Word: piston
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...novel but not new kind of engine is figuring more and more often in engineering literature and bull sessions. Last week the Cleveland Diesel Engine Division of General Motors Corp. gave details about the large (6,000 h.p.) free piston engine that it has built to repower the Liberty Ship William Patterson. Smaller free piston engines are under development by General Motors for passenger cars and trucks. The Ford Motor Co. is deep in free pistons, and is trying them out for autos and farm tractors...
Just Like Steam. The charm of the free piston engine is that it has many of the advantages of the straight gas turbine with none of the main disadvantages. The glamorous turbojet that flies through the air with such wonderful ease is as helpless on a highway as a bat or a hummingbird. Even the workaday turboprop (a gas turbine that delivers power through a shaft, not through a jet of gas) is hard to adapt to ground uses. Chief failings: 1) poor fuel economy, especially at low speed. 2) cost of heat-resistant parts, 3) sluggish response when power...
...free piston engine is a hybrid: a simplified piston engine that develops no direct mechanical power, but delivers high pressure exhaust gas that can be made to run a turbine, just like steam from a boiler (see diagram...
Jack-Rabbit Start. Free piston engines are still full of bugs, but their seemingly indirect way of generating power has its points. Since the combustion gases start their work cycle at extremely high pressure and temperature, the thermal efficiency of the engine (the amount of mechanical energy that it gets out of the fuel) can be very good. It has no flywheel, crankshaft or connecting rods. It has many valves to shunt air through the various chambers, but they are all self-operating, and none are exposed to high temperature. The engine can be made to run on almost...
...automobiles, trucks, etc. the free piston engine has special advantages. The gasifier, its heaviest part, can be placed under the hood while the turbine can be in the rear at the end of a gas pipe. This eliminates the drive shaft that clutters low-slung cars, and it distributes the engine's weight in a desirable way. Unlike straight gas turbines, free piston engines have quick response. The man whose self-confidence is supported by making jackrabbit starts when the traffic light turns green will not suffer deflation if his dream-car of the future has free pistons...