FREE PISTON

ENGINE
Presented by:
Shubham Khandelwal
Anshul Garg
Anshuman Malethia
Abhinshu Gupta
WHAT IS FREE PISTON
ENGINE??

 The free-piston engine is a linear, 'crankless'

combustion engine, in which the piston
motion is not controlled by a crankshaft but
is a result of the interaction of forces from
the combustion cylinder gases, a rebound
device(e.g., a piston in a closed cylinder)
and a load device(e.g. a gas compressor or a
linear alternator).
 The free-piston diesel engine concept was developed
by Pescara, and engines of various size were
manufactured between 1930-1960 by GM, Ford,
Renault, Junker, Sigma and others.

General motor XP-500

 It is a combination of reciprocating engine and a

rotary turbine.
 The basic configuration of free-piston engines is
commonly known as single piston, dual piston or
opposed pistons, referring to the number of
combustion cylinders.
 GASIFIER

Bounce Chamber Intake Air valve Scavenge Air Box Supercharge pump

Power turbine Exhaust gas receiver

WORKING
THERMODYNAMIC STAGE
1-2: Adiabatic compression
in compressor cylinder
2-a: Adiabatic compression
a-b: Engine combustion
b-3: Adiabatic expansion or
power stroke in diesel
cylinder
3-4: Mixing of m2 kg engine
exhaust and m2 kg bypass air
4-5: Adiabatic expansion in
turbine
 1. SINGLE PISTON

 A simple design with high LP HP

controllability is the main strength of
the single piston design compared to
the other free-piston engine
configurations.
 The rebound device gives the
opportunity to accurately control the
amount of energy put into the
compression process and thereby
regulating the compression ratio and
stroke length.
 2. DUAL PISTON
 Dual piston engine configuration
eliminates the need for a rebound LP
device, as the (at any time) working
piston provides the work to drive
the compression process in the other
cylinder.
 It has a simple and more compact
design with higher power to weight
ratio.
HP
 The control of piston motion, in
particular stroke length and
compression ratio, has proved
difficult.
 3. OPPOSED PISTON
 It was exclusively used in the
early free-piston engine designs
(1930-1960). Bounce chamber Combustion chamber
 The perfectly balanced and
vibration- free design is the
exclusive feature of this design.
 Due to elimination of cylinder
head, heat transfer losses are
also reduced allowing uniflow
scavenging giving better
efficiency.
 The piston synchronization
Piston synchronization
mechanism and dual set of main
components makes it a bulky and
complicated design.
 CLASSIFICATION
 Inward compression type
 Outward compression type

The basic difference between them is that

inward types compress air during inward
motion of the piston while the outward types
compress air during the outward motion of the
piston. Furthermore, inward type is simpler,
has less number of working parts and possess
better accessibility for maintenance than
outward type.
 UNIQUE FEATURES
 Operating principle
 Piston dynamics and control

a) Frequency control
b) Starting
c) Misfiring
 Free piston loads
 Simplicity
 The combustion process
a) Combustion optimization
b) Homogenous charge compression
ignition(HCCI)
c) Multi-fuel operation
 Balancing
 Mechanical requirements
STABILITY OF PISTON MOTIONS
 Effect of fuel rack position
 Effect of bounce cylinder pressure
 Effect of working pressure
 APPLICATIONS
 Early applications
a) Widely used as submarine air compressor units
b) Suitable for power generation in medium power range
c) They have also been tried in ship propulsion , road
and rail traction
d) High speed centrifugal air compressors and water
pumps can be directly driven by it
e) A mixed gas steam cycle also offers the possibility of
improving the efficiency
 Modern applications

a) Hydraulic free piston engines

b) Free piston engine generators
 ADVANTAGES
 Simple design with few moving parts reduces
the frictional losses
 Compact and low maintenance costs
 High power to weight ratio
 Possible operation on multiple fuels due to
variable compression ratio
 Fuel air mixing is enhanced
 Time available for heat transfer losses and
formation of temperature dependent
emissions like Nox is reduced.
 DISADVANTAGES
 Poor fuel economy as specific fuel
consumption is high
 Requires a certain quantity of fuel per stroke
that varies according to load causing
minimum stability problems
 Poor part load efficiency especially at very
light loads
 Due to high supercharge rate of combustion
per cylinder volume is high
 CHALLENGES
 Engine control problem which is fully solved
only in single piston hydraulic engine
 Influence of cycle to cycle variations in the
combustion process