Victor Fischer -- Reciprocating Engine

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**Victor FISCHER**

**Reciprocating Engine**

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[**http://u2.lege.net/newebmasters.com\_\_freeenergy/external\_links\_from\_phact.org/z/fischer.htm**](http://u2.lege.net/newebmasters.com__freeenergy/external_links_from_phact.org/z/fischer.htm)**FISCHER ENERGY, INC.**  
  
POWER GENERATION FOR THE NEXT 100 YEARS  
  
Email: FischerEnergyInc@worldnet.att.net  
  
BASIC STATEMENTS ON THE SECOND LAW OF THERMODYNAMICS AS IT
RELATES TO THE FISCHER CYCLE ENGINE.  
  
A. IS THE SECOND LAW OF THERMODYNAMICS BEING VIOLATED?  
  
1. The findings of Joule and others led Rudolf Clausius, a
German physicist, to state in 1850 that: "In any process, energy
can be changed from one form to another (including heat and
work), but it is never created or destroyed." This is the First
Law of Thermodynamics. The Second Law of Thermodynamics is
stated in different ways by various authors. For the purpose of
this report, the following statement by Rudolf Clausius is
selected: "It is impossible for a self-acting machine, unaided
by external agency, to convey heat from a body at one
temperature to another body at a higher temperature." The Second
Law of Thermodynamics is not capable of specific proof, but is
axiomatic. It follows from the Second Law that no heat engine
can convert an equal or greater useful power energy from a
lesser heat energy source.  
  
2. All Perpetual Motion Machines violate the Second Law of
Thermodynamics, and they also, do not produce useful power or
work. Thermodynamic Academicians describe the Carnot Cycle
Engine (Sadi Carnot in 1824) as the "Ideal Engine." The Carnot
Cycle Engine is primarily based on the defunct and extinct
Caloric Theory of Heat. In 1738, Daniel Bernoulli describe the
Caloric Theory of Heat as follows: "That heat was matter and an
imponderable fluid, which readily flowed from a body of high
temperature to one of lower temperature." The downfall of the
Caloric Theory of Heat was initiated by Sir Benjamin Thompson,
Count Rumford in 1798. Unlike the Perpetual Motion Machines, the
Carnot Cycle Engine does not violate the Second Law of
Thermodynamics. But, a tangible mechanical Carnot Cycle Engine
is very much like all Perpetual Motion Machines, since they both
produce no useful power or work. The reciprocating steam
locomotive engine and the Fischer Cycle Engine are neither
Perpetual Motion Machines nor Carnot Cycle Engines, because they
both do not violate the Second Law of Thermodynamics, and they
both produce useful power and work.  
  
3. The U.S. Patent Office's Primary Examiner, Mr. Allen M.
Ostrager initially rejected the Australian Patent Application
for the Fischer Cycle Engine because he thought, "...it violated
the Second Law of Thermodynamics." Dr. Martin G. Horner, Ph.D.
(OXFORD) (Chemistry & Patent Law), Patent Attorney, and the
author of the original Australian Fischer Cycle Engine Patents,
was able to demonstrate, from his personal observations and
experiences, to the satisfaction of the U.S. Patent Office that
the Fischer Cycle Engine did produce useful work, and that it
did not violate the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Since that
first and only rejection, the U.S. Office of Patents and
Trademarks has registered five U.S. Patents pertaining to the
Fischer Cycle Engine research and development.  
  
B. THE STEAM ENGINE VS. THE FISCHER CYCLE ENGINE.  
  
1. The reciprocating steam engine is an external heat source and
an external vaporization engine. Its steam vapor is produced in
an external steam boiler, and the boiler's steam vapor pressure
is directly applied to the top surface of the reciprocating
steam engine's drive piston to produce power and work.  
  
2. The Fischer Cycle Engine is an external heat source and an
internal vaporization engine. Its steam vapor is produced inside
the engine's cylinder after the high pressurized and high
temperature water, in the liquid state, is directly applied to
the top of the engine's drive piston. Before the liquid water is
injected into the cylinder (similar to injection of fuel into a
diesel engine), the water is first pressurized to a pressure
(i.e., 3,100 psig), which is higher than the vapor pressure
(i.e., 3,075 psig) of the water at an operating temperature of
700 degF within its liquid-to-gas heat exchanger. The pressurized
heated liquid water contained within the heat exchanger is
directly applied to the top surface of the piston at the top of
the piston's stroke in the engine's cylinder. The 3,100 psig
liquid water pressure initially applies a hydraulic force to the
top surface of the piston to produce work, which is analogous to
the reciprocating steam locomotive engine, except that the
boiler pressure of a steam locomotive is only about 125 to 250
psig.  
  
3. After a steam engine boiler's steam pressure moves the piston
throughout the piston's stroke, the steam is then discharged at
the bottom of the piston's stroke as 100 percent steam vapor.
This steam vapor is then transferred to a steam condenser, where
the steam vapor is transformed into liquid water, to be recycled
to the steam boiler. During this liquefying process, all of the
steam's Latent Heat of Vaporization (70% to 80% of the initial
fuel's heat energy) is wastefully discharged into the
atmosphere.  
  
4. In contrast, only about ten percent (10%) of the liquid water
mass vaporizes into steam throughout the piston stoke.
Therefore, nearly all of the liquid water mass that is injected
into the Fischer Cycle Engines cylinder is discharged as
liquid, to be recycled. This liquid water is returned to the
water make-up pump, and is repressurized and reheated to the
operating pressure and temperature for another cycle. The
Fischer Cycle Engine is significant because it doesn't require
licensed steam engineers nor costly and hazardous steam boilers
nor wastefully release essential volumes of fresh water and heat
energy into the atmosphere, as do the steam engines' large
cooling towers.    
  
**Rebuttal :**[**http://www.phact.org/e/skeptic/frenfaq.htm**](http://www.phact.org/e/skeptic/frenfaq.htm)**PhACT-FAQ on Heat Based Free Energy Prepared by
Tom Napier**

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[**http://www.ahealedplanet.net/energy1.htm#ventura**](http://www.ahealedplanet.net/energy1.htm#ventura)

**Making a Run at Alternative and Free
Energy**

**By**

**Wade Frazier**

... In Boston, although Dennis [ Lee ] got the red carpet
treatment from New Englands most powerful electric executive,
we experienced a media blackout and other fun.  I tied into
talent and money with Mr. Professor and others in my hometown of
Ventura, and we moved there in the summer of 1987.  In late
1987, Dennis found the program that worked, and the rocket ship
that he built in Seattle was taking off once more.  We were
building a prototype of Mr. Mentors hydraulic heat engine, to
try developing a free energy machine.  On New Years Day,
1988, we became involved with another **hydraulic heat engine,
invented by Victor Fischer.**  Unlike Mr. Mentors
idea, Fischer had already built and run his hydraulic heat
engines, in Australia, spending millions of dollars in
development.  Fischers and Mr. Mentors hydraulic heat
engines were similar in concept, and Fischers had already been
built, so we abandoned Mr. Mentors idea to try building one of
Fischers engines on a scale small enough to power a home. 
It is incredible that both hydraulic heat engines came to Dennis
a few months apart.

When Mr. Mentor invented his engine at a stoplight, he was not
trying to make a free energy machine or defeat the second law of
thermodynamics.  He was just designing the best engine for
powering a car.  Fischer, however, was taking on Carnot
head on.  About the only inside information I have about
Fischers engine was hearing him talk about it for about five
minutes, soon after he came aboard in Ventura.  He said
that in Carnots seminal work, he assumed an ideal gas in his
ideal heat engine.  Carnot then extrapolated his logic with
his ideal gas heat engine to cover all heat engines, and Fischer
said that that was where Carnot made his fatal error, and that
liquid heat engines were ignored ever since.  It harkens
back to the notion that Carnots theory may have owed the steam
engine more than the steam engine owed thermodynamics. 
Fischers hydraulic heat engine challenged Carnots assumption,
and also the classical interpretation of the second law of
thermodynamics.  Fischer thought, like Mr. Mentor did, that
a hydraulic heat engine, combined with Dennis LamCo-style
panels, might have a chance at making free energy.  It was
not something that Dennis dreamed up.  Fischer and Mr.
Mentor are technical and scientific heavyweights, not
fast-talking promoters.  Fischer helped write
thermodynamics textbooks, and he said that thermodynamics
textbooks are, in large measure, expedient rubbish.  What
Fischer said sounded a lot like describing the expedient fairy
tales that students are given by microbiology textbooks
regarding Pasteur and the spontaneous generation theory. 
The data from Fischers first prototype had it coming closer to
Carnots ideal than any other heat engine ever had.

