Combined Cycle Internal Combustion Engine by cyclonebuster

The concept of a combined cycle engine is thermodynamically sound but the practical application on passenger vehicles is challenging at best. There have been some recent demonstrations of exhaust heat recovery systems on class 8 trucks as part of the DOE SuperTruck program. The biggest hurdle to overcome is not addressed in the proposal, namely exhaust heat is low-grade making effective use of its thermal energy difficult. A better application may be to power some auxiliary systems on the vehicle through a thermoelectric device, also demonstrated by DOE in its thermoelectrics program.