I agree as well. These over unity device claims are a tad far fetched, but there may be some merrit to this. Doubtful, but maybe. What they show looks to be a roots type compressor, or a lysolm screw type device. The later operates much more efficiently than a roots at lower rpm.
The electric motor attached to this looks to be fairly sizeable, so it might produce 10-20 HP peak for a short time, and then basically go back to loafing when the engine isn't being asked to perform at max capacity.
Another aspect to this operation that may be being overlooked is that you could in fact belt, chain or gear drive the blower to run from the engine crankshaft, but put the throttle butterfly ahead of it. When demand is not high, it's only going to compress as much air as is required. (we did this same thing on a 302 mustang, worked great. instant boot at idle, and from 1000 rpm to redline produced solid 13 PSI boost pressure.
I can hear the complaint of lost efficiency at maximum rpm with light load spinning that compressor needlessly... ok, fine.. put an electro hydraulic, or electro viscus coupling between the belt/chain/gear drive and the input shaft of the compressor, and let the ECU modulate it for best performance.
Only other option I can think of is borrow (yet again) some technology from the GM 2 stroke diesels used in locomotoives. Early units used huge roots blowers driven right from the engine, but the later turboed engines used a hyprid drive of their own.... gear driven at low speeds to be able to start and idle, but once engine speed was up a bit, the exhauste turbine overran a one way clutch from that gear drive and spun the compressor to higher RPM as needed by load demand. Again, your variable viscus coupling could be used here too.
There... problem solved! (although personally I'd rather have a real motor!)
Well said, Jon, I have the same reservations about the realized efficiencies in a system like this. It is similar to all the sites that boast of improved engine performance with electrolysis created H2 gas supplied to the engine intake. None of these discuss the amount of energy required to breakdown the water. So, I'm with a lot of the comments here. In the energy balance big picture, this electric blower system is more efficient compared to what?
This seems to be an attempt at looking to produce a product without fully researching it. And written by sales people who think they are engineers because they think they know how a graph works.
All a supercharger (or turbocharger) does for an engine is to stuff more air into the engine so that more fuel can be burned. It does not necessarily improve engine efficiency. So yes, a smaller displacement engine could replace a larger engine. But efficiency will likely not change much. You will still burn more fuel to get the extra power. But you might be able to tailor the boost pressure at any given RPM to maximize efficiency.
The benefit that the electric drive supercharger has over one mechanically driven by the engine is that there will be boost available at low engine speeds, and variable boost at any RPM.
I'm not sure that a low power (12V) motor can put out enough to properly drive a supercharger in an automotive setting--maybe thats why the article discussion wanders over to hybrids where some decent electrical power for the supercharger is available from the vehicle motive power battery bank. 1 hp at 12V is 60+ amps, at the high end of typical loads in an automobile. A blower will likely require 1-5+ hp??
They also have forgotten that the variable speed blower might be able to spread the "sweet spot" or highest effiency area over a broad range of RPM. Their simplistic graph doesn't reflect this. But they also have not presented any real engine test data to confirm any of this. Nor do they suggest how much power a supercharger blower needs to provide boost for a typical 1-2 liter engine.
I'm wondering if a small hydrostatic drive might make more sense to run a blower than the electric drive they are pushing.
A supercharger under the control of an optimally programed ECU could indeed be quite something. An electric motor driven supercharger could be quite useful on a serious dragster, where it would not matter if it completely drained a car-sized battery in just a few seconds. MY point is that the belt driven superchargers take several horsepower to drive the small engine types, and the larger ones take several tens of horsepowers, and that kind of power is quite a lot to get from a 12 or 24 volt motor.
MY point is that until there are some actual dynomoeter results, with actual numbers, that an electrically driven supercharger is just an interesting concept. Consider that at 760 watts per horsepower, a 12 volt motor would draw 63.3 amps, if it were 100% efficient. A ten horsepower motor would draw 633 amps, and it would not be a small motor. So while it might work for a five second run on a drag-race car, it does not seem like a usable product for other vehicles.
However, if they have been able to come up with a DC motor delivering much more than 100% efficiency, that is a very newsworthy achievement.
It would be interesting to see more details about how efficiency is improved. Is the electric motor more efficient that the typical belt drive? And more efficient compared to what? A larger displacement engine? What are the benefits and tradeoffs compared to a turbo, which really does increase efficiency by using heat energy from the exhaust that is otherwise wasted?
Using the on-board computer to control the supercharger is a great asset to achieving the higher MPG requirements. It does allow for separation of the charger from the RPM's of the engine. This is the kind of thing that is thinking out of the box.
I think the biggest advantage is going to be the flexibility of operation. The supercharger can be turned off and on and does not have to be continuously engaged. I would like to know how much power it uses since it has to come from somewhere. A battery, depending on it's size is fine but adds more to the complexity. Driving the supercharger from the vehicles alternator might not be very efficient overall. Having the ability to boost engine power output for short term use might be helpful but it seems the power to drive the compressor has to be a lot less than the increase in engine output.
It seems at times that there is nothing new under the sun. I recall that in the 1950s, the Turbonique Company offered an electric motor (looked like a starter motor) driven centrifugal supercharger kit. it worked with widely varying degrees of success (or failure).
The company sold several other products including pure rockets, turbine motors, and what looked like a really neat axial-flow gas turbine. While an undergraduate at the U of I, I tried to sign on as a Turbonique dealer. it all fell through when the company's founder was indicted on mail fraud charges and Turbonique was dissolved.
Anyone can search YouTube and see some young guys screwing around with hand held leaf blowers providing boost on 4cyl and 6cyl cars on a dyno. These vids are usually not far from some other guys that hold a nitrous bottle and discharge it at an engines air inlet. Taking up as much space, weight, engineered know-how and likely money as a direct engine driven supercharger the electric-supercharger does not have all that much to offer. It seems to me Ogura with all their experience in clutches might be better off simply making an engine driven part-time blower., but of course they'd cut themselves out of an electric blower drive motor.
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