The main issue was that in Fischers engine, only a percent or
two of the working fluid ever became a gas, so far less entropy
was created in the process, which made the efficiency rise
dramatically.  With both Fischers and Mr. Mentors
engines, they do not need cooled condensers, which was what
Watts engine was all about.  That is a formidable
mindbender for physicists and engineers to ponder.  No more
bodies of water would need to be heated up to cool down working
fluids, as well as many subtle advantages.  It is a radical
new direction in heat engine technology, which could spell the
end of the many environmentally destructive methods of todays
heat engines.

Even if hydraulic heat engines could not provide free energy,
it would be the first new heat engine cycle in a century, and
could possibly sweep aside nearly all the others.  Even
without free energy, its potential is countless billions of
dollars, and a great reduction in environmental harm.

Two days after Dennis publicly announced that Fischer had come
aboard, and we were going to try making a free energy machine
with his engine, we were raided.  Below are some images
from the raid...

When Dennis got out of prison in the mid-1990s, he went right
back at trying to make a free energy machine using hydraulic
heat engines, and was involved again with Fischer in the late
1990s.  I could only stand back in awe, as I watched Dennis
twice take his prison clothing off and immediately go for it
again. ...

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[**http://www.phact.org/e/dennis18.html**](http://www.phact.org/e/dennis18.html)

**Malcolm's review of the theory for Dennis Lee's free
energy machine**

A fellow from the other side of the planet took a scientific
look at a page posted by one of the most loyal men to Dennis

The author of this material wishes people to know that this is
personal opinions, that he has not to date examined Mr Lee's
writings on his "work" and that he currently doesn't have access
to the "Adams patent" to reference page numbers etc.

Hello Eric, Here is my first post on the topic in. Sorry about
repeating all the text but I will comment where appropriate.....
Now on with heat engines. Let's look at the physics again of the
steam turbines used in electricity production. They use water as
the working fluid. Water gets heated up, boiled into steam, then
heated beyond the boiling point (called superheating in
thermodynamics) to 2,000 F. Then the superheated steam is forced
through turbines, producing electricity. Then the steam is
cooled down by running it through heat exchangers that are in
contact with a body of water, the steam condenses back into
liquid, then it is piped back to the boiler to begin the process
again. As we saw on our stove-top demonstration, a whole lot of
energy goes into making the water boil. In fact the energy that
goes into breaking the hydrogen bonds and allowing the water to
lift off as steam is the equivalent to about 970 F. (I'm quoting
from memory. That may be a few degrees off, but not many.) of
water temperature increase. Today's most modern turbines achieve
2,300 F. boiler temperatures, and lets give our hypothetical
turbine here the benefit of the doubt, and say it gets that hot.
When I looked into it, the specific heat of steam was about 45%
of liquid water. Specific heat is a measure of the degrees of
temperature a substance will increase versus how much heat it
absorbs. Heat and temperature are not the same thing. Heat is a
grand total measurement of energy, temperature is a measure of
one aspect of heat. If something is at a certain temperature,
you have to know how much of it there is, and what its specific
heat to find out how much heat it contains. Temperature is one
third of the equation. So when you heat up water from 60 F,
let's say (the temperature of our ubiquitous body of water),and
we heat it up to 2,300 F., how much heat energy did it absorb?
Let's calculate it. The specific heat of water is 1.0, and the
specific heat of steam in 0.45, and 970 effective degrees go
into getting the water beyond the boiling point. (And again,
these are rough numbers, but I believe they are materially
correct, correct enough to make my point.) The energy to get to
a boil is 152 units of heat (212-60). The energy of boiling the
water from 212 F. is 970 units. The energy of getting the steam
up to 2,300 F. is 940 units ((2300-212) x 0.45) So the units of
energy to get the 2,300 F. steam is 2062 units, and 970 of them,
or 47% of them, are spent on getting the water to boil and turn
to steam. In a steam turbine process there is no condensation of
the water in the turbine, the steam is condensed after the
turbine. So if the energy that went into the boiling the water
was still in the steam when it left the (prime mover) turbine,
that energy could not be used by the prime mover. And the fact
that the steam had not condensed in the turbine means that the
latent heat of vaporization could not be used. So with a steam
turbine at those temperatures, it would be impossible to get
more than a 53% thermal efficiency, because you are throwing
away the latent heat of vaporization in getting the water to
turn to steam. The Carnot formula says that a thermal efficiency
of those temperatures could yield an efficiency of 81%, but
because our working fluid is water, we could never get beyond
53%. That is a real world limitation introduced by our choice of
water as our working fluid, the most commonly used working fluid
next to air. And in reality we get about 35% efficiency, which
means that almost three quarters of our thermal inefficiency is
due to the fact that we are boiling water to use as our working
fluid, and if you deduct the 47% from the 81%, it is saying that
about 100% of our inefficiency is due to the latent heat of
water. Dear experts: this is a CPA writing this stuff, and I may
be making a mistake or two in this presentation. I solicit any
correcting information or theories to this presentation. A part
of me resents that I am the one doing this stuff. Vastly more
qualified people could do this far more justice than I can, but
they are silent for one reason or another, fear by no means the
least of them. Here is where we start looking more closely....

And now here comes the Fischer cycle, which might end up
upending Carnot, thermodynamics and the rest. Victor Fischer is
a brilliant man who worked in a number of fields, including
cybernetics, which partly a study of the human brain. He
developed some extremely sophisticated computer programs, and in
his spare time he decided to try solving a problem with it. And
here we will do a limited review of thermodynamic cycles.

The Rankine cycle of boiling water, sending it through a
turbine, condensing it, and sending it back to the boiler, is a
classic cycle, and variations of it are used in making
electricity, powering ships, and other applications. The Otto
cycle is what powers your auto, pun intended. It is run by the
explosion and exhaustion of hot gases. The Stirling cycle heats
and compresses gases. Jet engines work off of other cycles,
intaking, combusting, and exhausting gases. That is by no means
an exhaustive list of all the thermodynamic cycles that have
ever been invented, but those comprise the major ones, and you
will find what they all have in common is a gas powering the
prime mover. Carnot's famous ideal engine was supposed to be
independent of what the working fluid was. When Carnot was
writing his paper, though, the only kind of engines he had seen
were steam engines. And he began his theoretical ideal engine
working with an ideal gas. An ideal gas is merely a gas that is
sufficiently raised in temperature above its boiling point to
have the atoms or molecules all act like an "ideal" gas, which
means that the molecules bounce off of each other, do not cling
together and begin to form a liquid, and other properties. In
Carnot's seminal work he uses his ideal gas as the working fluid
for his ideal engine, then he uses mathematical logic to
extrapolate that logic to all other working fluids. I have seen
the math on that one, and I certainly couldn't see the flaw, as
if I could.

