A comparison of Georgia Tech’s combustor with a traditional combustor: (Left) A traditional combustor mixes fuel and air before they are injected into the combustion chamber. (Right) Tech’s combustor injects the fuel and air separately into the combustor.
Sounds like the 150mpg carburetor we've heard about for the last sixty or seventy years. I suspect that fifty years from now we'll hear about the oil companies buying this one to keep it off the market.
This appears to use the same principles as the Scuderi "air-hybrid" engine, that has one cylinder compress the air, and then inject the compressed air into the combustion cylinder at the same time as fuel is injected.
However, the Scuderi engine also gets some benefit from the fact that the compressed air loses heat when it expands, which results in lower combustion temperatures, which results in lower NoX emissions as well.
I had an uncle who had a friend who knew a guy who invented this device. Damn oil companies bought it from him!
From the patent:
http://www.freshpatents.com/Stagnation-point-reverse-flow-combustor-for-a-combustion-system-dt20060209ptan20060029894.php?type=description
" ...When the liquid fuel is burned in a non premixed mode, the fuel is injected separately into the combustor through an orifice aligned with the axis of the combustion chamber and the combustion oxidant is injected in through an annular orifice surrounding the fuel orifice in the manner similar to that used to burn gaseous fuel in a non premixed mode, as described above. As in the non premixed gaseous fuel combustion case, the oxidant stream is confined within two shear layer at its inside and outside boundaries. In the inside shear layer, the oxidant mixes with the injected liquid fuel stream. In the process, liquid fuel is entrained into the shear layer where it is heated by the air stream. This heating evaporates the liquid fuel and generates fuel vapor that mixes with the oxidant to form a combustible mixture. In the outer shear layer, the oxidant mixes with the counter flowing stream of hot combustion products and reacting gas pockets. The resulting fuel-oxidant mixture that is formed in the inner shear layer is ignited and burned in essentially premixed mode of combustion when it comes into contact with the mixture of oxidant-hot combustion products-reacting gas pockets mixture that formed in the outer shear layer."
The exhaust is remixed with the combustion air. Sounds cool.
This is the second major research breakthrough announced by Georgia Tech this week. On Monday, Georgia Tech and IBM announced the new fastest silicon microchip, which operates best at absolute zero temperature. The Ramblin Wreck is on a roll...
But when it rolls off the assembly line it will look like a Pry-us, so sane people wouldn't be caught dead in it.