Subject: Quasiturbine - Discover Magazine 2000 Awards Semi-Finalist !
Date: Wed, 2 Feb 2000 16:57:19 -0500
From: discover@disney.com
To: quasiturbine@promci.qc.ca

Dear Dr. Saint-Hilaire:

The editors at Discover have reviewed your entry: Nomination ID: 17
'Quasiturbine Continuous Combustion Rotary Engine'  http://quasiturbine.promci.qc.ca
and would like to learn more about this innovation.

At this stage, your entry is being considered as a semifinalist
in the Discover Magazine Awards for Technological Innovation.
We will be in touch with you regarding your status in the coming weeks.

Thank you and good luck!

Darlene Cavalier
http://www.discover.com

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DISCOVER Magazine Awards for Technological Innovation
presented by the Christopher Columbus Foundation

http://www.discover.com/awards/index.html

The Discover Awards

In 1990 Discover Magazine launched the first Awards for Technological Innovation.
There were 6 categories and 27 finalists.
We've come a long way and made a lot of changes since then,
but we haven't changed our goal:
to recognize the all too often unrecognized men and women
behind the technologies that impact our lives.
These are the people whose names don't usually make the news,
because they don't own the company
or run the advertising campaign to sell a product.
They are, however, the scientists and engineers who toil endlessly
in their laboratories in pursuit of a dream.
The love of their work and the reward of seeing their efforts come to life
are often their most driving force.

Each year Discover accepts thousands of nomination forms from all
over the world in pursuit of the best and the brightest.

The Process

DISCOVER acknowledges the creativity of the men, women,
and corporations/institutions who have reached superior levels of ingenuity.
To select the winners, DISCOVER's editorial staff first scours the scientific literature
and other forums for new and interesting products and ideas.
DISCOVER also solicits entries from virtually every
technology-based company and research institution.
Many other nominations are sent in by readers and the public at large.
The editorial staff then selects finalists from the nominated innovations.
Information on each of the finalists in the DISCOVER Awards is then
sent on to an independent panel of experts,
which helps select winners in key areas of technology.

A fellowship is presented by the Christopher Columbus Fellowship Foundation,
an independent federal agency established by Congress in 1992 to
"encourage and support research, study, and labor designed to produce new discoveries
in all fields of endeavor for the benefit of mankind."
The Columbus Foundation chooses one innovation from the pool of entries
in the DISCOVER Awards to receive the prize,
recognizing an attempt to improve the world through ingenuity and innovation.
The applicant must demonstrate a program of ongoing work with a specific outcome
suggesting that an important discovery will result.
Any of the entries are eligible for this fellowship, not only the DISCOVER Awards finalists.

The finalists and winners will be honored at a gala Awards celebration,
presented by the Christopher Columbus Fellowship Foundation.
The celebrations will be at Epcot in the Walt Disney World Resort in Florida, on June 24, 2000.
All winners and finalists are covered in detail
in a special awards section of the July issue of DISCOVER.

Filed December 13, 1999 - Winners selection on June 24, 2000

1 What is the title of the invention ?

While most rotary engines use the principle of volume variation between a curve and a moving cord, this new rotary engine concept makes use of a "four degrees of freedom X, Y, q, ø" rotor, confined into a confinement housing internal contour, having no need for a central shaft. In reference to gas turbine, the Quasiturbine succeed at unifying the two turbines into one entity (blades of which work alternatively as a compression turbine and a power turbine). This new turbine is hydrostatic, not hydrodynamic, and has an idle of only 150 RPM, with a wide efficient power range. It uses only 4 identical pivoting blades and 4 carriers in a housing with a special internal confinement contour. As the turbine, it is continuous combustion, requiring a sparkplug only to start.

From the numerous criteria permitting to compare engines between themselfs, one can not ignore the integrity of the expansion volume, and the propulsive factor ratio. One must recall that all volumes are generated from the movement of a surface (the cube is generated by the movement of a square, the cylinder by the movement of a circle), and in order to get an optimum geometric efficiency, the expansion volume must be generated only by the effective gas pushing surface. The propulsive factor ratio is the percentage of time (or of angle) during which the component contribute positively to the engine propulsion.
The integrity of the expansion volume is the implacable characteristic of the piston engine, which has allow it to resist for more than a century to all other engine concept. In fact, lets consider a cylinder with multiple internal cavities perforation (let say for example that the total volumes of all the cavities is twice the volume of the considered cylinder) and in which a piston moves. Since the pushing stroke goes from the minimal volume (top center) to the maximum volume (bottom center), the maximum volume would not be the one generated by the movement of the circular moving piston, i.e.1 cylinder, but 3 time more due to lateral cavities, which would also be responsible for a substantial pressure lost. Such an engine would still run fine, however its energy efficiency would be poor. The conventional piston has a low propulsive factor ratio (120 / 720 degrees = 17%), but a final expansion volume strictly equal to the one generated by the movement of its piston surface, which guaranty a good geometric efficiency.
What about the Wankel ? Since its rotor has only 3 times 30 degrees of dead time per revolution, the propulsive factor ratio reaches (270 / 360 degrees) 75% for the Wankel, which is a substantial improvement. However, we have demonstrated mathematically, that the final expansion volume is 3 time larger than the volume generated by the movement of the variable tangential pushing surface (this demonstration make use of integral calculus). Consequently, the Wankel can not have an energy efficiency as good as the piston engine (it does in fact compare to the cylinder with cavities presented earlier).
And the Quasiturbine ? Since at the end of each expansion stroke, the following stroke is ready to fired, the dead time is reduced to zero, and the propulsive factor ratio of the Quasiturbine is 100% (continuous combustion). Furthermore, as the confinement contour has been carefully selected such that the final expansion volume is strictly equal to the volume generated by the movement of the variable tangential pushing surface, the geometric efficiency is identical to the piston. In order to get this double optimum, the Quasiturbine does not use the principle of the volume trapped between a variable curvature surface and a fix cord, but rather uses a four degrees of freedom X, Y, q, ø rotor confined into a housing contour shaped as a skating rink, which furthermore allow an optimum torque on a wide angular displacement, and the suppression of the crankshaft and the flywheel.

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The Quasiturbine is universal in relation to energy sources :
Liquid and gaseous fuel, hydrogen, steam, pneumatic, hydraulic...

Quasiturbine Agence Inc., Promotional Agent for the Quasiturbine Continuous Combustion Rotary Engine or Compressor
Casier 2804, 3535 Ave Papineau, Montréal Québec H2K 4J9 CANADA (514) 527-8484 Fax (514) 527-9530
http://quasiturbine.promci.qc.ca             quasiturbine@promci.qc.ca