So Victor Fischer set out deliberately to see if he could find
a new thermodynamic cycle. He built a program to do the analysis
of all the known thermodynamic cycles, and began loading data
from all of them. So the story goes, it didn't take very long
before a new cycle suggested itself from the data analysis: a
hydraulic heat engine. What is a hydraulic heat engine? you ask.
It is an engine that uses a liquid to drive its prime mover. If
you look at those other cycles, a gas drives them all. OK, so
how does a Fischer (named after his grandfather) cycle work?
Here is the bare bones description. In the ones I have seen
built, water was the working fluid, but doesn't have to be. In
this cycle, the water goes into a boiler and gets heated. But
instead of being able to expand and become steam when it boils,
this boiler contains the water under pressure, so you have hot
water under extreme pressure. The critical temperature of water
is a little over 700 F., which means that if water gets heated
to that temperature, there is no force known to man to keep it
in its liquid state, it will turn to gas. So the Fischer cycle
couldn't get a temperature above 700 F. In fact this is a prime
mover in volcanoes in my opinion. So the water is in this highly
pressurized (up to 3,000 psi) environment, at a high temperature
(assume 700 F, here), and it goes down a pipe, to enter a
cylinder where it makes contact with a piston head. Then the
intake valve is shut and you have 700 F., 3,000 psi water all
alone in a cylinder, pressing against a piston head. The piston
head is the prime mover of this cycle. The piston head naturally
gives backward under the tremendous pressure exerted by the
water. As the piston moves back, now there is more room in the
cylinder, and not all the water can remain liquid, some of it is
forced to vaporize, and as the piston is moving back, the
expanding space will by definition lower the pressure in the
cylinder. So you have 700 F. water at 3,000 psi being given the
opportunity to vaporize, and here is where it gets interesting.
If you study water at all, you find it to be a remarkable
substance. It has a boiling point far above substances with a
similar molecular weight, and the reason is the hydrogen
bonding. Hydrogen bonding (in the case of water) is where the
hydrogen atom of a water molecule will also be attracted to the
oxygen atom of a neighboring water molecule, linking the two
molecules. This hydrogen bonding is what makes water the
miraculous substance that it is. In this situation in the
Fischer cycle, these water molecules at 700 F. and 3,000 psi
behave unusually, according to Fischer's theories (which appear
to be supported by the data). When the head of the piston moves
back, some of the water has to vaporize. But it apparently
doesn't vaporize into monomolecular water vapor, but the water
forms huge metamolecules, bonded at the hydrogen bonds. This is
critical to understanding the thermal efficiencies attainable
with the Fischer cycle. As the piston continues its travel down
the cylinder, there is work being performed, as the energy in
the water gets transferred to the piston and the mechanisms it
is attached to. The pressure keeps going down, and so does the
temperature. The temperature is going down for two main reasons.
One is that the work is being performed, taking energy from the
water, the other is as the water vaporizes, that latent heat of
vaporization effect kicks in, cooling off the water. When the
piston reaches the end of its stroke, what is left in the
cylinder is one atmosphere pressure water (about 14 psi), which
falls out a hole in the bottom of the cylinder, which goes
straight back into the boiler. This cycle does not need a cooled
condenser. Okay! Now it is important to note that \_any\_ pressure
relief results in water flashing to steam. So we have a vessel
containing superheated water under great pressure at 700
degrees. If we now let some flow to the piston chamber, is there
not pressure relief occuring in the heating vessel? To avoid
this, there must be either water going in at the same pressure
(under force note) or the volume of the heating vessel must be
reduced by exactly the amount of the water removed (once again
with considerable force applied). I presume from the writer's
failure to mention this that this is a simple undertaking and
requires no expenditure of energy!! Anyone see a problem here?
What maintains that pressure as the water flows through to the
piston chamber? Presumably we don't want the water flashing to
steam in the pipe conveying it. Perhaps this explains why steam
is usually used. You see, in allowing steam to flow to the
piston under pressure, more steam is formed in the heating
chamber to maintain the pressure. Nothing else needs to be
altered (boiler volume, water inflow etc.). Now I can see
physicists, engineers, and thermodynamicists jumping up at this
point, yelling, "That's impossible!"

A number of Fischer cycle engines have been built and run, I
have seen them myself in action, and they don't need external
condensers. The implications of what I have just stated are
awesome. If this was true, you could just about sweep aside
every other thermodynamic cycle, it would put them all to shame.
Not only are there all sorts of practical aspects of an engine
like this that make it vastly superior to every other steam
engine ever made (No lake nearby to cool the working fluid, much
lower working temperatures, making much easier fabrication and
operation of the engines, etc.), there are some crucial
thermodynamic aspects that I don't fully understand, but I will
make a stab at presenting it. The science of thermodynamics
today is more than heat engines and heat pumps, it is the
science of the flow of energy, in all energy systems. It still
has to do with temperatures and motion though. There is a
concept that has been presented, but not given its scientific
name yet. It is the concept known as entropy. When Carnot
observed the hot always went to cold and wrote about it, that is
considered the first Western conceptualization of the entropy
concept. This observation became the Second Law of
Thermodynamics. Entropy is another term for disorder. The Law
states that for any closed system, disorder always increases and
never decreases. It is also related to temperatures finding
equilibrium, hot going to cold and the two bodies staying at the
same temperature, like the soup in your kitchen. We now have to
start imagining the atoms and molecules of the substances that
are banging around in heat engine and heat pump processes. Let's
start with a block of ice, or a grain of salt. When substances
are solid, particularly when they in their pure form (all of the
same element or molecule), like a grain of salt or an ice cube,
the atoms or molecules will arrange themselves in a very orderly
fashion. That is because of the geometry of the atoms or
molecules themselves. Salt is a compound of sodium and chloride,
one atom of each. If you got a grain of salt under a powerful
electron microscope, you might see something like the diagram
below, taken from one of my cave man paintings. I won't win any
graphics arts contests. And now to what I see as a problem in
definitions. Entropy. The arrow of time. The inevitable march
from hot to cold. The march from order to disorder?? Let's have
a think about that. I would consider that an ice crystal
displays considerably more order than water, and it is colder.
Agree? What about a salt (NaCl is the author's example mentioned
elsewhere). Is there more order in the molten state or the
frozen state?

It is clear from statements in the next piece I shall comment
on that the author is confused and knows it but can't see where
the problem is. I suggest it is in the definition of order and
disorder. In this piece (above), the author states that "Entropy
is another term for disorder. The Law states that for any closed
system, disorder always increases and never decreases". But in
the next piece, the author contradicts this completely and
claims that entropy increases as the system is heated.

