Neander Motors has invested a great deal of time and money in order to "break new ground and to adapt engine power to the modern demands of reducing fuel consumption and emissions to a minimum." This is certainly a worthwhile cause to us here at AutoblogGreen, so I decided to bring you news of their hard work. They have created a small, compact, turbocharged diesel engine. They have also created a new motorcycle (seen above) around this engine to showcase the design and commercialize it. What is so different about the engine? Well, small diesel engines have the nasty habit of being rough around the edges, and they weigh quite a bit in order to reduce those rough edges. Adding mass adds reliability and lowers the "shakiness" of the design, which is important when the device is going to be used by people used to the refinement of today's powerplants.
So, they have designed a system with two counter-rotating crankshafts, along with two connecting rods per piston. Each crankshaft effectively cancels the vibration of the other one, making the engine much smoother. This allows the mass of the engine to be greatly reduced. For a more detailed explanation of the workings, check out their website. It would be nice to see an engine just like this used as the range extending generator in a vehicle like the Volt... running on biodiesel to boot!
[Source: Neander Motors]
Sign in to post
Please sign in to leave a comment.
Continue