Bosch Releases Its New “Water Injection” System, an Innovative Solution to Cool the Engine by Injecting Mists Inside the Combustion Chamber

[ Kenny Sagawa, Webike News Chief Editor ]

Bosch, a German company known as the global automotive equipment supplier, has announced the debut of its “Water Injection System”.
It is an innovative technology that uses “water” to cool down the engine instead of fuel (gasoline), the conventional way to cool down the engine.

Fuel used not only for propulsion but also for “cooling”

According to Bosch, even the latest automobile engines waste roughly a fifth of their fuel for purposes other than propulsion. Almost all gasoline engines nowadays adopt a mechanism which uses some gasoline as its auxiliary measure to prevent its overheating. The gasoline are used to cool the engine especially at high rpm range. The fuel (gasoline) cools components like the engine block or the combustion chamber itself by its evaporating heat. The “Water Injection System” has exploited this physical principle further in an effective manner.

Is it different from the coolant of the “water-cooled engine”!?

Engine blocks of water-cooled engines are cooled by the coolant liquid, circulating through the special channels called the water jacket. Actually, the inner side of a combustion chamber where the fuel explodes are exposed to high temperature and high moisture. Yet, the coolant liquid will not run directly inside the combustion chamber. It will only cool the chamber through its metal wall. Still, it is important to directly cool the combustion chamber in order to restrain the damage to pistons or cylinders. And generally speaking, the evaporated fuel are used for that purpose.

A system that uses vaporized “water” instead of gasoline for cooling

Before the fuel ignites, a fine mist of water is injected into the intake manifold, and the water vaporizing heat provides effective cooling. Particularly when accelerating quickly or driving on the freeway, the injection of additional water makes it possible to reduce fuel consumption by up to 13 percent (saves up to 4 percent fuel in the new fuel consumption standard test, WLTC). According to Bosch, this new technology can even improve the fuel economy performance of three- and four-cylinder downsized engines.

It’s not only for fuel consumption improvement. The water injection can deliver extra power and torque too. Since the engine is operated even more efficiently, it can raise the power of a turbocharged engine. It can coax additional power and torque out of high-output & high-torque sports cars as well. For your information, you don’t have to worry about rust. No water is left in the combustion chamber. The water evaporates before combustion happens in the engine and is expelled outside with the exhaust gas.

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A technology already put into use and mass produced for automobiles

* The “BMW M4 GTS” also adopted as the safety car of the MotoGP

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Actually, BMW M4 GTS with the straight six-cylinder turbocharged engine was the first production vehicle to feature this system. This water injection system enabled BMW M4 GTS to increase its power and torque, and a substantial improvement in efficiency at high rpm range. And now, the system is coming to more mass-production cars.

As for the water, this system actually only requires a small volume of water. Only a few hundred milliliters of water is needed for every one hundred kilometers driven. As a result, the compact water tank that supplies the injection system with distilled water only has to be refilled every few thousand kilometers at the most. And if the tank should run empty, there is nothing to worry about: the engine will still run smoothly – albeit without the higher torque and lower consumption provided by water injection.

To improve the efficiency, the engine can be cooled by injecting the water directly inside the cylinder. However. Bosch uses a port injection system, since it has clear technical advantages and costs less. This makes water injection suitable for large-scale production, as well as for many vehicle segments.

The “meaning” of being used on mass-produced vehicles

The water injection technology has existed in the fields of race or aircraft engines since before. But Bosch’s “Water Injection System” played a significant role, as its was implemented on a mass production vehicle while suppressing its cost.

The water injection system will probably start becoming popular on automobile products at first, yet it could be applied to motorcycles eventually. Still, in case of a motorcycle, only a few models adopt superchargers like turbos, and their users are not keen for fuel economy improvement from the first place, for their fuel consumption is not as bad as automobiles. The priority level of motorcycle water injection cooling might, therefore, not be so high.

Yet, technologies do make progress day by day. And they might be making a breakthrough progress for the motorcycle mechanism in the near future. We tend to get captivated by the latest products, such as an electric vehicle or an electronic device. But this is a news that makes us hope for the potentiality of the internal combustion system developed more than 150 years ago.