More shortly, Malcolm

Hello Eric, Continuing..... What I hope comes across from that
image is the sense of orderliness the salt grain has. The atoms
are aligning up with each other according to the electrical
charges of their atoms. In salt, the sodium atom basically gives
the atom of its outermost electron shell (A very long class that
I won't get into here.) and allows the chlorine atom to fill its
outermost shell. The sodium atom then takes on a positive charge
because it has one less negatively charged electron in it,
making it have one more positively charged proton than it has
electrons. The chlorine atom now has an extra electron, and
therefore takes on a negative charge. The two atoms are
attracted to each other, but the sodium atom is also attracted
to the chlorine atom of the neighboring salt molecule, so there
is an alignment of the molecules so the positive/negative
attractions get fulfilled. And that is how the geometry of the
molecules gets set. So salt in its solid state has a very
orderly arrangement of its molecules. That arrangement is called
a lattice. And that lattice is uniform through and through the
salt grain, and that is why if you look at a grain of salt under
a magnifying glass, you will find it to have a very definite
geometric shape, which is the big version of what the lattice
looks like. All crystals have their shapes based on how the
molecules are aligning along their electric charges and atomic
geometry. Here we have a statement that a crystal of salt is
more orderly than its heated molten counterpart. Fair enough.
Ice is the same way. But a water molecule isn't shaped as >
simply as a salt molecule. Snowflakes are six-sided, which also
reflects that microscopic geometry of how the molecules align
along their hydrogen bonds. The two hydrogen atoms bond to the
oxygen atom at the ends, and a water molecule is shaped kind of
like a triangle. And here is a close-up of the hydrogen-bonding,
and the hydrogen atoms are attracted to the oxygen atoms of
neighboring molecules. I have drawn the water lattice (ice) with
space between the molecules due to the way the geometry lines up
between the molecules. My drawing is an exaggeration of the way
it really is with ice. Ice, we know is less dense than liquid
water, which is why it floats. And the reason is literally given
in my diagram, as the lattices create space between them as the
hydrogen bonds dictate how the molecules align. When you melt
ice, or salt (At a very high temperature, don't try that at
home!), what is happening is that the increased temperature also
increases the molecular vibration, and eventually the vibration
becomes so great that some of the hydrogen bonds break. The
lattice partially fractures, and the crystal shape collapses. A
liquid is a jumble of partially broken lattices. I am making a
guess here, trying to remember my chemistry classes of twenty
years ago, but I think in liquid water at room temperature, at
least three-quarters of the hydrogen bonds are intact. Only some
of them have collapsed. The crystalline state is a very orderly
one, the liquid state is only slightly less orderly. But in the
gaseous state, the molecules are no longer bonded to each other
at all, but flying around in a vast space, colliding with each
other once in awhile. This takes us back to that concept known
as entropy. And what is it? Disorder. And as the lattice of the
ice crystal gives way to the partial lattices (as it gets warm
enough to melt), entropy is increased. What is called the latent
heat of the phase change can be thought of as an increase in
entropy. In fact it can be seen as a pure increase in entropy.
So we now have an increase in entropy when things are heated??
It is clear that the writer's expressed uncertainty lies with
definitions of order and disorder and equating both those things
to entropy and with temperature. We cannot have it both ways.
Now here is where I start getting a little uncertain about >
what I am writing about. It seems that when temperature
increases, the temperature increase is what is called a useful
increase in available energy (to run a heat engine, etc.), and
the increase in the disorder of the molecules is known as
entropy, and is energy that went to molecular vibration and
disorder, and is considered an unrecoverable waste of useful
energy, but it is unavoidable. So when the water in the pot in
the kitchen boils, all of that energy going into boiling is
increasing the entropy of the water. And that seems to make
sense, as the entropy is called unrecoverable energy, dissipated
to disorder. That is patently false. The writer is claiming that
we cannot recover the heat from heated water in effect. Well I
certainly can. If I put a pot into a sink of heated water, I can
heat my pot and cool the water. I can then lift the heated pot
from the water. I have indeed extracted some of that energy. And
as I showed in the steam turbine, the energy that went into
turning the water into steam is the main unrecoverable portion
of the energy that went into the boiler, as the water is still
in its gaseous state when it comes out of the turbine. If the
turbine exhausted liquid water, then you might be able to say
that the latent heat of vaporization (entropy) was recovered.
Let's now go back to the cylinder in the Fischer engine, as the
piston is getting driven down by the expanding water. When the
expanding water is forced to vaporize, Fischer has theorized
that the water is not vaporizing into monomolecular steam, but
the hydrogen bonds are staying largely intact, and the steam is
in the form of huge metamolecules, bonded at the hydrogen bonds.
Fisher named this phenomena Fischer Steam. So the piston keeps
traveling backward, and Fischer steam gets created, and work is
being performed. That is fair enough, but none of this overcomes
the problems of maintaining pressure in the heating vessel. If
you think of the metamolecules in your mind's eye, you can see
that they are much more orderly than monomolecular steam, which
means there is less entropy being created, which also means that
more of the energy being expended is going to work, and less to
entropy. I think my comments above have shown the obvious
confusion in these statements. Fischer says that only about 1%
of the water that goes into that cylinder vaporized in that
piston cycle. So more of the energy contained in that hot,
pressurized water gets converted to work, and less gets wasted
in creating entropy. That is why it doesn't need a cooled
condenser to take the entropy away: it didn't create much in the
first place. There, I think I did it some justice, though I'm
sure Fischer or others could have explained it much better, and
I think I tripped over myself somewhere in there, but not a
major blunder, I hope.

So you can maybe now better see how the Fischer engine will
have a much higher thermal efficiency than a conventional steam
turbine. How much better? I'm not sure, though I saw some of
Fischer's numbers. I believe Fischer has stated a thermal
efficiency of one third better than the best steam engines of
today. But also remember that his engine has a maximum
temperature of 700 F. if water is used as the working fluid, and
the best turbines operate at 2,300 F. I know the first crude
prototype built by Fischer achieved a thermal efficiency of 28%,
or was it 30%? I can't remember exactly. At a 700 F. boiler
temperature and exhausting to a 70 F. "condenser," the Carnot
numbers are 54% maximum, of which 28% is 51%. Over half the
Carnot ideal with the first prototype, closer than trillions of
dollars of gas engine design and manufacturing got. Not bad. The
latest patent I know of by Fischer (He has patented his engine
internationally, so the U.S. government can't steal/suppress it,
of course invoking national security as a rationale, another
time-honored way to bury technology that threatens the corporate
status quo.) is U.S. patent number 4,747,271. I have heard
Fischer state that he thought his engine wedded to Dennis' heat
pump had a chance at making free electricity. But wait, doesn't
the Second Law of Thermodynamics say that is impossible? I heard
Fischer talking about that once. He went back to Carnot laying
awake at night, in his barracks, thinking about his ideal
engine. Again, Carnot assumed an ideal gas for his heat engine,
then extrapolated that logic to all working fluids. And because
stem engines were all he knew, he could be forgiven for not
foreseeing liquid heat engines. I believe Fischer said that
extrapolation to all working fluids is in error. I agree. BUT,
nowhere in this piece can any claim be made that more energy can
be extracted than was put in to heating the water in the first
place. > Boy, I sure don't know. I am not about to take on
the > Second Law of Thermodynamics, not me. Maybe someday
Fischer can tell the world his theories in front of the
blackboard. I am skeptical free energy can be made with Dennis'
heat pump and the Fischer heat engine. I am not saying it can't
be done, I'm saying that my understanding of thermodynamics
doesn't tell me how it can be done. The Fischer heat engine and
The Alternative are both very likely quantum leaps in the heat
engine and heat pump technology, together worth trillions of
dollars in the world marketplace, and should be replacing
everything out there, but I will reserve my judgment whether
free electricity is possible with them working in tandem. I have
seen other giant minds agree with Fischer on these issues, I
just haven't had the benefit of them educating me. From my study
of science and its history, stranger things have happened than a
two hundred year-old "Law" getting overturned. So I won't laugh
at Fischer, and so shouldn't anybody that calls themselves
scientifically-minded. If you are truly scientifically-minded,
the next step might be investigating this further. Do I think a
Dennis Lee heat pump and a Fischer cycle engine are going to be
the energy technologies of the 21st century? No. Do I think that
because I don't think they are viable? No. They are both quantum
leaps beyond what is on today's market in heat engines and heat
pumps, of that I have no doubt. But if Dennis and our project
can survive the forces of suppression that are being directed at
him and so many others, it will open the door for many other
suppressed technologies, some of which are hard to believe. A
casual review of suppressed free energy brings up name after
name, like T. Henry Moray, an American who had an undisputed
free energy device, one tested many times by scientists from
around the world, disassembled, tested miles from any power
source, etc. President Franklin Roosevelt even ordered the Rural
Electrification Administration to work with Moray, and then came
the Big Boy energy intrigues, people began getting shot at,
Moray even had gunfights in his laboratory with agents of the
dark ones, and eventually a hammer-swinging agent destroyed his
prototype, and Moray is one of a long line of pioneers that have
met similar fates. Heat engines and heat pumps are primitive
today, and if the forces of darkness are ever removed from their
coveted seats of power, humanity will enjoy technologies that we
can barely imagine today. Nothing Moray ever produced has come
to light as meeting claims of free energy, or even energy
extraction e.g. from the Schumann cavity. I am currently
examining (with a friend) quantifying possible extractible
energy from the cavity, but our methods are totally different to
anything attributed to Moray and moreover, at this stage we have
no idea how large a collector might have to be to extract, say,
1kW on a continuous basis. As this is the subject of ongoing
research I will say no more, but you can be sure that nothing we
do will violate known and tested laws of physics. The rest of
this post is irrelevant to the discussion. Malcolm

---



**US Patent  4426847**   
**Reciprocating Heat Engine**

January 24, 1984

**Abstract**

A reciprocating external combustion engine wherein energy is
supplied to a working end space of the engine by direct
injection into the cylinder of liquid water at a high
temperature and pressure. The water acts as a heat-transfer
medium. Some of the liquid water spontaneously vaporizes on
injection, driving the piston. Liquid water is exhausted from
the cylinder and recycled to an external heat exchanger for
reheating prior to reinjection. The engine is capable of a
thermal efficiency greater than that of the Rankine cycle.

