An article about the Scuderi Group recently appeared in the influential German publication Spiegel Online. A translated version of the article appears below. In the following podcast, Lutz Deyerling, vice president of European operations for the Scuderi Group, talks about the significance of the article:

The Efficiency Miracle

By Jürgen Pander, Spiegel Online (Germany, translated)

Less emissions, less consumption – and all this with manageable costs and established technology? The company Scuderi is developing the “Split Engine,” an alternative to the classical Four Stroke Engine. The only problem: so far the miracle engine exists only as a computer simulation.

The classical Four Stroke Combustion Engine has been driving the world since 1876. Since then engineers have strived to improve the engine; to make it more reliable, lighter, quieter, faster and more economical. The basic principle however - intake, compression, power and exhaust – has remained the same. This method powers the Smart car, the Rolls Royce, the Dacia Logan and Kimi Räikkönen’s racing car. The efficiency of a modern Otto Engine – named after the inventor Nikolaus August Otto – lies today at around 33 percent. Not very impressive for an engine that is being used by millions worldwide.

The Italian-American Carmello Scuderi from West Springfield, Massachusetts felt the same way. Thus, the specialist in compressor technology, who developed in the eighties the technical basics for the CFC-free refrigerator concentrated his efforts in the nineties on the Otto-Engine. His new approach: he split the four strokes from one cylinder into two times two, allocating each of those to two separate cylinders. With that the basis for the “Scuderi Split Cycle Engine” was found.

The first prototype should run in spring 2008

Six years ago the engineer founded the Scuderi Group, but died shortly after. Since then, his sons continue to direct the company. Today twelve specialists are employed with the company. By next spring, claims Lutz Deyerling, vice president of European operations for Scuderi, the first prototype should be finished. For now, the miracle engine and all forecasts exist only as computer simulations.

How does the engine work? Simplified: one cylinder is in charge of intake and compression, the other of power and the subsequent exhaust. Both cylinders are linked by a complex system of valves, through which the highly compressed air is channelled from the first to the second cylinder. The highlight of the system is the fact that both cylinders can be constructed in an optimal way for their tasks. In this way, the pressure in the combustion cylinder of the Scuderi Gasoline Engine should reach approximately 50 bar. In today’s Otto-Engine with direct injection (FSI), only approximately 3 bars are reached after compression.

Firing after Top Dead Center

The advantage of the extremely compressed air exists in the fact, that, as soon as it gets to the second cylinder, it will only be fired after Top Dead Center of the piston. Therefore the piston, as in all engines up till now, does not have to work against the combustion pressure for a short way. In conventional engines, the fuel-air mixture is always being fired shortly before reaching Top Dead Center. “Based on this fact alone we achieve an efficiency gain of 20 percent”, promises Deyerling. Furthermore, the combustion can take place under better conditions, which among other things should result in 80 percent less nitric oxide values.

The Scuderi Engine, promise the inventors, can be easily upgraded to an Air-Hybrid-Engine, by attaching a permanent air storage tank between the two cylinders. Just one result of this, is that with the help of braking energy, a vast pressure could be held in storage. “A car could be driven on this alone for a certain distance, totally emission free”, says Deyerling. It would be a hybrid system without a second engine. Altogether, Deyerling believes, the efficiency of the combustion engine can be increased by “more than 40 percent” with the use of the Scuderi-technology.

“All large manufacturers are interested”

Because this all sounds so wonderful, “almost all large manufactures are showing interest in the technology,” explains Deyerling. However he’s not mentioning names, so as not to endanger ongoing negotiations. For car experts the engine looks attractive, because it doesn’t function completely different to conventional technology. New factories wouldn’t be necessary, the engines would remain the same size. A four cylinder engine stays a four cylinder engine, only that in two of the cylinders, with every crankshaft revolution the mixture would be ignited.

Now we just need to see an actual car, which would be driven by Scuderi’s idea.