Other

West Virginia University

Weirton Steel Corporation

The United States of America As Represented by the Department of Energy

John Lodewyk Loth

Walter A Wilson

Timothy L Cox

Howard Snyder

Anthony J Santilli

Stanley Vernon Stephenson

James Earl Smith

Gary Jay Morris

Eric Loth

Robert P M Craven

William C Smith

Gary R Friggens

Francis Loth

Robert Bond

An internal combustion engine has cylinder wall cavities located near the top dead center stroke end to allow optimizing the compression ratio in first stage compression, as function of fuel octane number used. The volume of the cylinder wall cavities is designed to be adjustable, even when the engine is operating. Using a conventional piston motion, the second stage compression becomes accelerated as soon the upper piston ring seals-off the cylinder wall cavities. This is due to the sudden significant reduction in volume. During the power stroke, after the upper piston ring opens the cylinder wall cavities; their fuel content is ignited by second stage combustion products. Because the torque required during accelerated compression is no greater than during first stage compression, stresses in the crankshaft are no more than in conventional spark ignition engines. This allows small displacement engines to be of light weight and to be hand cranked.

Accelerated compression ignition engine for HCCI

A method and apparatus for controlling local flow along a slot jet with applications to airknives is disclosed. The airknife provides improved options for on-line control over coating thickness and edge build-up prevention. The gap of the slot nozzle of the airknife can remain constant while the outflow pattern is controlled by a series of preset throttle valves in combination with a single moving component, the multi-port aero-valve. This valve can be actuated locally or remotely, in rotation or translation, thereby changing gradually from a conventional uniform outflow to one which increases in velocity and mass flow rate along the airknife span to produce a bow effect. The valve can also change gradually from a conventional uniform outflow to one which increases in velocity, mass flow rate and outflow angle along the span to simulate bow effect in combination with fan-like outflow.

Method and apparatus for online flow control over the span of a high aspect ratio slot jet

Wing tip vortices are evident from airliner vapor trails, and helicopter blade slap. Elliptically loaded high aspect ratio tapered wings have minimum induced drag but cannot eliminate it. Different methods are disclosed herein, for upper and lower surface boundary layers to cancel their opposing vorticity upon shedding from the trailing edge, thereby eliminating wake vorticty, induced drag and associated noise. This requires wing-rotor-propeller or fan blades with a platform designed for uniform bound circulation and with boundary layer control near the tip. In addition this requires special techniques to counter span-wise pressure gradients, such as tip circulation control blowing or an upwind small propeller or wind turbine on each tip. These techniques can eliminate wake vorticity with its induced drag, noise, flying on the backside of the power curve and the option for asymmetric loading by pneumatic means to eliminate need for cyclic pitch control or conventional ailerons.

Vorticity cancellation at trailing edge for induced drag elimination

Rollers used on conveyors and inside the zinc-pot of a steel-sheet galvanizing line are usually driven by friction between the roller and the belt or sheet. Such rollers operating in high temperature furnaces or in a hot zinc pot of a steel galvanizing line often have limited or no lubrication The invention herein utilizes bearings which are smaller in diameter and longer than conventional bearing system used in rollers, without an increase in shaft bending moment. This is made possible by changing from a rotating cantilevered shaft to a stationary shaft strengthened to be substantially non-deflecting on either side of the bearings. Such a stationary shaft can be smaller in diameter to reduce bearing friction torque. In addition such a shaft can have increased bearing contact area and assure bearing alignment, all of which contribute to increased bearing life. A device is provided for increasing the buoyancy of a submerged roller.

Bearing life extender for conveyor type rollers

The internal combustion engine relies on air injection for ignition instead of Otto cycle spark or Diesel cycle fuel injection. Cylinder pairs are connected by a cylinder-connecting valve, which opens near top-dead-center on the compression stroke injecting high-pressure air from one cylinder into a second cylinder containing an air-fuel mixture thereby inducing detonation ignition at top-dead-center. During the expansion stroke, the cylinder-connecting valve remains open and provides equal pressure on both cylinders, which is substantially higher than possible in an Otto cycle. Constant volume heat addition makes this engine more efficient than the Diesel cycle. Compared to conventional engines, the absence of spark ignition or high pressure fuel injectors makes this engine more economical, more reliable, and scalable down to small sizes where fuel metering limitations of Diesel fuel injectors become problematic. The engine can serve as a reactor for generating high temperature hydrogen to power high temperature fuel cells.

