The lawnmower, or automobile of the near future may be a much leaner, greener machine. Florida-based Cyclone Power is developing new engine technology that can run on a myriad of fuel sources, ranging from eco-friendly biofuels to existing gasoline and diesel, or a combo of both. Though the company has just signed a design deal with Raytheon to develop military and industrial applications of the engine, primary applications of Cyclone’s engine tech may be around the yard and on the highway where traditional gasoline-powered engines burn non-sustainable fossil fuels, spew copious amounts of pollutants, spill oil and make a ton of noise.
The Cyclone Engine creates mechanical energy by heating and cooling water in a closed-loop, piston-based engine system. Simply put, it’s a new age steam engine. Whereas a traditional gasoline, or diesel powered internal combustion engine ignites fuel under high pressure inside its cylinders – the Cyclone Engine burns its fuel in an external combustion chamber. Heat from this process is used to turn water into steam, which is what powers the engine.
Because the new engine burns its fuel in an external combustion chamber it has incredible flexibility as to the fuel it can use. Combustion tests have used fuels derived from orange peels, palm oil, cottonseed oil, algae, used motor oil and fryer grease, as well as traditional fossil fuels – none of which required any modification of the engine. The Cyclone Engine has also burned propane, butane, natural gas and even powdered coal.
If used to power an automobile you could run your car on gasoline one day and 100% pure biodiesel the next – or even a mixture of the two. The Cyclone Engine could provide consumers with the power to use fuels that are less expensive, more plentiful and locally produced.
Overall, the Cyclone Engine has fewer parts to manufacture, assemble, break-down or wear-out. It has no catalytic converter or muffler, no oil pump or motor oil and no transmission or transmission fluid. Its components are made of inexpensive, non-exotic materials — which should reduce cost.
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From the little that I have seen of this Cyclo …=vortex :-) . . . engine is that it is “simply” a piston “gas” motor like a simple piston air motor is, with its “gas” in the form of clean steam generated by exprenal combustion “on site”. Not at all like a Stirling Engine (The Stirling Cycle is quite different from the Rankine Cycle, which included isothermal heat storage-release principles). Then Cyclone Engine heating and expansion cycle is closely related to the Rankine Cycle used in steam turbines, but differs in that the expansion occurs in a piston rather than in a turbine. . .for as far as this process is polytropically different one may well choose a different name for it. . .The Rankine Cycle assumes a near adiabatic expansion. . .as the expansion takes place very rapidly and there is relatively little contact with heat transfer walls. . .in a piston expansion there is a relatively high heat transfer surface in the form of the cylinder walls and piston top. Also the fact that the hot gas is relatively long in contact with that surface causes a great deal of heat loss. This heat loss can be minimized to keep the cyclinder walls and piston as high as possible, so if that is achieved without, heat loss to the environment its efficiency would rise significantly relative to conventional internal combustion engines. An idea here is to use the high temperature exhaust gas to heat the cylinders externally. . .this is a free hint for engine developers!!!!!
All this aside, the Cyclo Engine is not new as far as its operating principle concerns, but it may well be a very interesting alternative if its efficiency would prove to be significantly higher from a user consideration.
I would give it “Thumbs Up” from what I have seen!
Conrad W.