MULTI-STAGE COMBUSTION HOT-GAS/STEAM PRESSURE-DIFFERENTIAL PARALLEL-CYLINDER OPPOSED-PISTON ENGINE FOR NATURAL GAS, HYDROGEN AND OTHER FUELS WITH INTEGRATED ELECTRIC GENERATOR

Abstract

A five-spindle engine system having a stable center of gravity that operates without oil lubrication. an opposed-piston four-cylinder, two-stroke combustion engine, a double-acting opposed-piston pressure-gradient drive, a multi-rotor/multi-stator/multi-phase disk generator/disk motor including windings printed on printed circuit boards, and/or a heat pump may be integrated in the systemt and housed in a common sealed housing.

Claims

1. A five-spindle engine system having a stable center of gravity that operates without oil lubrication, comprising: four rocking spindles, respectively offset by 90 degrees, arranged around a central rotary spindle, two opposing ones of said rocking spindles in each case control movements of four opposed pistons respectively, operating oppositely in pairs, in two parallel-arranged cylinders by way of a rocker, or take up motive energy generated in the opposed pistons to coordinate said motive energy by way of the respective rocking spindles with further drive cylinders, and transmit said motive energy by way of one or more radial connecting rods by way of a central eccentric connected to the rotary spindle to the central rotary spindle, and at the same time, by way of the eccentric, coordinate movement of the two rocking spindles with the other two of the rocking spindles that are turned by 90 degrees and arranged opposite one another.

2. The engine system of claim 1, wherein the radial connecting rods have one fixed and three movable connecting-rod arms.

3. The engine system of claim 1, further comprising a pressure-resistant, sealed housing which completely encloses the system and by said housing separates the system for operation in an atmosphere that is isolated from surroundings in terms of pressure and the gas composition, and all motor- and generator-related processes take place in an environment within the sealed housing

4. The engine system of claim 1, further comprising an opposed-piston four-cylinder, two-stroke combustion engine system, including two of the cylinders in each case are arranged in parallel and, by way of two opposite rockers, the pistons work in each of the cylinders in pairs, opposite one another, each said cylinder is equipped with a central combustion chamber, the cylinders are coordinated in a 180-degree-offset working cycle, the cylinders being operated with low compression, so that the pistons in one of the two cylinders move away from one another when the other two pistons in the other of the two cylinder move toward one another, the two other cylinders that are arranged offset by 90 degrees at a same or another level, result in four working cycles per revolution of the central spindle connected by way of the four rockers by way of the four rocking spindles via the one or more radial connecting rods.

5. The engine system of claim 4, further comprising a pressure-resistant, sealed housing which completely encloses the system and by said housing separates the system for operation in an atmosphere that is isolated from surroundings in terms of pressure and the gas composition, and all motor- and generator-related processes take place in an environment within the sealed housing, and the housing surrounding the cylinders to provide an increased pressure within the housing with an increased percentage of oxygen and combustion gas in a combustion mixture.

6. The engine system of claim 4, further comprising a condensate-assisted double-acting push-pull opposed-piston hot-gas/steam engine system, including two of the cylinders are displacer cylinders, and in each case two of the pistons are operated in opposition by way of outer rockers work in each of the displacer cylinders such that one of the displacers displaces its heated gas-steam mixture into a cold region, while the other of the displacers at a same time displaces a cooled gas-condensate mixture into a hot region, the two push-pull double-acting opposed-piston working cylinders are attached offset by 90 degrees on the two other rockers, which are connected to the displacers by way of the radial connecting rods, an outer side of the one working cylinder is connected to an inner side of the other working cylinder and to the corresponding displacer cylinder.

