3 0 hydrogen and fuel cell
AVL RACETECH
BUILDS HYDROGEN
COMBUSTION ENGINE
PROTOTYPE FOR
MOTOR
SPORT
AVL’s motorsport department
develops its own racing engine
in-house for the first time
Hydrogen (H2) is becoming an increasingly important energy
source
for
the inevitable energy revolution. Propulsion concepts based on hydrogen
are also becoming more widely accepted. When it comes to hydrogen innovation
AVL is leading the way by realizing its first hydrogen racing engine
developed in-house at AVL RACETECH. A hydrogen combustion engine
is CO2-free and typically has a lower power density than a gasoline engine.
At least that used to be the case, but now AVL RACETECH is preparing
to prove the opposite with their hydrogen racing engine.
THE CHALLENGE OF HYDROGEN COMBUSTION
Combining hydrogen and an internal combustion engine poses a number of challenges.
Paul Kapus, Manager Development Spark Ignited
Engine and Concept
Cars, explains: “Hydrogen is gaseous, and its incredibly low density
means it
takes up a lot of space in the air/fuel mixture,” he says. “In a naturally aspirated
engine with hydrogen port fuel injection,
this greatly limits the amount of air that
can be transported to the combustion chambers, which results in massive performance
losses. Additionally, hydrogen
is also much more reactive than gasoline
in its ignition and combustion behavior, which can cause undesirable combustion
anomalies to occur more frequently, such as pre-ignition or backfire, which