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The Deeke Double-Acting Internal Combustion Engine (Dice) is what inventor Georg Deeke describes as a “radical rethink” of existing internal combustion engine design.
The Dice engine maintains the original shape and configuration of a conventional engine for ease of production but can have as much as 50% less mass. This means a Dice engine requires a much lighter car frame to hold it and could cut the production time and cost to manufacture.
Deeke came up with the idea when he was travelling across the Chalbi desert in northern Kenya in his 1960s Land Rover. “The Land Rover was too heavy and kept on sinking in the sand and I had to make plans of how to lose weight on the vehicle,” says Deeke. “I then came up with the idea. Needless to say, it didn’t help at the time.”
Dice uses the swept-up volume of the cylinder twice, increasing the energy density of a standard internal combustion engine by utilising a combustion stroke on each side of the piston. A Dice engine has a 50% shorter crankshaft than a conventional four- or two-stroke cylinder engine.
This patented technology allows the mass of the engine to be reduced, increasing the fuel efficiency of internal combustion-engine vehicles, and reducing their carbon impact.
Deeke says that Dice’s originality lies in how the additional parts fit into a proven, established piston-engine design, which means existing production lines can be easily adapted to make it. “There is only one new part, between the sump and lower combustion chamber. All other parts of the engine remain standard,” he explains.
This part allows the use of a fully functional combustion chamber below the piston, producing more power at each revolution and achieving a higher power density (W/kg) than current internal combustion engines. The advantage of this technology, says Deeke, is that it relies on the high-technology readiness level of the well-proven piston-engine concept.
A working prototype has been built by Dice and the firm is currently focused on bespoke builds, particularly for the motorsport sector. The team can add standard features such as fuel injection, water cooling, piston cooling and can increase the existing engine power by up to 45%, while keeping the approximate weight and configuration of the original design.
JWA Racing, a specialised sports car developer for Le Mans, is working with Dice to develop a tarmac hill-climbing project, including a fully operational touring team.
The next aim is to find manufacturing OEM partners. “The prototype can be scaled up to suit any OEM’s power output requirements, making it suitable for small and large engines alike,” says Deeke. Applications vary from generator sets to outboard motors, motorbikes, hybrid drives and sports cars.
Dice has so far received commercial interest from a company in the Czech Republic making engines for unmanned aerial vehicles as well as from a hill-climbing motorsport team based in Italy.
Efficiency drive
In 2018, Mazda is to introduce a next-generation SkyActiv internal combustion engine that achieves a 30% improvement in fuel efficiency. The improvement is made by getting rid of spark plugs. Instead it ignites the fuel using the engine’s compression, similar to a diesel engine.