Aircraft power plant with supercritical CO2 heat engine
AssigneePratt & Whitney Canada Corp.
InventorsJean Thomassin, Serge Dussault, Joseph Brent Staubach
Life of this patent
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Abstract
Aircraft power plants including combustion engines, and associated methods for recuperating waste heat from such aircraft power plants are described. A method includes transferring the heat rejected by the internal combustion engine to supercritical CO2 (sCO2) used as a working fluid in a heat engine. The heat engine converts at least some the heat transferred to the sCO2 to mechanical energy to perform useful work onboard the aircraft.
Claims20
An aircraft power plant comprising:
- an internal combustion engine using intermittent combustion during operation;
- a turbocharger associated with the internal combustion engine, the turbocharger including:
- a turbocharger turbine configured to be driven by a flow of exhaust gas from the internal combustion engine;
- and
- a turbocharger compressor drivingly engaged with the turbocharger turbine and configured to compress combustion air for the internal combustion engine;
- and
- a heat engine using supercritical carbon dioxide (sCO2) as a working fluid to convert heat into mechanical energy, the heat engine being in thermal communication with the exhaust gas downstream of the turbocharger turbine.
An aircraft power plant comprising:
- a rotary internal combustion engine using intermittent combustion during operation;
- a turbocharger configured to be driven by an exhaust gas from the rotary internal combustion engine and compress combustion air for the rotary internal combustion engine;
- and
- a heat engine using supercritical carbon dioxide (sCO2) as a working fluid to convert heat into mechanical energy, the heat engine being in thermal communication with the exhaust gas downstream of the turbocharger.
A method of operating an aircraft power plant including an internal combustion engine, the method comprising:
- operating the internal combustion engine using intermittent combustion and generating exhaust gas using the internal combustion engine;
- extracting energy from the exhaust gas;
- after extracting energy from the exhaust gas:
- using the energy extracted from the exhaust gas to compress combustion air for the internal combustion engine;
- transferring heat from the exhaust gas to supercritical carbon dioxide (sCO2) used as a working fluid in a heat engine;
- and
- converting at least some of the heat transferred to the sCO2 to mechanical energy using the heat engine.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.