Ecomotors, Inc.

Robert Levy

Peter Hofbauer

Diana D Brehob

Amr Gamal Sami

A toroidal combustion chamber shape with side injectors is being developed for an opposed-piston engine. Favorable combustion characteristics of such configuration are transferred to a conventional engine, i.e., one with a combustion chamber delimited by a piston, a cylinder wall, and a cylinder head. At least one injector is disposed in the cylinder head at the periphery. The fuel is injected substantially along the plane of interface between the cylinder head and the cylinder block. The intake system is configured to provide a swirling flow in the combustion chamber. The fuel is injected in an angle that is displaced from the central axis of the cylinder and directed along the swirl. In some embodiments, a substantially torus-shaped volume is formed between the piston and the cylinder head when the piston is at top center. The injector or injectors spray fuel into the toroidally-shaped volume substantially tangent to the torus.

Toroidal combustion chamber with side injection

An opposed-piston engine has a plurality of intake ports wrapped around the cylinder wall. It is desirable to obtain high swirl ratio flow with minimal pressure drop. A system have a generally-volute shaped plenum is disclosed. A centerline of the volute spirals inwardly. Furthermore, the cross-sectional area of the volute decreases in the direction of flow. The area is decreased as the flow from the plenum enters intake ports so that the velocity of flow in the plenum near the downstream end does not slow precipitously. The intake system may have multiple such volute-shaped plena coupled to mutually exclusive subsets of the intake ports. The volute shape leads to a high swirl ratio with limited drop in flow energy.

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Dryden, MI, United States of America

Robert Levy