Porsche has an engine that produces 700 horsepower. I'm sure the car is completely affordable (if you're a billionaire). They're now 3D laser-printing the PISTONS, and it's added another 30 HP to the car!
The process reduces the weight of the pistons, it also allows them to add an engineering trick to the piston head that was not otherwise possible through conventional manufacturing processes. I think the process that they're using is laser scintering, where a laser burns into a special metal powder like magnesium. The powder melts, forming a solid, and it progressively builds up the shape needed.
Pretty awesome!
https://www.thedrive.com/tech/34775/porsche-found-a-way-to-3d-print-lightweight-pistons-that-add-even-more-horsepower
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Another GermanA Swedish company, Koenigsegg, is producing an engine that makes 600 HP, and the interesting bit is that IT DOES NOT HAVE A CAMSHAFT! There are two "shafts" in an engine, the one on the bottom has all the piston rods connected to it (my brain is not providing its name), the front of it connects to a toothed wheel that has a chain or belt to it - the timing belt - that travels to the top of the engine (this is a great oversimplification) and connects to the camshaft. The camshaft turns in time with how the pistons move up and down and controls the timing of how the valves inside the cylinders open and close and let fuel and air in and out of the cylinders. This controls compression, exhaust, etc.
It's a cool process, a very carefully timed ballet. Back 40 years ago, or people who work on 40 year old cars, you'd pull out a timing light and make adjustments to your distributor cap to make sure everything remains properly timed/synchronized. With electronic fuel injection, computers took that over for you.
This goes a step further and eliminates the camshaft! Hydraulic actuators take over the function of the camshaft, giving complete computer control over the ignition process. The advantage of this is greater subtle control, including the ability to completely turn off cylinders when the car is cruising at highway speed!
Cars have had the ability to turn off cylinders at highway cruise for decades, this is not a new feature, just a new implementation. But those early implementations just turned off the spark and maybe the fuel flow, you still had valves opening and closing and wearing. In this case, the valve is just parked, though that piston is still going to move up and down. Since pistons are lubricated from underneath (mostly), that's not a big deal.
But the subtleties of the computer-controlled valve timing, as described in the article, claim to be quite interesting. It'll be interesting to see what this produces over time.
https://www.roadandtrack.com/new-cars/car-technology/a31451281/koenigsegg-gemera-engine-specs-analysis/
ETA: thanks for the correction on Koenigsegg,![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
schnee!
The process reduces the weight of the pistons, it also allows them to add an engineering trick to the piston head that was not otherwise possible through conventional manufacturing processes. I think the process that they're using is laser scintering, where a laser burns into a special metal powder like magnesium. The powder melts, forming a solid, and it progressively builds up the shape needed.
Pretty awesome!
https://www.thedrive.com/tech/34775/porsche-found-a-way-to-3d-print-lightweight-pistons-that-add-even-more-horsepower
It's a cool process, a very carefully timed ballet. Back 40 years ago, or people who work on 40 year old cars, you'd pull out a timing light and make adjustments to your distributor cap to make sure everything remains properly timed/synchronized. With electronic fuel injection, computers took that over for you.
This goes a step further and eliminates the camshaft! Hydraulic actuators take over the function of the camshaft, giving complete computer control over the ignition process. The advantage of this is greater subtle control, including the ability to completely turn off cylinders when the car is cruising at highway speed!
Cars have had the ability to turn off cylinders at highway cruise for decades, this is not a new feature, just a new implementation. But those early implementations just turned off the spark and maybe the fuel flow, you still had valves opening and closing and wearing. In this case, the valve is just parked, though that piston is still going to move up and down. Since pistons are lubricated from underneath (mostly), that's not a big deal.
But the subtleties of the computer-controlled valve timing, as described in the article, claim to be quite interesting. It'll be interesting to see what this produces over time.
https://www.roadandtrack.com/new-cars/car-technology/a31451281/koenigsegg-gemera-engine-specs-analysis/
ETA: thanks for the correction on Koenigsegg,
schnee!
