A Liquid-Piston Steam Engine (The Design and Performance Evaluation of a Liquid-Piston Steam Engine)

Modeling and Control of a Free Liquid-Piston Engine Compressor

This paper presents the modeling and control of a prototype compact free liquid-piston engine compressor. The dynamic model includes 1) the injection dynamics of the air/fuel mixture, 2) the dynamics of heat release during combustion, 3) the inertial dynamics of the magnetically latched combustion valve, 4) the mass flow dynamics of the combustion and exhaust valves, 5) the inertial dynamics of...

Reducing Piston Mass in a Free Piston Engine Compressor by Exploiting the Inertance of a Liquid Piston

A dynamic model of a free liquid piston that exploits piston geometry to produce a high inertance was developed for use in a free piston engine compressor. It is shown that for the size scale targeted, advantageous piston dynamics can be achieved with a reduced piston mass compared to a rigid piston design. It is also shown that the viscous losses associated with the liquid piston are negligibl...

Design and Analysis of a Resonating Free Liquid-piston Engine Compressor

This paper presents the design and simulation of a resonating free liquid-piston compressor (FLPC) equipped with a separated combustion chamber. The FLPC is a proposed device that utilizes combustion of a hydrocarbon fuel to compress air into a high-pressure supply tank, thus potentially serving as a portable power supply candidate for untethered pneumatic systems of human-scale power. The ener...

Performance simulation of a spark ignited free-piston engine

Free-piston engines are under investigation by a number of research groups worldwide due to potential fuel efficiency and engine emissions advantages. The free-piston engine generator, in which a linear electric generator is fixed to the mover to produce electric power, has been proposed as an alternative prime mover for hybrid-electric vehicles. This paper investigates the performance of a spa...

Thermo-Mechanical Fatigue Life Assessment of a Diesel Engine Piston