Internal combustion assisted hydraulic engine

Abstract

This hydraulic engine utilizes two sets of hydraulic cylinders connected to a shaft so as to be alternately pressurized as the shaft is reciprocally driven by a pair of conventional internal combustion chambers. The outlets of all hydraulic cylinders are connected to a common output line via valves. During each power stroke certain of the hydraulic cylinders being pressurized are selectively disconnected (depressurized) from the output line. This effectively decreases the load on the driving chamber, and insures a relatively constant, high pressure hydraulic fluid output level despite changes in supplied force during each power stroke. The selective cylinder disconnection may be implemented programmatically in response to changes in engine parameters such as combustion pressure. The engine also includes a pump for supplying input hydraulic fluid to each set of cylinders while that set is not being compressed. The input fluid force is additive to the power supplied by the operative combustion chamber. The pump is driven by pressurized fluid from the output line, and includes a flywheel with sufficient inertia to maintain pumping, and hence continue engine operation during periods of reduced output in one of the combustion chambers. In an alternative embodiment, there is no selective depressurization, the output pressure being maintained at a constant high level even during periods of reduced combustion chamber output by the cooperation of the flywheel and pump.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.