Ford helping develop laser spark plugs

**Falcon Coupe** · 15-08-2009, 12:02 AM

Start your car with a laser to cut your carbon

Engineers at the University of Liverpool, working with the Ford Motor Company, have received a £198,910 grant from the Carbon Trust to develop a laser ignition system which could cut car exhaust emissions. Transport accounts for 25% of UK carbon emissions so finding new ways of making automotive engines less polluting is vital to meet the UK’s carbon reduction targets.

Replacing conventional spark ignition with laser ignition enables much greater control over the combustion of the air and fuel mix and can cut a car’s carbon emissions in a number of ways.

Unlike the venerable sparkplug ignition system, which fires just one or at best two sparks right next to the combustion chamber roof, it is possible to ‘aim’ a laser ignition system to ignite the fuel anywhere in the combustion chamber, therefore focusing the beam where the fuel is most concentrated. By using ultra-fast computing to direct the laser, the engine can be run on a much more efficient or ‘leaner’ fuel/air mixture, which would directly cut a car’s carbon emissions. This heightened control also helps overcome the poor cold-start performance of engines running high blends of biofuels.

The

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The laser beam can be delivered to the combustion chamber through a thin fibre optic cable, taking up less space than the spark plug, making room for larger diameter valves, enabling better combustion through more efficient gas flow through the engine.

s carbon emissions targets. Laser ignition is a really exciting technology because it improves the efficiency of petrol cars and could, in the future, speed the uptake of cars run on biofuelved fromd from sustainable organic materials such as algae.”

Dr Tom Shenton, in Engin Engineering at the University of Liverpool and Principal Investigator on the project, said: “The key to reducing emissions in the sparived engine ig imprs improved control, and for the last one hundred years theer in ns ofans it ignition control has been the spark plug. With laser ignition we now have an exciting new alternative which will give much greater scope for engine controller optimisation and the implementation of new engine designs.”

http://www.carbontrust.co.uk/News/pr...laser_tech.htm

http://www.liv.ac.uk/researchintelli...erignition.htm

Test results

Above: Firing a laser beam through the optical spark plug produces a bigger and more intense spark (top) than a conventional spark plug connected to a high-tension lead (bottom).

Above: This can be seen much more clearly when photographed in the dark.

I like the fact the laser can be split and aimed at the most efficient combustion area, lean burn technology is win win as far as power and economy goes.