Supercharger

The SmartFire® technology has been demonstrated to many car companies around the world with dramatic benefits in both combustion and combustion feedback. The technology is ready for commercialization and Adrenaline is looking for a partner at this time to build the coils for a specific customer that would like to begin a development program as soon as a qualified supplier is committed to the program.

SmartFire® has the capability of providing a plasma spark that delivers better combustion and results in better fuel economy, lower emissions and more horsepower. The technology has proven 100% Misfire Detection to meet the OBDII regulatory requirements on any number of cylinders in an engine. The Knock Detection capability has been proven and validated on a number of engines and allows this technology to provide a benefit that goes beyond all other ignition systems today.

SmartFire's® ability to provide both low and high energy within the same cycle is the ultimate value of this ignition system. It provides a low energy spark, then senses for a misfire and if a misfire is ensuing, the system can fire a second time with high energy within the same cycle to maximize the probability of eliminating the misfire from happening. This technology will provide lower emission over the life of the engine while providing a 100,000 mile sparkplug life, 10 - 15 % improvement in cold start HC emissions as well as better start ability at cold temperatures.

Today Adrenaline Research, Inc. has one car company ready to begin a development program to get this technology into production for their large gasoline engines. It is expected that within five years this technology will be on at least three vehicles from at least two different car manufacturers. This will be done with the help of partners that will manufacture the coils, the spark plugs and the electronics under license from Adrenaline Research, Inc. The core technology within the SmartFire® system is licensed from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

SmartFire could solve the Renesis flooding problem.


http://www.adrenalineresearch.com/index.html

OverLOAD

I thought that the flooding issue is related to the fuel injectors (or is it oil??), not the spark plugs.

While this looks interesting, and could potentially provide power/efficiency and emissions improvements, how would it possibly resolve the flooding issue? Not a dig, just curious.

OverLOAD

Supercharger

Transient plasma discharge, sometimes called pulsed corona discharge, is the transient phase of spark discharge before arc formation. The transient phase lasts 10-100 nanoseconds while the remainder of the spark discharge (arc and glow discharge) takes microseconds or even milliseconds. In conventional commercial flame spark ignition, only a very small portion of the discharge energy (<1 mJ/pulse) goes to the transient phase; most of the energy (typically 30-100 mJ/pulse) goes to the arc and glow discharges. But experiments show that, for flame ignition, the transient plasma phase is more efficient than the arc and glow discharge phases. 94% of the transient phase discharge energy goes to plasma, which leads to flame ignition. In the arc and glow discharge phases, only 50% (arc) or 30% (glow) of the energy goes to plasma --- 45% (arc) or 70% (glow) of the energy is dissipated in electrode heating.

Transient plasma discharge can readily ignite flame at many points (tens to hundreds) simultaneously. Conventional spark ignition has only one discharge channel. Multi-site ignition can greatly increase the burning rate and decrease heat loss to the chamber walls, boosting thermal efficiency and facilitating lean fuel burning. Transient plasma ignition has a higher thermal efficiency as a result of the higher electron energy, which provides a better match with the ionization and dissociation energy of many molecules, with less radiative and conductive heat loss.

In other words, plasma ignition provides much better cold engine start-up than conventional ignition.

OverLOAD

So what your saying is reduced possibility of misfire. (among the potential increase in efficency).

Also, this was the idea behind the Bosch Platinum 4+, multipoint spark locations, but in reality this usually resuls in only one spark point.

But this leads me further to this question. What exactly is the root cause of the flooding issue? It's obvious that it's caused from shutting of the engine while it is still cold, but exactly what is the phenomenon that causes the engine to flood when it's turned off cold, vs. turned off after it's fully warmed? And then still, how is getting a better burn going to stop that phenomenon from manifesting itself?

Respectfully,

OverLOAD

sferrett

Hey Supercharger,

Are you the author of this web page:
http://pulsedpower.usc.edu/pulsed_ignition.html
or are you just quoting verbatim from it? If you didn't author the website it might be worth giving the author of site a mention or acknowledgement.