Assignee:  Thermal Systems Limited (Cayman Islands, IO)

Current U.S. Class:  60/514 ; 60/670; 60/689   
Current International Class:  F02F 7/00 (20060101); F02B
47/02 (20060101); F02B 47/00 (20060101); F01B 29/04 (20060101);
F01K 21/00 (20060101); F01B 29/00 (20060101); F01K 21/02
(20060101); F01K 007/36 ()   
Field of Search: 
60/508,511,514,516,643,645,651,670,671,689 122/249

**Description**

The present invention relates to a reciprocating external
combustion engine, i.e., an engine of the type having a cylinder
or cylinders whose reciprocating motion provides a source of
power and wherein the heat powering the engine is generated
externally of the cylinder. In particular, the invention
provides a novel operating cycle.

Many attempts have been made to produce an engine which
combines high thermal efficiency in terms of converting applied
heat energy into useful work, with acceptable power to weight
and power to volume ratios for the engine. The internal
combustion engine has a good power to weight ratio but a
relatively low thermal efficiency. The diesel engine has the
best thermal efficiency (up to around 40 percent).
Thermodynamically more efficient engines based on the Carnot,
Stirling and Ericsson cycles have been built but these have not
in general been commercial successes, largely on account of the
problem of providing a small and efficient heat exchanger
enabling the working gas to become quickly and efficiently
heated by the external heat source.

The steam engine is a well known form of external combustion
engine but its power to weight ratio is generally low, owing to
its requiring a separate steam boiler and condenser. The steam
engine generally uses dried steam or other dry vapor as the
working fluid. Moreover, the efficiency of the steam engine is
restricted by the limitations of the Rankine cycle.

The present invention provides a reciprocating external
combustion engine wherein energy is supplied to a working end
space of the engine by means of a heat transfer medium which
comprises.

The external combustion engine of this invention includes a
cylinder which may comprise a single doubleacting cylinder
having a piston therein defining on one side of the piston
(usually the rod-end side) a compressor end space and on the
other side of the piston a working end space. However, this
would not preclude the use of mechanical equivalents to this
arrangement, for example the use of two cylinders coupled to a
common shaft, one of the cylinders providing by its piston the
compressor end space and the other cylinder providing with its
separate piston the working end space.

The engine may also comprise a pair of opposed pistons
reciprocatable within a common cylinder, such that the working
end space is defined by the two piston crowns and the cylinder
walls.

Various inlet and outlet valves of conventional construction
are provided as necessary, and may be in the form of check
valves or may be driven by means of a cam operated by the
engine. However, this would not preclude the absence of valves,
for example the piston may be arranged to open and close outlet
ports as in a two-stroke engine.

An injector is also provided for injecting a preheated liquid
heat-transfer medium into the working space. The purpose of the
injected liquid medium is to enable heat transfer from a heat
exchanger to the working end space, and so to increase the
pressure of vapour in the working space.

During operation of the engine the working end space will
contain a certain residual amount of heat-transfer medium vapor
and usually some liquid medium. Heat-transfer medium will
vaporize at least partially in the working space under the
engine working conditions after injection.

To avoid confusion the following terms as used herein will be
clarified. The heat-transfer medium may be present in its
liquid, or vapor state. The term wet vapor is used to mean that
the injected liquid is present in both its liquid state (e.g. as
droplets) and in its vapor state simultaneously.

Preferably, the liquid medium is heated by means of a
fuel-burner in a compact heat exchanger, for example a coil of
narrow bore tubing, to a high pressure and high temperature
(i.e. to a high internal energy). Since such narrow bore tubing
can withstand great pressures, it is usually possible to heat
the liquid up to its critical point.

The heat exchanger preferably comprises a burner for heating
the liquid medium. Preferably, a compressor is provided for
feeding combustion gas, usually air, to the burner. However a
compressor is not essential.

The compressor may be provided by a compressor end space of the
cylinder. However, a separate rotary or reciprocating compressor
might be provided, such as a vane or turbine compressor. For
special applications where the rate of heat transfer is to be
high, it may be preferred to heat the medium to a temperature
and pressure above its critical point. The hot pressurized
liquid is then injected into the working space. Internal energy
of the heat-transfer medium is rapidly transferred on injection
from the hot liquid droplets to the working space as liquid
vaporizes, thereby increasing the pressure. The vapor in the
working end space of the cylinder expands (usually
polytropically, i.e., non-adiabatically) to drive the piston and
do work.

The heat-transfer medium is a vaporizable liquid, such as
water, some of which flashes to vapor following injection into
the working end space. Thus, heat transfer between the hot
injected water vapor and the vapor in the working space is very
rapid. Therefore, it may be seen that the injected liquid is
merely acting as a heat transfer fluid which enables the vapor
in the working space to convert internal energy to mechanical
work. It is desirable that the heat-transfer medium has a high
thermal conductivity in order to maximize heat transfer in the
heat exchanger. The medium is preferably selected from water,
oil or mixtures thereof. Mixing may occur internally or
externally of the working space. It is possible that the working
space may contain vaporizable heat-transfer medium, which may be
caused to vaporize by injection of heated liquid medium (which
itself need not be vaporizable). In order to assist lubrication
of the engine, the water may be used as a mixture with an oil
e.g. as an emulsion, dispersion or a solution of water and a
water-soluble oil.

During operation a residual amount of vapor from vaporization
of the heat-transfer medium and usually some liquid, will always
be present in the working space. The retention of some residual
liquid medium in the working end space after exhaust is
desirable for reasons which will appear more clearly later,
since it reduces the pressures achieved during the compression
stroke. Thus, it may be desirable to construct the cylinder
and/or piston such that some liquid medium is retained in the
working space after exhaust. Generally this may be achieved by
providing appropriate recesses in the piston or cylinder.

The pressure in the working space at bottom dead center (BDC)
will generally be greater than atmospheric pressure (1 bar) and
it will generally be preferred to depressurize the exhausted
medium to substantially 1 bar pressure. The pressure at top dead
center (TDC) is determined by the compression ratio. The
compression ratio employed may vary widely depending on the
particular application of the engine. Thus in some applications
a compression ratio as low as 1.5:1 or perhaps lower may be
employed. In other applications the compression ratio may be as
high as 20:1. The engine preferably has a bore:stroke ratio from
0.5:1 to 1:3.

The present invention is to be distinguished from a steam
engine in that the heat-transfer medium is maintained in its
liquid form and not allowed to vaporize until it is introduced
into the working space. This is in sharp contrast to a steam
engine, wherein even if a flash boiler is used, the water is
always introduced into the cylinder in the form of steam. In
fact, since it is necessary to superheat the steam to remove
water droplets in a conventional steam engine, it is not
possible to directly flash liquid water into the cylinder of a
steam engine since this would give rise to water droplets in the
cylinder. However, in the engine according to the present
invention, it is preferred that the majority of the water be
present in the working space as liquid droplets, since this
reduces the amount of recondensation to recover latent heat of
vaporization which need occur.

Since the majority of the water is injected and exhausted in
the liquid state, there is substantially no entropy increase due
to vaporization. In the Rankine cycle this vaporization
represents a theoretical limit on the efficiency of a steam
engine since work must be performed to recondense the exhausted
steam to liquid water. Such complete vaporization is unnecessary
in the present invention so that almost all the internal energy
lost by the injected liquid water may be converted into useful
work. The majority of the heat-transfer medium does not usually
change its state. Thus, the theoretical efficiency of the cycle
of the present invention is greater than the efficiency of the
Rankine steam cycle.

