A free piston engine is a heat engine with pistons that move back and forth to extract work from a fluid, or to act as a pump. Unlike a conventional internal combustion engine, a free piston engine does not have connecting rods and a crank shaft to govern each piston’s movement and convert their reciprocating action into rotary motion. As a result, each piston is free to move along its axis under the action of linear forces including those due to combustion pressure. An internal combustion engine generator based on this format has a combustion chamber at one or both ends of the free piston, and a linear electrical generator to capture power from the piston during its movement cycle.
What is a free piston engine?
