Toroidal internal combustion engine and method for its thermo-stabilization

Abstract

A thermal design and method of operation of a rotary internal combustion engine having at least one housing, a rotor rotating within the housing, and a mechanism for combusting mixture of fuel air and steam supplied into the housing to drive the rotor, in which the temperature of the inner walls of the combustion region which are in contact with combusting gases attains 700° C., and in which the temperature of the combusting gases does not exceeds 1800° C. The thermal design includes: lining of the surface of the combustion zone with heat resistive materials such as a refractory metal; the use of material with low heat conductivity such as iron for the construction of the body of the engine in order to minimize heat loses by heat transfer to ambient; and the effective cooling of the body of the engine with boiling heat transfer by water which is circulated in cooling channels passing throughout the engines structure. Methods of operation of the engine include the feedback of steam, which is produced in the cooling channels into the combustion region where it is mixed with the fuel and thus lowers the temperature of the combusting gases while leaving the power of the engine intact, and the use of the hot gases of burnt fuel to ignite a fresh compressed mixture of fuel air and steam.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.