Sturman engines camless digital engines overview article
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Sturman Industries is innovating camless engine systems, utilizing digital valves to enhance mechanical efficiency and performance. Founded by Eddie Sturman in Colorado, the company focuses on integrating electronics with traditional diesel engine components, improving control over air and fuel management. Their technology promises significant benefits, including higher efficiency, adaptability to various fuel types, and compatibility with older engines.
Sturman engines camless digital engines overview article
- 1. Not ebook: KINETIC EMERGY SHARE Creat ed: 1/17/17 06:54 PM URL: http://www.trucktrend.com/cool-trucks/1104dp-sturman-industries-camless-engine-systems/ Sturman Industries Camless Engine Systems - Diesel Power Magazine Sturman Industries Camless Engine Systems A Company That Seeks to Digitize the Mechanical World – May 1, 2011 Menlo Park is known as the birthplace of the electric lightbulb. Bell Laboratories is where transistors were invented. Los Alamos produced the atomic bomb. Sturman Industries, located at the base of Pikes Peak, is home to an invention of just as much, if not more significance. Sturman’s digital valves have the proven ability to change the way mechanical things (including diesel engines) work.
- 2. View Photo Gallery | 8 Photos Photo 2/8 | 1104dp Sturman Industries front Of Building And Semi When Diesel Power got the chance to interview Eddie Sturman at his Colorado facility, we found he’s created an open and creative corporate culture where everyone’s input (from the machinist to the CEO) is valued. Everyone works in the same comfortable environmentthe entire place is as clean as a hospital. While the company’s headquarters has a lodge- like feel, Sturman’s facility contains some of the most advanced analysis, electronics, testing, and machining capabilities found on the planet. To us, this was like going into Superman’s Fortress of Solitude.
- 3. View Photo Gallery | 8 Photos Photo 3/8 | Back in 2000, a joint venture between Sturman Industries and International produced the first camless engine to race to the summit of Pikes Peak. In another demonstration that same year, Sturman Industries piloted a heavy-duty truck 10,000 miles across the United States. The Sturman Story We could feel the creative energy as we sat and listened to Eddie Sturman tell us how he got to where he is today. His quest to improve the world began back in Israel where he was born. Water was very precious and dangerous to control at that time in Israel’s history because snipers would shoot people as they turned the water valves in the fields on and off by hand. Always a problem solver, Sturman developed a valve that could be opened and closed electronically without wiresremoving people from harm’s way. Sturman held on to this idea, and it later went on to serve in the Apollo space program. Then, in 1985, he got a call from a major American diesel engine manufacturer that was interested in his technology. Sturman wasn’t into engines back then, so he didn’t even recognize the company’s name. He told the company to send him the specifications it needed, and he’d take a look. When the schematics and design criteria arrived, Sturman was shocked. The pressures required were 10 times more than what he was used to. At the time, he thought 100 million cycles of his digital valves was impressive, but the diesel engine he was asked to work on would need 3 billion cycles. He knew the project was going to be a challenge but took it head-on anyway. So which diesel engine company was it? you ask. It was Cummins.
- 4. View Photo Gallery | 8 Photos Photo 4/8 | Parked out in front of Sturman’s dream-like Colorado facility was this Volkswagen Jetta TDI, equipped with Sturman Industries’ hydraulic valve actuation. What Are Digital Valves? Think about computers and how much better they became after going from analog to digital. Sturman wants that same change to happen to mechanical things like diesel engines. There are two criteria that are required to make something digital. The first is that the mechanical thing being controlled has to have an on and off mode. The second is that the mechanical part can only require energy to change between the on and off mode. The mechanical component cannot use any energy to hold itself in either mode. This allows the components to be much more efficient and extremely fastwe’re talking milliseconds. At one point during our interview, Sturman picked up a tiny spool valve from a nearby table and demonstrated how residual magnetism makes his technology possible. A small battery was used to make the valve open, and then he took the battery away and had us try and move itto no avail. What The Internal Combustion Engine Might Look Like, If It Were Invented Today The keys to a great engine are flexibility, strength, and brains. Sturman Industries has running engines that demonstrate all three things because they can digitally control the air and fuel, instead of just relying on fixed actuation like conventional engines. Sound confusing? OK, then think about how different driving a mechanically injected diesel truck is compared to driving one with electronically controlled common-rail fuel injection. The difference between the two engines’ performance, noise, fuel economy, and emissions characteristics comes from the common-rail injection’s flexibility and brains.
- 5. View Photo Gallery | 8 Photos Photo 5/8 | Sturman Industries is working to make the interface between electronics and mechanical components better. Here Sturman himself showed us how electronic circuit boards could replace the wires on today’s injectors, making them more robust. Still, precise fuel injection control is only a third of the equation. With most modern engines, air is introduced with a mechanical camshaft that’s pretty crude in comparison to digitally controlled intake valves. The intake valves on Sturman’s camless engines are decoupled from what’s happening with the pistons and are free to direct the engine like a symphony conductor. The last third of the equation is freeing the pistons from the crankshaft, so they can act directly on a hydraulic fluid creating a free piston enginebut that’s a story for another issue! Benefits of Sturman’s Camless Engine: Independent valve lift and timing control allows mixed-charge combustion Low parasitic loss, since most of the conventional valvetrain (including the camshaft) is eliminated High-speed engine operation (up to 12,000 rpm) Enables homogeneous charge compression ignition (HCCI) combustion Enables cylinder de-activation and cylinder balancing Scalable to any engine size and can be retrofitted to older engines since all the technology is in the head Compatible with any fuel type A square lift pattern compared to the lobe profiles a camshaft requires Can be used to create an internal EGR system Promises up to 60 percent thermal efficiency Can be used to help eliminate the need for an exhaust aftertreatment Only system able to run the Sturman Combustion Cycle Sturman’s Customers Have Included: General Motors International (6.0L Power Stroke and DT466 fuel injection systems) Department of Defense TARDEC TACOM New A.C.E. (Japanese automotive research institute) Oak Ridge National Labs University of Michigan
- 6. California Energy Commission Houston Advanced Research Center Tenneco View Photo Gallery