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US 4,100,743 AGranted
Gravity engine
AssigneeThe Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company
InventorsHarold E. Trumbull, Howard C. Davis, Robert A. Yano
Life of this patent
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AssigneeThe Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company
InventorsHarold E. Trumbull, Howard C. Davis, Robert A. Yano
Estimating the term…
A gravity engine converts one form of energy into another by using the expansion of a fluid medium to propel each of a plurality of bodies upwardly within one of a pair of adjacent vertical passageways. The expansion of a gas, such as steam supplied from a boiler heated by a solar panel, in a chamber and controlled by valves provides the force to propel the bodies against the force of gravity upwardly to the top of the first passageway. A guide directs the bodies from the top of the first passageway to the top of a second passageway wherein the bodies are stacked so that their combined weight acts upon a pocketed drive wheel at the bottom of the second passageway. The drive wheel is coupled to means such as an electrical generator to convert at least a portion of the potential energy of the stacked bodies into another form of energy. The pocketed wheel may also drive a pump used to return condensate water from the engine case to the boiler. The pocketed wheel carries the bodies, e.g., spheroids, from the lower end of the second passageway for passage into the expansion chamber and thence in the next succeeding cycle, along the first vertical passageway.
Energy conversion apparatus comprising a pair of generally adjacent vertical passageways, a plurality of bodies freely movable within said passageways, a fluid medium expander means at the bottom portion of a first of said passageways for imparting a force to successive ones of said bodies to accelerate them upwardly in said one passageway against the force of gravity, the magnitude of said force being great enough to cause successive ones of the bodies to reach the top of the first passageway, means at the top of said first passageway to direct said bodies to the top of the second of said passageways where they are stackes and permitted to descend by gravity in the second passageway, and means at the bottom of the second passageway for converting at least a portion of the potential energy of bodies falling in the second passageway to another form of energy while directing said bodies to the bottom of said first passageway where they are again accelerated upwardly by imparting a force thereto.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.