MUSIC - The most important breakthrough in I.C. Engine combustion since the invention of diesel engine.
Prototype cylinder head design and manufacture
The production of the prototype 4-cylinder engine posed numerous design and manufacturing issues. Key to the project was that the new cylinder head must be capable of being used on an existing production cylinder block, in this case a Ford 2.0l unit.
This meant the design team at Powertrain Technologies Ltd had to work around existing fixed features such as the head bolts and the coolant and oil transfer passages. In order to make the 4-cylinder as versatile as possible it was also necessary to make sure that the key design features of the helix that generates the air motion, the transfer port plus the spark plug and injector locations could all be removable for revised designs. A final requirement was for the provision of significant amounts of instrumentation as well.
This resulted in a highly complex design that had to be translated into a casting. In order to achieve this in an acceptable time frame it was decided to use rapid prototyping. This work was undertaken by Castings Technology International who first had to create the core models from, which the rapid prototypes were manufactured. This head was probably the most complex they had ever attempted and had many unavoidable regions where the metal condition was marginal due to either thin sections or sudden changes in section. Nonetheless, they successfully executed the project and produced three castings.
An area of concern to the design team was that of the combustion chamber. The inclusion of numerous bosses through the water jacket to allow pressure and temperature sensors to be included meant that the cooling jacket was compromised around the chamber. Thus there would be a likelihood that elevated temperatures might be sustained that could have an impact on the structural integrity of the aluminium. To mitigate this issue it was decided that the combustion chamber would be sleeved with stainless steel to provide thermal protection to the parent metal.
MUSIC cylinder head design layout
The prototype 4-cylinder engine
Engine on the test bed
Independently verified results, April 2008
These tests were taken on the very first test run of the Music Engine constructed by Powertrain Technologies Ltd. as a 4-cylinder head mounted on the Ford Mondeo crankcase both naturally aspirated. The engine can benefit from improvements if given fuel injection equipment optimised for its requirements.
Music Technology overview by Powertrain Technologies Ltd.