It is necessary that the heated heat-transfer medium be
maintained in the liquid state prior to injection. Although this
may be achieved by using appropriate sensors to ensure that the
temperature at a given pressure never exceeds the liquid boiling
point, it has been found that if an orifice of suitable size is
connected to the heat exchanger in which the liquid medium is
heated and a flow of liquid medium is maintained through the
heat exchanger, then the application of heat to the liquid
medium does not cause the liquid to boil. Thus, by correct
choice of orifice size, complex temperature and pressure sensing
devices may be avoided. So long as the orifice provides a
pressure drop, the pressure in the heat exchanger will at all
times be such that, as the temperature is increased, the
pressure of the water in the heat exchanger will also increase
and thereby be always below the boiling point. The orifice
normally forms part of the injection means through which the
liquid medium is injected.

The rate of working of the engine may be controlled by any of
several means. It may be controlled by varying the amount of
heat transfer medium injected into the cylinder, for example, by
using a variable displacement pump. The rate of working of the
engine may be controlled by controlling the amount of heat
supplied by the burner, for example by controlling the fuel
supply to the burner (for a constant liquid volume injection
rate).

Usually, the heat-transfer medium is recovered after it has
been exhausted from the working space. The exhausted medium will
still be somewhat heated and may be recycled again to the heat
exchanger so that its internal energy is not lost. In this way,
the medium acts merely as a heat transfer fluid and is not
substantially used up.

Water is a preferred heat transfer medium. Means may be
provided for recovering water produced by combustion in the
burner. Thus, it may be possible to avoid any need for make-up
water since this will be provided by water from combustion in
the burner.

The gas fed to the burner is capable of taking part in the
combustion process which occurs in the burner. The gas may be a
gas capable of supporting combustion, such as oxygen, air or
other oxygen-containing gas, or nitrous oxide. Alternatively,
the gas may itself be a combustible gas chosen from all known
combustible gases, such as gaseous hydrocarbons, carbon
monoxide, or hydrogen.

The fuel burnt in the burner itself may be chosen from known
combustible fuels such as gasolines, fuel oils, liquefied or
gaseous hydrocarbons, alcohols, wood, coal or coke.

It is in general preferred to use various heat recovery means.
Thus, the whole engine may be enclosed in a heat insulating
enclosure and be provided with heat exchangers to pick up stray
heat and transfer it, for example, to preheat the fuel for the
burner. It is also preferred to recover the heat remaining in
the burner flue gases and this may be achieved by passing the
flue gases through a spray chamber in which a stream of liquid
(generally the same liquid medium as that injected into the
engine) is sprayed through the flue gases. It is preferred that
the liquid medium be sprayed through the flue gases to heat the
liquid medium close to its boiling point prior to being passed
to the heat exchanger. Moreover, when water is employed, the use
of a water spray chamber or a condenser is advantageous in that
water from the burner may be condensed out of the flue gases so
that it is not necessary to provide make-up water to the engine.
Usually exhausted heat-transfer medium includes a proportion of
vapor. This vapor may be separated from liquid medium in a trap
and fed with combustion gas to the burner, thereby preheating
the combustion gas and condensing more of the vapor.

The construction of an engine according to the present
invention is considerably simplified in certain respects in
comparison with known engines, such as internal combustion
engines. Thus, the temperatures encountered in the working space
are generally reduced, so that the problems of sealing around
the pistons are simplified. It will be appreciated that power
may be provided in the engine of the present invention at lower
temperatures than, for example, an internal combustion engine.
Moreover, the internal combustion engine is less thermally
efficient in that means must be provided to cool the cylinders
and prevent seizing up.

Moreover, since the temperatures encountered in the engine are
relatively low, for example up to 250.degree. C., it is not
usually necessary to construct the cylinder of metal. Plastics
such as polytetrafluorethylene (PTFE), fiber-reinforced resins,
and other plastics used in engineering, are particularly
advantageous due to their cheapness and ease of use. Other heat
insulating materials such as wood, concrete, glass or ceramics
may also be used.

In a preferred embodiment, the hot liquid is injected into one
end of the working end space and the outlet is at the other end
of the piston stroke. The use of low heat conductivity materials
allows the one end of the cylinder to be hot while the outlet
region is relatively cool.

Power is usually taken from the engine by means of a piston rod
attached to the reciprocating piston. The free end of the piston
rod may be connected to an eccentric shaft on a rotary flywheel
or by using a crankshaft so as to convert the reciprocating
motion into a rotary motion.

Although the invention has been described in relation to an
engine having a single cylinder, it will be appreciated that
multicylinder engines of two or more cylinders will generally be
preferred in practice. Each engine will usually only require a
single heat exchanger and spray chamber.

The invention also relates to a method of operating a
reciprocating external combustion engine, and to a kit of parts
for converting an engine (e.g. an internal combustion engine
such as a diesel engine) to an engine according to the present
invention.

**BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS**

Embodiments of the invention will now be described with
reference to the accompanying drawings wherein:

**FIG. 1** is a schematic view of a first embodiment of
external combustion engine according to the present invention;

![](fig1.jpg)

**FIG. 2** is a simplified view of the first embodiment
illustrating its principle of operation;

![](fig2.jpg)

**FIG. 3** is a schematic cross-sectional view of a cylinder
of the engine;

![](fig3.jpg)

**FIG. 4** is a schematic cross-sectional view of a heat
exchanger of the engine;

![](fig4.jpg)

**FIG. 5** is a schematic cross-sectional view of a spray
device for cooling flue gas from the burner;

![](fig5.jpg)

**FIG. 6** shows pressure (P) versus volume (V), and
temperature (T) versus entropy (S) diagrams for the first
embodiment;

![](fig6.jpg)

**FIG. 7** shows for comparison the PV and TS diagrams for
the known two-stroke internal combustion engine;

![](fig7.jpg)

**FIG. 8** is a schematic elevation of a second embodiment
of the invention;

![](fig8.jpg)

**FIG. 9** is an end view in partial cross-section of FIG.
8; and

![](fig9.jpg)

**FIG. 10** is a flow diagram showing the recycled water
circuit.

![](fig10.jpg)

**DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS**

In carrying out the invention in one form thereof, as shown in
FIG. 1, the external combustion engine comprises a cylinder
having piston 6 defining a compressor end space C and a working
end space P, a heating coil H of a heat exchanger for heating
liquid water under pressure by means of a burner B, an optional
preheater PH for preheating fuel for the burner by means of
burner flue heat, a spray device S for cooling and washing flue
gas from the burner, pump X for feeding water under pressure to
the heating coil, a trap T for recovering and separating vapor
and liquid water from the exhaust from the working space, and a
gas dryer D for recovering liquid water from the combustion gas
supplied to the burner.

The external combustion engine works in the following manner.
Air A at atmospheric temperature and pressure is inducted into
compressor end space C of the cylinder 5 by moving piston 6 to
the right (as viewed in FIG. 1) and thereby opening inlet check
valve 4. The outlet from the compressor end space C is closed by
means of check valve 2. When the piston 6 has reached the
extreme right of its travel (top dead center--TDC), inlet valve
4 closes. Continued movement of the reciprocating piston back
towards the left causes the air to become compressed.

Compression is continued to provide a sufficient pressure of
air in space C for operating the burner B. As the piston
approaches BDC, outlet valve 3 opens to exhaust wet vapor from
working space P. Check valve 2 is also opened to admit
compressed and slightly heated air to the trap T.

Shortly after BDC valves 2 and 3 are closed and as the piston
moves toward TDC again, the residual saturated dry water vapor
in the working space P is compressed.

