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Steam-powered prius

Discussion in 'Fred's House of Pancakes' started by Priipriii, Jul 27, 2024 at 11:43 PM.

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  1. Priipriii

    Priipriii Member

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    Had this idea pop up in my mind the other night. So you know how engines are only 20% to 40% energy efficient, and the majority of the rest is wasted as heat to the coolant or exhaust.

    What if we were able to harness that to increase the thermal efficiency and possibly get the prius to 100mpg or more?

    I would build a steam-powered rotary valve system to rotate a third generator MG3 that would generate additional electricity to keep the prius in EV mode longer. This would work by rerouting the coolant to go through it first before the radiator. The exhaust would be trickier, but it could be done through convection. Perhaps snaking the exhaust hose to create as much surface area for the heat to transfer over to the coolant.

    What do you guys think? Is it too complex to be worth it, or will my idea in practice fail to give any meaningful results? Maybe its all a pipe dream (no pun intended), but i sincerely think there is potential to capture some of the energy thats wasted from ICE.
     
    #1 Priipriii, Jul 27, 2024 at 11:43 PM
  2. fuzzy1

    fuzzy1 Senior Member

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    With a stationary system, you certainly could get some gain. The best combined-cycle steam power plants, burning natural gas, are now in the 62-64% efficiency range.

    But in a mobile system, the extra efficiency needs to offset the energy cost of carrying along the additional weight. That will be difficult, especially considering that the Prius's exhaust ought to be cooler than the exhaust of a traditional ICE engine, thus any energy scavenging will have both less energy to work with, and can't reach the same thermal conversion efficiency.

    The Prius engine is already at about 40%, and should be spending far more of its operating time somewhat near its peak efficiency than any traditional non-hybrid propulsion power plant.
     
    #2 fuzzy1, Jul 28, 2024 at 12:39 AM
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