If you’re running an army, chances are good that you need a lot of portable power for everything from communications to weapons control systems. When it comes to your generators, every ounce counts. The smaller and lighter you can get them, the better.
Connecticut-based company LiquidPiston is developing a high-powered generator for the US Army that uses the company’s own rotary x-engine — a small, light, and powerful beast that sounds like a dream come true. It can run on gasoline, diesel, natural gas, kerosene, or jet fuel, and is scalable from 1 to 1,000 horsepower (PDF).
Co-founder and CEO Alex Schkolnik describes the design as a combination of the best parts of the Otto and Atkinson cycle engines, the Diesel, and the Wankel rotary while solving the big problems of the latter two. That sounds impressive, but it doesn’t mean much unless you understand how each of these engines work and what their various advantages and disadvantages are. So let’s take a look under the hood, shall we?
Suck, Squeeze, Bang, Blow
For the purposes of this discussion, the Otto cycle, the Atkinson cycle, and the Diesel are all four-stroke engines. This means that for every pulse of power produced, the pistons move four times, the crankshaft rotates twice, and ignition occurs once. These four strokes are called intake, compression, power, and exhaust, or as they’re known colloquially, suck, squeeze, bang, and blow.
Any given piston engine’s efficiency can be explained in terms of the compression ratio of the cylinder. The static compres ..
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