Around top dead center, hot pressurized liquid water is
injected through valve 1 and associated injector 51 causing a
rapid increase in pressure within the cylinder (along line bc in
FIG. 6) due to heating of water vapor already in the working
space and due to vaporization of some of the injected water. The
piston then moves back towards bottom dead center, the working
space becoming depressurized and cooled in the process. The
expansion of the vapor in the cylinder is represented by the
line cd in FIG. 6. Around bottom dead center wet vapor is
expelled from the cylinder and passes via valve 3 and
cylindrical baffle 10 to the trap T. In the trap T, the liquid
water at substantially atmospheric pressure is recovered and
recycled to the heating coil H wherein it is pressurized and
heated. Make-up water W may be fed to trap T as required.

The dry saturated vapor in trap T is mixed with compressed air
from compressor space C, thereby preheating the combustion air
which is then passed to the burner B.

An optional dryer D is interposed between the trap T and the
burner and liquid condensate is returned along line 7 to the
trap.

The preheater PH preheats fuel F which then passes to the
burner along line 8. Any water thereby condensed from the flue
gases is recycled via line 9 to the pump.

Depending on the compression ratio and the rate of working at
the time, the temperature of the injected water may be above or
equal to the temperature of the working space just prior to
injection.

FIG. 2 emphasizes the fact that the water itself acts
principally as a heat transfer fluid which is recycled after
use. The only water lost from the system is that carried out in
the cooled flue gases from the spray chamber S.

The cycle will now be described in more detail.

Heated water at atmospheric pressure and a temperature of below
100.degree. C. is fed from trap T (and possibly from the spray
chamber S and preheater PH) to the pressure pump X whence it is
delivered at a high pressure to the heating coil H. The water in
the heating coil H is heated to a temperature of around
300.degree. C. and a pressure of around 86 bar. In principle,
the water may be heated to any temperature above or below its
critical temperature and pressure (220.9 bar and 374.degree.
C.), however, the pressure will always be such that at any
temperature it will maintain the water in its liquid state.

The working space P contains residual water from the previous
stroke, as liquid and vapor. As the piston moves towards TDC,
the dry saturated vapor is compressed to around 22 bar and (for
a 16:1 compression ratio) to a temperature of around 217.degree.
C. at top dead center. Some vaporization of the residual water
may occur during compression depending on the piston velocity.
This minimizes superheating of the compressed vapor, thereby
maintaining the vapor in the dry saturated state.

At TDC, hot pressurized water at around 86 bar and 300.degree.
C. is injected into the working end space P via injector 51 and
some liquid water immediately flashes to become vapor, thereby
atomizing the remaining injected liquid water and rapidly
increasing the pressure in the space P. Water injection is
continued for around 5 to 25% of the whole stroke. The pressure
reached depends on the amount and temperature of the liquid
water injected and on how much of that vaporizes.

The rapid rise in pressure causes the piston 6 to move towards
BDC again. Around 35.degree. before BDC the exhaust valve 3
opens to exhaust water liquid and water vapor from the space P.
The exhaust is passed to the trap T where the liquid water is
recovered and then returned to the heating coil H.

While the present invention has been described using a piston
compressor in either the same or a different cylinder from the
working end space, it will be appreciated that if required any
other type of compressor may be used, for example a rotary
compressor or fan.

This embodiment allows a particularly simple cylinder
construction, such as the one shown in FIG. 3. The relatively
low temperatures encountered allow the use of engineering
plastics materials in the construction of the cylinder, and
indeed such materials have important low heat conductivity
advantages.

The cylinder shown in FIG. 3 comprises a uniflow cylinder body
52 having a row of circumferentially arranged ports 53 which
constitute the outlet from the working end space P of the
cylinder. A cylinder head 54 having the water injector 51
mounted therein is attached to one end of the body 52 and an end
plate 55 having therein an inlet 56 and outlet 57 (and
respective check valves) is provided for the compressor end
space at the other end of the cylinder. A piston 58 and piston
rod 59 is provided within the cylinder. The ports 53 are
arranged to be uncovered by the piston 58 as the piston
approaches the end of its expansion stroke.

It will be appreciated that the end of the cylinder adjacent
the injector 51 is at a relatively high temperature, whereas the
end of the cylinder adjacent the outlet ports 53 is at a
relatively low temperature. The use of plastics materials having
a low thermal conductivity allows this advantageous temperature
differential to be maintained. Thus, were heat to be allowed to
be conducted towards the outlet ports 53, the temperature of the
exhaust would be raised, thereby resulting in loss of thermal
efficiency.

The cylinder schematically represented in FIG. 3 includes a
circumferential recess 59a in the cylinder wall for retaining
liquid medium in the working space after exhaust.

In addition, as shown in FIG. 3, at least two seals 59b are
mounted in circumferential recesses in the cylinder wall. The
piston of this invention need not fit closely against the
cylinder wall, since communication between the working end space
and the compressor end space can be blocked by the seals 59b, as
illustrated by the dotted line view of piston 58 in FIG. 3 which
shows the piston at the end of its compression stroke. Having
the piston slightly spaced from the cylinder wall provides an
advantage in that any scale deposited on the cylinder wall from
the water will not interfere with the operation of the engine
until a substantial amount has accumulated, and maintenance is
thereby reduced.

When a multicylinder engine is used, individual cam-operated
injector valves may be provided on each cylinder. Alternatively,
a distributor may be provided to periodically distribute hot
pressurized water to the appropriate cylinder. The injectors may
deliver a constant volume of water at a variable temperature.
However, injectors delivering a variable volume of water at
constant temperature might also be used--particularly when a
more rapid change in working rate is required.

FIG. 4 shows the construction of the heat exchanger, which
combines the heating coil H and the burner B. The heat exchanger
comprises inner and outer coaxial sleeves 60 and 61,
respectively, defining a double path for flue gas from the
burner. Insulation 64 is provided around the outside of the heat
exchanger. A fuel inlet jet is provided for burning fuel F in
air A admitted via an air inlet. Water W passes through a
heating coil H which comprises an inner coil 62 and outer coil
63 in the direction indicated by the arrows such that water
exits from inner coil 62 at a position close to the highest
temperature of the burner. The hot pressurized water is then fed
along pipe 50 prior to injection into the working space P.

FIG. 5 shows a spray device for cooling and washing the flue
gases from the burner B and thus recovering some of the heat and
some water produced by the combustion. It comprises a spray
chamber 17 having therein a funnel 18 onto which water is
sprayed by spray 41 through the stream of hot flue gases. The
flue gases are inducted via inlet 19 and arranged to flow
tangentially around the chamber before exiting through the exit
20 as cooled flue gas. The flue gases thus pass through the
spray and then through a curtain of water falling from the
inside aperture of the funnel 18. Preferably the flue gases are
cooled to below 100.degree. C. so as to recover the latent heat
of vaporization of water from the burner. Water at substantially
100.degree. exits through the outlet 21 before being fed by pump
X into the heat exchanger. Cold feed water W is introduced into
the chamber via a ballcock 40 for maintaining a constant level
of water in the bottom of the spray chamber. A recycle pump R
and associated ducting 22 is provided for recycling the water
through the spray to bring it up to its boiling point. However,
in practice, if it is desired to cool the flue gases below
100.degree. C., it may be necessary to withdraw water through
the outlet 21 at a substantially lower temperature, e.g.
50.degree. C.

FIG. 6 shows the idealized thermodynamic operation of the
engine of FIG. 1. FIG. 7 shows for comparison the operation of a
conventional two-stroke internal combustion engine.

Without wishing to be in any way limited to any specific
theory, it is believed that the operation of the engine may be
represented as follows.

FIG. 6 shows PV and TS diagrams. The majority of the injected
water remains in the liquid phase as droplets.

At all times there is a residual volume of dry saturated vapor
in the working space. To a first approximation, the residual
vapor may be regarded as a gaseous working fluid which takes up
and gives out heat during each operating cycle, thereby doing
work. The working space will also contain residual liquid water.

Water vapor in the working space P is compressed during the
compression stroke along line ab. The compression is not
isoentropic due to vaporization of residual water in the
cylinder.

