cylinders burn less gasoline due to less friction, but you're now trying to achieve the same power of a V8 in a very small engine. Something is gonna cook.

View: https://youtu.be/sKEbTweM6aE?si=dVR3Z53Ia6EwiJ6b
 
DukenukemX said:
I've seen ceramic bearings, but not ceramic ball bearings. I'd imagine that would also cause the engine to wear out sooner. There are manufacturers like Toyota who made engines with less tighter piston rings, which again increase MPG but also causes the engine to burn oil and eventually wear out the cylinder walls. The idea here is you can increase MPG, but at the cost of the longevity of the engine. It's why a V8 engine can achieve 1 million miles and why a turbo 4 cylinder making over 350 hp will not make it to 100k miles. Yes 4 cylinders burn less gasoline due to less friction, but you're now trying to achieve the same power of a V8 in a very small engine. Something is gonna cook.

View: https://youtu.be/sKEbTweM6aE?si=dVR3Z53Ia6EwiJ6b
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They seem solid enough and I can find at least one truck frame built on it.
https://www.shacman.com/product/pro-detail-21.htm

Either way I am glad they are working to clean things up, anything that cuts back pollution generated there helps the rest of us out a lot.
 
Lakados said:
getting those big engines cleaned up is a high priority.
China is very aware of its air quality issues and more so of the soil contamination problems surrounding its food supply, cleaner diesel engines, and replacing ancient tractor equipment with cleaner ammonia-based units is something they really want to be done
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Are you delusional? China don't give a crap. They aren't playing your Western games.
 
funkydmunky said:
Are you delusional? China don't give a crap. They aren't playing your Western games.
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You’d be surprised, mostly because their they are suffering crop failures because the land is too polluted and high cases of respiratory issues because of terrible air quality. Their current leaders are the survivors of the famines of the 60’s, they have very little desire to relive that memory.
China is spending a crapload on clean energy tech and probably stealing twice as much, they are some of the largest backers of the mini reactor projects and are already lined up for a fair number of them, no they aren’t building them they are getting made in the States and shipped there for install. Should let them get rid of a lot of their Coal plants, they bought into those when they saw the Canadian LNG stuff was falling through.
 
Gideon said:
Higher thermal efficiency does not necessarily translate into a cleaner running engine. Just means it's turning more of the heat into useable power.
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Yeah, well VW got in trouble for running the engines hotter, at higher efficiency because it put out more NOx, because higher temperature + air from the atmosphere makes more NOx; well that and they didn't want to put in a DEF tank for small engines or a large enough one for big engines.
 
toast0 said:
Yeah, well VW got in trouble for running the engines hotter, at higher efficiency because it put out more NOx, because higher temperature + air from the atmosphere makes more NOx; well that and they didn't want to put in a DEF tank for small engines or a large enough one for big engines.
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I don't blame VW for what they did. Australia is more lenient towards NOx which allowed engines to run leaner. As a Corvette owner I basically copied their feature to get lean cruise mode in my American Vette. It does create more NOx, but it also gets you a 40mpg Corvette. Though I put a cam in mine so it only gets 30mpg with lean cruise mode. Leaner is meaner, and gets better MPG. Why should I care about emissions when Taylor Swifts jets are burning fuel like it's going out of style?
 
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