Hi Guys!
Have you ever heard about magnetic bearings? I don’t know if it is possible but in the future it might become very popular! Imagine the possibilities.
Turbo charger with magnetic bearing which practically eliminates friction and allows you to achieve limitless RPM.
I thought about these bearings on turbo charger wheels or even on all rotating parts inside the engine. It would possibly hugely decrease fuel consumption and increase power.
I would suggest placing it in late 10’s or even in 2020 only.
I think the costs would far outweigh the benefits IF it would work. 1st you need a lot of power to run these bearings and that power will come from the engine itself so your fuel efficiency will not increase that much due to the load put on the alternator (or alternatorS), 2nd the magnetic cross section of the crankshaft is so small that it would not be able to support itself AND the components attached to it AND contain the forces of the powerstrokes without having to be massively overbuilt since magnetic bearings provide very little dampening which leads to our 3rd point, an oil film is not compressible while a magnetic field is, this would lead to components touching when not intended to under extreme stress whereas a normal bearing can withstand brief moments of contact, 4th you still would need normal bearings in either a backup role (failure of the bearing controller for instance) or startup and shutdown. While this works for static situations with minimal changes it will not work in an IC engine due to these points and more, there is just too much going on dynamically to justify research into doing this, now if it was a gas turbine with little variation in shaft load/deflection it would work and is being used that way.
In the end this is not even 2020 tech, if anything this will be 2050 tech but by then the IC engine as we know it will be replaced by other modes of power generation.
[quote=“Atenator”]Hi Guys!
Have you ever heard about magnetic bearings? I don’t know if it is possible but in the future it might become very popular! Imagine the possibilities.
Turbo charger with magnetic bearing which practically eliminates friction and allows you to achieve limitless RPM.
I thought about these bearings on turbo charger wheels or even on all rotating parts inside the engine. It would possibly hugely decrease fuel consumption and increase power.
I would suggest placing it in late 10’s or even in 2020 only.
I’m looking forward to hear your opinion. [/quote]
The outer diameter of the compressor wheel is what limits the max rpm of a turbo. The wheel tips can, if you over rev, achieve Mach 1.0+ … this will most of the times break the wheel.