Compression ignition engine by air injection from air-only cylinder to adjacent air-fuel cylinder

The herein disclosed Compression Ignition By Air Injection (CIBAI) cycle and internal combustion engine has following advantages over Otto and Diesel cycles: higher thermal efficiency and operating like a stratified charge engine on lean mixtures. More reliable by lack off: spark ignition, high-pressure fuel pump and injectors; throttle valve and cold starting problems. Only one valve is required in addition to the usual I.C. engine components. However the CIBAI cycle requires one or more pairs of piston/cylinders to operate together in phase. During the compression stroke a closed cylinder-connecting valve isolates the cylinders. One cylinder compresses an air-fuel mixture to below knock level. The other cylinder compresses only air to high pressure and temperature. Near top dead center, the cylinder-connecting valve opens allowing the high-pressure air to compress, heat and ignite the pre-evaporated air-fuel mixture. This valve remains open during following power stroke and scavenging of exhaust products.

Compression ignition by air injection cycle and engine

An excitation event in an oil, gas or geothermal well creates a responsive signal having lower and higher frequency components, which higher frequency component provides information about one or more characteristics of the well. Examples of such characteristics pertaining to a subterranean fracture include: breakdown pressure at fracture initiation, time it takes proppant to reach and to screenout the tip of the fracture, fracture geometry and fracture growth, fracture closure pressure, relative fluid flow through respective perforations, and horsepower requirements to perform a fracture treatment. One excitation event includes creating an excitation signal having a maximum amplitude change occurring within a time t , which is less than a period t of the higher frequency component. Wavelet processing may be used to separate or distinguish the higher frequency waveform from the lower frequency waveform. The information can be used to control a process (for example, a fracturing process) applied to the respective well or one or more other wells. In another aspect, an unidentified signature waveform is compared to identified signature waveforms in a neural network computer database to create an identity for the unidentified signature waveform relative to an identified signature waveform in the database. A system to determine a characteristic of an oil, gas or geothermal well is also disclosed.

Characterizing oil, gasor geothermal wells, including fractures thereof

A dynamic fluid control surface, e.g., a rotor blade of a helicopter, having a blowing slot extending the entire length of the leading and trailing edges of the dynamic fluid control surface, an internal chamber containing a pressurized fluid, e.g., air, and one or more piezoelectric actuators positioned along the length of the blowing slots and connected to the internal chamber. The piezoelectric actuators are controlled by a computer system to regulate the flow of fluid released through the blowing slot. There may be one or more blowing slots on either just the trailing edge of a dynamic fluid control surface or on both the leading edge and the trailing edge of the dynamic fluid control surface.

Piezoelectric actuators for circulation controlled rotorcraft

A coating control system is provided enabling continuous operations, free of interruption for coating control purposes, while achieving desired coating weight and thickness profile for the various gages, widths and coating specifications encountered on a given continuous strip production line. In each of a pair of elongated pneumatic dies, a pressurized gas jet is controllably shaped and directed by flow-control means internally-mounted of each pneumatic die to impinge against its respective substrate coated surface with its major directional component of force being controlled to be perpendicularly transverse to the travel path of the coated strip across its full width. Adjustment of such internally-mounted means is coordinated with control of gas pressure supply and/or adjustment of die positioning means to maintain desired coating weight and coating profile across the width of the strip. Pneumatic and other crown-control measures of the invention are exercised along the centerline of the strip enabling production of continuous-strip galvanized steel product having improved tracking and handling properties.

Coating control apparatus

A coating control system is provided enabling continuous operations, free of interruption for coating control purposes, while achieving desired coating weight and thickness profile for the various gages, widths and coating specifications encountered on a given continuous strip production line. In each of a pair of elongated pneumatic dies, a pressurized gas jet is controllably shaped and directed by flow-control means internally-mounted of each pneumatic die to impinge against its respective substrate coated surface with its major directional component of force being controlled to be perpendicularly transverse to the travel path of the coated strip across its full width. Adjustment of such internally-mounted means is coordinated with control of gas pressure supply and/or adjustment of die positioning means to maintain desired coating weight and coating profile across the width of the strip. Pneumatic and other crown-control measures of the invention are exercised along the centerline of the of the strip enabling production of continuous-strip galvanized steel product having improved tracking and handling properties.