Do you work for Adrenaline Research? All this sure sounds like a bit of a plug for them.

Simon.

Nubo

From what I have read, the flooding is a result of the extra fuel washing away or diluting the oil film on the chamber walls. The oil film is necessary for the apex seals to form a seal. Without it, there is no seal, thus no compression, thus no ignition of the air/fuel mixture. This is why a common fix is reportedly to get a couple of ounces of oil or ATF into the combustion chamber to re-establish the seal.

The following is conjecture but I surmise that during warm-up the seal is not compromised because the centripetal force of the spinning rotor provides enough force to keep the apex seals firmly against the chamber even though the oil film may not be optimal. But, if stopped in this condition that force on the seals is lost. Without a bit of oil to help provide the seal for the first few combustion cycles, you just can't get the rotor spinning. The problem would then feed on itself since you've now got more raw fuel coming in.

OverLOAD

Nubo,

Those seem like very resonable conjectures, except for the centripetal accelleration of the apex seals against the housing constituting an acceptable seal barrier, however I may be wrong.

I know that the enging likes to rev very high on inital start-up. In the cold, I notice mine will run at almost 2800 rpm if it's nice and cold, but perhaps this is the most important thing to watch.

The engine may really only have apex oil-seal problems if the initial startup at high revs, and slow wind down to normal idle (~800rpm) does not happen.

Could anyone who experienced engine flooding/compression loss confirm that they had definately shut the engine down before the rev speed had began to settle?

I am kind of doubtful, but I would have to do the calculations to figure out if the centripetal acceleration would be a factor. I'm kind of speculating that on initial start-up, Mazda runs the renesis so lean that it gets real hot real fast, and burns much oil quickly, so that they can get the exhaust temps up fast. This would explain why the car sounds so agressive on the initial startup, and why it seems to misfire on the intial startup. This is probably the biggest factor in emmissions tests, and likly the factor we're seeing. I would also speculate that Mazda cuts back dramatically on the oil injection for the first 5-10 seconds (or whatever), hence the lower rev-limiter when cold, and the harshness of the emission tests to pass.

Anyone with proof? or even some more fuel to add to the fire?

OverLOAD

JoeRX8ter

Some of the people that reported flooded engines actually had to have their plugs pulled and cleaned because they were fouled. If this could fire a plug that would otherwise be fouled it may help the restart effort using the wide open throttle method. In otherwords you may be able to get the car started without having to pull the plugs.

wakeech

engines flood for the same reasons, whether they're rotary or not.

plugs get wet with fuel (fouled, as JoeRX8ter said), and liquid fuel ends up in the combustion chamber, which doesn't really combust all that quickly.

the ATF solution is quite dumb, unless you're trying to unseize an old motor that's up for a rebuild, because of the corrosive qualities of ATF fluid: not really good for the engine in the long term.

i think another (far less stressful to the engine) solution is to pull the plugs, clean them, and turn the motor over by hand to get the fuel out.

sealing and other stuff i don't have time to explain, but it's not much from the centripital force (that's why they have springs: they're constantly under compression between the spring and the rotor housing pressing it into the rotor).

bah, gtg, help someone move.

neit_jnf

Also, the actual pressure of the gases in the chamber get behind and push the apex seals against the housing.

wakeech

thanks.

that is what actually does all of the sealing (who can argue against the obvious pressure of the combustion chamber) around the combustion event... what isn't depicted there is the geometry of the 2 peice seal system (the 3 piece seals i believe sealed better, but only marginally so, and broke a lot more).

back to the matter at hand, if you're asking yourself why a plug wet with gasoline won't spark, it's cause gasoline is a non-ionized (Doc, are they mostly non-polar as well??) fluid, and won't conduct.

sferret, this is just what Super does. it's his thing.... none of us (at least not me) have figured out who he really is.

thanks, you Masked Man. (forgot again, sorry )