7. The engine system of claim 4, further comprising a double-acting opposed-piston pressure-gradient drive, including alternately outer sides of one of the two cylinders being subjected to high pressure and inner sides of one of the two cylinders being subjected to low pressure and vice versa in the other of the two cylinders, high-pressure and low-pressure regions are produced by a difference in pressure of a transition, built in directly in an exhaust gas stream, from hot exhaust gas providing high pressure into a condensate region or surroundings providing low pressure or additionally or alternatively in a self-contained steam/condensate system, to utilize waste heat of the engine or additional sources of heat and cold, the outer rockers control said drive and an energy transmission takes place by way of the rocking spindles, which are connected to the central rotary spindle by way of the central eccentric, with each of the pistons alternately subjected on one side to high pressure and on the other side to low pressure.

8. The engine system of claim 4, wherein an angle-optimized force transmission and speed-minimized movement takes place from a linear piston movement of the pistons to the central rotary spindle, the force transmission takes place generally linearly for linear force-accepting components and generally radially for radial force-accepting components in the piston-piston rod-rocker-rocking spindle-connecting rod rocker-radial connecting rod-eccentric/rotary spindle force-transmission chain, with low speeds at points of friction.

9. The engine system of claim 4, further comprising a multi-rotor/multi-stator/multi-phase disk generator/disk motor including windings printed on printed circuit boards, at least one double disk rotor that is rotatable about a common central spindle around a stator lying inbetween, the windings of said stator are printed on a PCB stack such that the windings are switched according to requirements in a star or delta, parallel, or series connection by a control applied directly to the printed circuit boards, and, according to whether operation is generator-based or engine-based, operation also takes place speed-dependently with more or less than 3 phases, and a voltage and a current are controlled internally for level and variation.

10. The engine system of claim 4, further comprising a multi-stage combustion-air separation and conditioning in the disk-rotor generator/motor, including centrifugal and magnetic forces in the generator condition a gas composition in combustion air by using a difference in weight of oxygen and nitrogen in a centrifugal separation and different magnetic properties of oxygen and nitrogen to create a higher proportion of oxygen for more effective combustion, and air passed through the system for conditioning at the same time increases an effectiveness of the disk-rotor generator/motor by internal cooling.

11. The engine system of claim 4 with liquefaction of CO2 contained in exhaust gas, further comprising, in operation with compressed natural gas or hydrogen as fuel, cold produced during expansion is used to precool the exhaust gas and dry the exhaust gas by condensation of the water still under pressure, and the CO2 is liquefied by condensation and is collected in corresponding containers.

12. The engine system of claim 4, further comprising heat or cold generation by an integrated heat pump stage, including a heat pump stage driven directly by the rocking spindles to extract at least one of heat or cold from an internal or external medium and makes the heat or cold available.

Description

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[0018] FIG. 1.1 is a schematic view of a first level of a combustion engine stage.

[0019] FIG. 1.2 is a schematic view of a second level of the combustion engine stage.

[0020] FIG. 2.1 is a schematic view of a next level with a hot-gas engine stage.

[0021] FIG. 2.2 is a schematic view of a further level of the hot-gas engine stage.

[0022] FIG. 3 is a schematic view of a next level with a pressure differential stage.

[0023] FIG. 4 is a schematic view of a steam engine stage.

[0024] FIG. 5 is a schematic view of an eccentric stage.

[0025] FIG. 6 is a schematic side view of an exemplary system setup.

[0026] FIG. 7 is a drawing of showing the construction of an exemplary disk generator.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS

[0027] 1. Combustion Engine Stage

[0028] On the first level shown in FIG. 1.1 there are the cylinders Zyl 1 and Zyl 3, the pistons of which are respectively connected on one side by way of the rocker on the spindle A-0 and on the other side by way of the rocker on the spindle A-180. Between the pistons lies the combustion chamber (B). On the other side of the pistons, the combustion air (L) is pumped and the fuel (G) is pumped by way of an additional outer pump stage. On the second level shown in FIG. 1.2, the cylinders Zyl 2 and Zyl 4 are connected such that they are offset by 90 degrees by way of the spindles A 90 and A 270. Optionally, the exhaust gases additionally drive the central rotary spindle Z. The feeding of air and fuel and the discharging of the exhaust gases take place in a way analogous to other two-stroke engines, and are therefore not specifically shown here.