The vaporization of residual liquid water in the working space
during compression results in a reduction of entropy of the
vapor. If there were no residual liquid water in the working
space, adiabatic compression of the water vapor would cause the
line ab in the TS diagram to be vertical, i.e., the water vapor
would be superheated. However, in the presence of liquid water
any tendency for the water vapor to become superheated is
counteracted by vaporization of some of the liquid. Thus, the
line ab follows the dry saturated vapor line on the entropy dome
(shown in dotted lines) for water.

At constant volume hot pressurized liquid water is injected at
point b at a higher temperature than the compressed dry
saturated vapor in the working space, and a portion of the water
vaporizes so that the pressure increases along bc from P.sub.b
to P.sub.c. The temperature T of the dry saturated vapor also
increases, while the entropy of the vapor decreases to c.

As the piston descends the wet water vapor expands along
cd--however, due to the presence of hot liquid water droplets,
the expansion is not adiabatic but polytropic due to heat
transfer from the liquid water so that the curve cd on the PV
diagram is flattened. The expansion also produces a fall in T
and a small increase in entropy S.

On exhaust from the working space the pressure and temperature
in the working space falls along da.

The figure a', b', c, d in the TS diagram represents the cycle
undergone by the liquid water. Thus, the liquid water is heated
in the heating coil along a'b' and injected into the working
space at b'. The temperature of the liquid water then falls
along b'c after injection and thereafter the liquid and vapor
are in equilibrium.

Typical operating conditions are as follows. The pressure
P.sub.a at a is 1.2 bar and the temperature T.sub.a is 378K
(105.degree. C.). At a compression ratio of 16:1 the pressure
P.sub.b and temperature T.sub.b at b rise to around 22 bar and
290K (217.degree. C.). Liquid water at 573K (300.degree. C.) and
86 bar is then injected into the working space at b and a
portion becomes vapor, the rest remaining as liquid. This causes
an increase in pressure along bc (typically P.sub.c =30 bar) and
an increase in temperature due to injection of the warmer water
(T.sub.c =507K (234.degree. C.)). The reduction in entropy along
bc of the water vapor originally in the cylinder arises from
injection of water in the liquid state. As the piston moves back
towards BDC, the water vapor expands along cd to a pressure
P.sub.c of about 2 bar and a theoretical temperature T.sub.d of
about 393K (120.degree. C.). The water vapor and liquid water
are then exhausted from the working space along da causing a
decrease in temperature and pressure, and an increase in the
entropy of vapor in the working space.

FIG. 7 shows PV and TS diagrams for the known two-stroke cycle
internal combustion engine for comparison. Air is inducted at a
and compressed adiabatically and isoentropically along ab. The
temperature at b is greater and the slope of ab steeper than for
the cycle of the present invention. The presence of liquid water
in the working space in the cycle of the present invention
flattens ab since energy is needed to vaporize liquid water
during compression.

In the two-stroke cycle internal combustion engine fuel is then
burned in the cylinder, increasing the pressure, temperature and
entropy along bc. In the cycle of the present invention the
pressure increases slightly due to some liquid water flashing to
vapor, and the temperature of water vapor in the working space
increases. However, whereas in the two-stroke cycle there is an
increase in entropy along bc, in the cycle of the present
invention there is a decrease in entropy of the water vapor in
the working space due to the addition of liquid water on
injection.

Thereafter adiabatic isoentropic expansion occurs along cd,
heated liquid water in the working space in the cycle of the
present invention giving up heat and thereby causing a
flattening of the PV curve in comparison to the curve for the
two-stroke cycle.

The high thermal efficiency of the cycle of the present
invention resides in the fact that, whereas in the two-stroke
cycle internal combustion engine the gas exhausted from the
cylinder is at a high temperature and pressure, in the present
invention only liquid water and a small amount of vapor is
exhausted. Thus, liquid water is injected into and exhausted
from the working space.

Most of the injected water after injection remains in the
liquid state (ignoring the small amount of water which flashes
to vapor) and so there is no significant entropy increase due to
vaporization, and the internal energy lost by the injected water
is converted almost completely into useful work. Moreover there
is no need to scavenge the cylinder at the end of the cycle, in
the present invention so that heat of the vapor is not lost. The
presence of the residual liquid water droplets on the walls of
the working space ensures that it contains the required residual
water vapor ready for recommencement of the cycle. The line ae
represents the opening of the exhaust valve before the end of
the stroke.

FIGS. 8, 9 and 10 illustrate a practical form of the invention,
which is similar in principle to the embodiment shown
schematically in FIG. 1 except that no spray chamber is used and
a rotary air blower feeds a mixture of air and dry saturated
vapor to the burner.

The engine comprises four cylinders arranged in a 90.degree.
V-configuration. Water is pumped from a closed storage trap 100
(corresponding to trap T in FIG. 1) by a high pressure pump 101
along a pipe 102 to a two-stage counter flow heat exchanger 103
of a construction as shown in FIG. 4. A pressure relief valve
104 is provided between pipe 103 and trap 100. Air and hot
exhaust water vapor from trap 100 are directed to the heat
exchanger 103 along duct 105 by a rotary air blower 106. The air
flow is controlled by valve 107. Fuel (e.g. propane gas) is
introduced from tank 127 through preheater 128 into the air flow
through fuel valve 108. Flue gases leave the heat exchanger via
flue 109.

Each piston 110 runs in a respective cylinder 111 and is
connected to a crosshead 112 by a piston rod 113. The cross head
is connected to a crankshaft 114 by a further rod 115. Each
cylinder has a cylinder head 116 provided with an injector 117
which includes a poppet valve operated by a cam on a camshaft
118 by means of a rocker arm 119. Each cylinder also has an
exhaust port 120 onto common exhaust manifold 121 which returns
wet exhaust vapor to the trap 100. A flywheel 124 is mounted on
the crankshaft. A breather port 129 is provided.

It has previously been pointed out that recesses may be
provided in the cylinder or piston to retain liquid medium in
the working space after exhaust. In FIG. 3 there has been shown
a recess 59a in the cylinder for this purpose. The engine shown
in FIG. 11 has recesses 130 provided in the piston head for this
purpose.

An engine having a 16:1 compression ratio, a 4" diameter piston
and a 4" stroke and each cylinder delivers around 15 horsepower
at a water injection temperature of around 300.degree. C. and a
pressure of 86 bar. The inclination of the cylinders assists
exhaust of liquid water by gravity. At 300.degree. C. typically
about 5 grams of water would be injected per injection. The
entire engine is contained with a heat-insulated enclosure.

Hot liquid water leaves the heat exchanger along pipe 122 and
is fed to the injector 117. A pressure control valve 123 is
provided between pipe 122 and the tank.

FIG. 10 shows the water circulation circuit in more detail. A
check valve 125 is provided downstream of the pump 101 to
prevent flash-back of water vapor into the pump. A pressure
control valve 126 is provided in parallel with the pressure
relief valve 104 and may be used to control the rate of working
of the engine.

The external combustion engine shown is capable of very high
thermal efficiency. Theoretically, cold fuel F, cold air A, and
cold water W (if any) are inducted into the engine, and cold
flue gas is vented. Therefore, almost all the heat given out by
the burner may become converted into work. In practice, thermal
efficiencies of the order of 50 to 80% appear to be attainable.

While it is contemplated that this invention will be carried
out by manufacturing new engines incorporating the features
disclosed in this invention, it may also be carried out by
converting some existing internal combustion engines to operate
in accordance with the principles of this invention. For this
purpose a kit may be supplied incorporating the necessary
components for making such a conversion. Such a kit would
include a heat exchanger, including a fuel-air burner, for
heating water to the necessary temperature and pressure; an
insulated cylinder and piston, the cylinder having an inlet for
liquid water and an outlet for wet exhaust vapor; a compressor
for supplying gas into a separating chamber and to the burner; a
pump for transmitting liquid water from the cylinder to the heat
exchanger, an injector for injecting liquid water under pressure
from the heat exchanger into the cylinder, a metering device for
controlling the amount of water injected into the cylinder, and
a separating chamber for separating liquid water from dry
saturated vapor.

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