Continuous strip coating control methods

The 'Isolated Combustion and Dilution Expansion (ICADE) Engine', is a piston/cylinder arrangement used primarily for the compression of air and the expansion of diluted hot combustion products. Fuel injection and rapid combustion take place inside a separate combustion chamber, using a near stoichiometric mixture. The combustion pressurization provides the pressure needed to accelerate the combustion products tangentially into the donut shaped cavity formed by the piston/cylinder clearance. There they establish a vortex which enhances rapid mixing, rapid cooling to quench NO.sub.x forming reactions and to temporarily store the kinetic energy of the combustion products to limit the combustion pressure peak acting on the piston surface. The tangential entry also permits detonation combustion without normal shock reflections on the piston surface, thus preventing 'knock'. Only during the compression stroke, is the combustion chamber isolated from the piston/cylinder arrangement, by a valve with 'controlled leakage'. During the compression stroke, this 'leaky valve' keeps the combustion chamber pressure lower than the pressure inside the cylinder. This controlled pressure difference serves to: prevent fuel from escaping into the cylinder, produce good fuel mixing with combustion air, permits the use of low octane fuel at moderate compression ratio inside the combustor, while the cylinder operates at high compression ratio for high thermal efficiency. Power level control is obtained by modulating the 'leaky valve' to regulate the supply of combustion air, fuel flow control is separate. This configuration eliminates the need for a cylinder intake throttle valve.

Isolated combustion and diluted expansion (ICADE) piston engine

In a circulation control airfoil, the improvement comprises of a seprate and rounded compressed air supply duct, with a slot and ejector from which high velocity air can issue tangentially to its surface. The duct is supported by a hollow actuator arm which provides the blowing air as well as the torque required to retract or extend the rounded trailing edge of the wing and one or more hinged support brackets. The position of the hinge points being such that when the air supply duct is swung in the aft position then it joins the sharp trailing edge of the airfoil or its flap, and converts the airfoil to a STOL (Short Take Off and Landing) circulation control configuration with a rounded trailing edge. By exerting torque on the bell crank, the air supply duct can be swung forward, without much drag and be retracted in a cavity provided for it at the underside of the airfoil. With the rounded trailing edge recessed, the airfoil assumes to a conventional, low drag configuration for high speed cruise.

Retractable rounded trailing edge for circulation control wing

The present invention is directed to a coal-water slurry atomizer for use a high-pressure dryer employed in a pumping system utilized to feed coal into a pressurized coal gasifier. The slurry atomizer is provided with a venturi, constant area slurry injection conduit, and a plurality of tangentially disposed steam injection ports. Superheated steam is injected into the atomizer through these ports to provide a vortical flow of the steam, which, in turn, shears slurry emerging from the slurry injection conduit. The droplets of slurry are rapidly dispersed in the dryer through the venturi where the water is vaporized from the slurry by the steam prior to deleterious heating of the coal.

Slurry atomizer for a coal-feeder and dryer used to provide coal at

A flow measuring flume is described which is compact, cost-effective, self-cleaning and of adjustable capacity. This flume is applicable in the chemical water treatment of acid discharge streams from coal mining operations. It incorporates the self-cleaning advantage of the Parshall venturi flume but without the fixed throat size limitation of a venturi. It further incorporates the adjustable capacity of the notched weir type flow meter without the debris blocking characteristic of the dam like weir. The flume comprises a rectangular open channel with a triangular base and with a discharge opening in one of its two side walls, adjacent to the common corner. A sliding door is used to adjust the discharge opening width, but does not alter the geometric similarity or flow discharge characteristics per unit width of outlet. In addition this flume has one side wall higher than the other for the purpose of protecting equipment from flood damage. When used for chemical water treatment a tank and flow head measuring well can be safely mounted behind the high side wall. The flume discharge nappe springs clear from the flume and drops down on a built-in vortex generating spillway, which maximizes aeration and mixing of the flow.

Growing community of inventors

Morgantown, WV, United States of America

John Lodewyk Loth