[0029] 2. Hot-gas engine stage

[0030] On the next level there is the displacer stage shown in FIG. 2.2 with Zyl-2 and Zyl-4, the pistons of which are respectively moved on one side by way of the rocker on the spindle A-90 and on the other side by way of the rocker on the spindle A-270. Between the pistons lies the region that is heated by the exhaust gases (hot), outside the pistons the region that is cooled by a coolant (cold). When H1 in Zyl-2 is cooled it contracts, at the same time H2 in Zyl-4 is heated and expands. On the next level shown in FIG. 2.1, the working cylinders Zyl-1 and Zyl-3 are connected such that they are offset by 90 degrees by way of the spindles A-0 and A-180. Zyl-1 is connected on the outside and Zyl-3 is connected on the inside to the pistons with H1 of Zyl-2, the other sides with H2 of Zyl-4. The pistons are thus alternately always attracted on one side, while they are at the same time repelled on the other side.

[0031] 3. Pressure-Differential Engine Stage

[0032] On the next level shown in FIG. 3, there is the pressure differential stage with Zyl-2 and Zyl-4. Upstream of the stage there is a high pressure in the hot exhaust gas and downstream of the stage there is a low pressure as a result of cooling and condensation. In an alternating manner, Zyl-2 on the inside and Zyl-4 on the outside are connected to the negative-pressure region and Zyl-2 on the outside and Zyl-4 on the inside are connected to the positive-pressure region.

[0033] 4. Steam Engine Stage

[0034] Referring to FIG. 4, in a closed circuit there is a liquid (for example water), which evaporates in the hot regions of the combustion engine and condenses again in a cool region. Between cold and hot, little liquid is transported with little pressure, while between hot and cold Zyl-1 on the inside and Zyl-3 on the outside are alternately connected to the pressure of the much greater volume of steam and on the other side to the low pressure in the condensation region, and vice versa.

[0035] 5. Eccentric Stage

[0036] Referring to FIG. 5, the rocking movements of the four spindles A-0, A-90, A-180 and A-270 are transmitted by way of a cruciform connecting rod with 4 arms (one fixed, 3 movable) by way of an eccentric EZ attached on the central rotary spindle to the central rotary spindle, and vice versa. The rockers W-0-E, W-90-E, W-180-E and W-270 are fastened on the rocking spindles in such a way that their arms, with which they are connected to the connecting rod, move in the direction of the midpoint of the central rotary spindle. The free arms of the rockers serve as counterweights, in order to keep the center of gravity of the connecting rod and the rocker respectively in the middle of the respective rocking spindle. It is consequently sufficient to provide the eccentric with minor measures for compensating imbalance with respect to the center of gravity of the central rotary spindle.

[0037] 6. Example of a System Setup

[0038] The eccentric E connects the four rocking spindles W by way of the connecting rods P to the central spindle Z. The pistons of the engine stages (combustion stage V, hot-gas stage H, steam and/or pressure-differential stage D) are connected by way of the rocking spindles. The generator G is connected by way of the central spindle Z.

[0039] 7. Disk Generator

[0040] The disk generator (or disk electric motor), driven by way of the central rotary spindle A, includes one or more generator modules G, G2 . . . Gn. Each generator has on each side of the central stator, which includes a stack of printed circuit boards (stator PCBs 1 . . . n), on which the windings are realized as printed circuits and on which control components are additionally mounted, two rotating rotors (R1 and R2), the complementing magnetic fields of which act by way of magnetic field concentrators K in the stator covers through the stator. Holes in the printed circuit boards and covers of the stator serve for cooling.

[0041] As shown in FIG. 6, a pressure-resistant, sealed housing is located around the entire unit. The housing completely encloses the system and the motor and the generator are separated by this housing for operation in an atmosphere that is isolated from the surroundings in terms of pressure and the gas composition. All motor- and generator-related processes take place in an environment that is optimized for the respective operation in terms of pressure and gas and liquid composition.