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Conventional crank-based engines are limited by mechanical, thermal, and combustion inefficiencies. The free piston of a linear engine generator reduces frictional losses by avoiding the rotational motion and crankshaft linkages. Instead, electrical power is generated by the oscillation of a translator through a linear stator. Because the free piston is not geometrically constrained, dead center positions are not specifically known. This results in a struggle against adverse events like misfire, stall, over-fueling, or rapid load changes. It is the belief that incorporating springs will have the dual benefit of increasing frequency and providing a restoring force to aid in greater cycle to cycle stability. For dual free piston linear engines the addition of springs has not been fully explored, despite growing interest and literature.

Recent free piston engine research reported in the literature has included development efforts for single and dual cylinder devices through both simulation and prototype operation. A single cylinder, spring opposed, oscillating linear engine and alternator (OLEA) is a suitable architecture for application as a steady state generator. Such a device could be tuned and optimized for peak efficiency and nominal power at unthrottled operation. One of the significant challenges facing researchers is startup of the engine. It could be achieved by operating the alternator in a motoring mode according to the natural system resonant frequency, effectively bouncing the translator between the spring and cylinder, increasing stroke until sufficient compression is reached to allow introduction of fuel and initiation of combustion. To study the natural resonance of the OLEA, a numeric model has been built to simulate multiple cycles of operation.

Compression and power stroke cycles for a 4 stroke cycle spark ignition engine modified by extending the connecting rod to simulate purely sinusoidal piston motion are analyzed over a range of operating speeds and are compared with those of a similar conventional engine. Heat release rate is estimated for both engines using a simple Wiebe function with the functional parameters found via a simplex curve fitting method used in conjunction with experimental pressure curves. It is shown that the functional parameters which represent the combustion and the duration of fuel burn are slightly larger over the range of operation in the sinusoidal engine while the shape factor remains largely the same. However, the pressure-crank angle curves are sufficiently similar such that conventional slider-crank curves can be used to model sinusoidal engines, which was the motivation behind this research.

With few exceptions most internal combustion engines use a slider-crank mechanism to convert reciprocating piston motion into a usable rotational output. One such exception is the Stiller-Smith Mechanism which utilizes a kinematic inversion of a Scotch yoke called an elliptic trammel. The device uses rigid connecting rods and a floating/eccentric gear train for motion conversion and force transmission. The mechanism exhibits advantages over the slider-crank for application in internal combustion engines in areas such as balancing, size, thermal efficiency, and low heat rejection. An overview of potential advantages of an engine utilizing the Stiller-Smith Mechanism is presented.

Series hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs) require power-plants that can generate electrical energy without specifically requiring rotary input shaft motion. A small-bore working prototype of a two-stroke spark ignited linear engine-alternator combination has been designed, constructed and tested and has been found to produce as much as 316W of electrical energy. This engine consists of two opposed pistons (of 36 mm diameter) linked by a connecting rod with a permanent magnet alternator arranged on the reciprocating shaft. This paper presents the numerical modeling of the operation of the linear engine. The piston motion of the linear engine is not mechanically defined: it rather results from the balance of the in-cylinder pressures, inertia, friction, and the load applied to the shaft by the alternator, along with history effects from the previous cycle. The engine computational model combines dynamic and thermodynamic analyses.

Performance of a natural gas two-stroke engine incorporated in a 1-kW free-piston oscillating Linear Engine Alternator (LEA) - a household electricity generator - was investigated under different resonant frequencies for pre-design phase purposes. To increase the robustness, power density, and thermal efficiencies, the crank mechanism in free-piston LEA is omitted and all moving parts of the generator operate at a fixed resonant frequency. Flexure springs are the main source of the LEA’s stiffness and the mass-spring dynamics dominates the engine’s speed. The trade-off between the engine’s performance, mass-spring system limits, and power and efficiency targets versus the LEA speed is very crucial and demands a careful investigation specifically at the concept design stages to find the optimum design parameters and operating conditions. CFD modeling was performed to analyze the effects of resonant frequency on the engine’s gas exchange behavior.

Linear engine alternator (LEA) design optimization traditionally has been difficult because each independent variable alters the motion with respect to time, and therefore alters the engine and alternator response to other governing variables. An analogy is drawn to a conventional engine with a very light flywheel, where the rotational speed effectively is not constant. However, when springs are used in conjunction with an LEA, the motion becomes more consistent and more sinusoidal with increasing spring stiffness. This avoids some attractive features, such as variable compression ratio HCCI operation, but aids in reducing cycle-to-cycle variation for conventional combustion modes. To understand the cycle-to-cycle variations, we have developed a comprehensive model of an LEA with a 1kW target power in MATLAB®/Simulink, and an LEA corresponding to that model has been operated in the laboratory.

The control and design optimization of a Free Piston Engine Generator (FPEG) has been found to be difficult as each independent variable changes the piston dynamics with respect to time. These dynamics, in turn, alter the generator and engine response to other governing variables. As a result, the FPEG system requires an energy balance control algorithm such that the cumulative energy delivered by the engine is equal to the cumulative energy taken by the generator for stable operation. The main objective of this control algorithm is to match the power generated by the engine to the power demanded by the generator. In a conventional crankshaft engine, this energy balance control is similar to the use of a governor and a flywheel to control the rotational speed. In general, if the generator consumes more energy in a cycle than the engine provides, the system moves towards a stall.