I wonder if you can get this engine to fit in a Civic?

[Jon P. Inghram]

http://www.bath.ac.uk/~ccsshb/12cyl/

[Technoid]

Forget wrenches, you need to toss a car into that one to stop it

[MultimediaMan]

Damn!!! I'd hate to have to push start it!

[ZokesPro]

Time for a bigger garage.

[Brian R.]

I wonder how big the starter is and the battery used to crank it...

[Tjalfe]

they could use something the size of a truck engine to start the next size up starter moter etc.. till it can pull this brute around.. ( was once told that a tank engine was started by something the size of a WV engine)
My guess is it is just a big tank of compressed air to get it moving.. which would then be recompressed by the engine once it gets going for the next time it needs starting

[Chrono_Wanderer]

hey... the 50% energy efficiency sounds very impressive!

[agallag]

To put it in perspective, each cylinder is 3 feet across, and 8 feet deep, when the piston is all the way down. The whole thing is quite literally bigger than my mom's house It almost wouldn't fit on our lot if even if the house wasn't here...

[gt40]

I wouldn't want to be standing in front of the air intake when it started up.

[Wombat]

I want one.

I have absolutely no idea what I could possibly do with it, but I want one.

[KvHagedorn]

I want a 1000 foot yacht to go around it.. that's what i'd do with mine.

[az]

Must be most impressive to see this thing moving very slowly.

AZ

[agallag]

Even running at full speed you'd be able to see what was going on. Max speed is 102 RPM. Only 1.7 revs per second. That would be quite a sight! I doubt they'd make a full sized cutaway though, so no seeing the inner workings in action

[KRSESQ]

Interesting. I was under the impression that nearly all ships these days were powered by gas-turbine engines.

I guess when a technology works you stick with it. Something we geeks could take a lesson on .

Kevin

[MultimediaMan]

Most Military Craft, from Large PT boats to Destroyers are powered by Gas Turbines.

Ocean Liners are mostly Diesel-Electrics: 4 to 8 Diesel Engines provide power to huge Generators (There is a specific name for them: Not Alternator, Dynamo or Generator) which then provide power to Electric Motors (and the rest of the ship).

Some of the newest "Super-Liners" use Gas Turbines instead of Diesel engines. The Royal Carribean Voyager-Class is an example.

The Swedes are experimenting with using Gas Turbines for their submarines instead of Diesel power. (Interestingly, some variants of the Naacken-Class Diesel-Electric submarines use a Stirling Engine as an auxiliary power source (Fuelled by Peroxide) when operating submerged.

Big Surface Container Ships and Oil Tankers are still powered by Diesels. The newest Multi-screw tankers use TWO of the type of Diesel Engines referenced by Jon.