Importance

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Abstract

This engine (1) (of the piston engine or rotary Wankel-type engine type) includes a heat-exchanging cylinder head (2) which transfers to the fluid internal to the engine the heat energy collected from an external hot source (liquid, gaseous or by radiation). In a closed or open cycle it uses a gaseous fluid (air) or a refrigerant such as an engine fluid in particular when the temperature of the hot source is low. The volumetric compression ratio of the engine is optimized according to the temperature level of the hot source in order on the one hand to allow the internal heat exchanging cylinder head (2) and (9) to be positioned in the dead volume freed inside the chamber (piston top dead center) of the engine (1) and on the other hand to extract significant mechanical work. It is a matter of increasing technological feasibility at the expense of an acceptable loss in efficiency given that the contribution from the hot source is free of charge. It avoids the adding of a bulky external heat exchanger and the associated problems of the thermal and mechanical stresses thereof and also makes it possible to reduce the flow rate of the engine fluid (for example air) transferred to a strict minimum. By comparison with competing systems, this invention does not require the engine fluid to be transferred to the hot source and vice-versa and there are therefore no additional valves and the engine air flow rate is minimum. It is a relatively inexpensive invention particularly suited to the field of the recovery of free or wasted heat (exchange with a hot external fluid—exhaust gas or radiation) where other technological solutions with a higher overall efficiency are either technologically unfeasible or require too great an investment thereby jeopardizing their economic model

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First Claim