Another interesting experiment in the field of mechanical engineering; it's great to see all this creativity; however, there may be no market for the device. The move now is to battery powered, electronic controlled, electric motor drive-lines. Perhaps the group's energy could be better used to develop more efficient devices in the field of BEVs, i.e., the development of even more efficient electric motors, better re gen energy recovery, a more efficient a/c system, etc. With the advent of electric cars, wearing components become a smaller part of the package and repair becomes a black box replacement procedure for most.

there will be a need for a small charge sustaining genset in some hybrids.. but can it compete with a small turbocharger?.. no need to worry about lag in a genset.

@ Lad -

we all know you're a fan of electric propulsion for cars, but did you notice that the company is building a 6.5hp engine? The target market is obviously not cars.

Even so, the design strikes me as inelegant: first, the engine has to be mounted horizontally because of the oil in the carter. That means you want to keep the gap in the oil sweep ring away from the bottom by securing it against rotation and, you want the crankshaft to rotate in the other direction to ensure adequate oiling when lateral forces on the piston are at their highest.

Second, the boost pressure can't be very high with all that dead volume in the compressor piston - the intake reed valve needs to be parallel to the piston crown.

Third, the reciprocating mass is greatly increased, increasing mechanical stresses on the cranktrain an journal bearings as well as free inertial forces and/or moments.

Fourth, the additional set of piston rings creates additional friction. They might as well have eliminated the connrod with a scotch yoke.

Fifth, the illustration implies the pre-compressed air is not intercooled as it passes through the feeder manifold.

@Rafael:
Boy! don't know what gave ya that idea(ha).
But. I will confess that you are right. However, I do like creative engineering, no matter what field, I especially like to see the workings of good MEs. As a fact, I love ICE race cars and I'm in the middle of developing an old rusty turbo modified Datsun 240Z and my ability to drive it. www.qebrass.com

I'm not an engineer, but isn't the advantage of turbocharging (unlike mechanical supercharging) that it captures some of the latent energy otherwise lost in the exhaust? Why would this supercharged design have greater thermal efficiency than a well-designed, naturally-aspirated engine, let alone a turbo-boosted design? Also, wouldn't the extra reciprocating mass limit RPM, making for a heavy engine for its power? It makes for a mechanically simpler supercharger, perhaps, but I don't see why it should be any more efficient than conventional designs.

By capturing energy from the exhaust gases a turbo increases back pressure, so it is not "free" it has losses just like a supercharger. They are just in a different form.

You are right on Nick. However it does look like the 4 stroke version has two air pump compression strokes for one intake stroke to achieve actual supercharging. But then all the piping volume will reduce the supercharging quite a bit. Why not just admit this will compete with stationary power plants.

You could do a 4 cylinder boxer engine using a scottish yoke and use stock pistons. You might not be able to patent it, but it should be less exotic.

It's basically a 4 cycle engine that pumps the amount of air of a 2 cycle engine.

With the same size and not much more complexity (e.g. turbo) it can almost double the power at the same rpm.

If it was used in a plug in hybrid as an 'emergency-engine', there could be some merits to this concept - since low weight, low volume and little complexity is more important than maximum efficiency and high dynamic range.
Besides, increasing BMEP does generally also increase efficiency.

You could make the compresser piston larger and have true supercharging.

You could also put a small chamber on the intake pipe with an additional check valve to get a double air charge for every intake stroke.

You could make the compresser piston larger and have true supercharging.

No, you already have TRUE supercharging.
The piston on the left pumps twice, while the piston on the right only pumps once per full cycle.

The main problem I have with this is the need for a major intercooler.
I don't see why they couldn't integrate an intercooler.

@ Nick -

supercharging can improve fuel economy a little if it is used to reduce engine displacement and hence, weight and internal friction (aka downsizing).

Mercedes has been doing this for a while with their Kompressor models, though advances in turbo technology make it the more attractive approach if the primary objective is improved fuel economy.

This is the basic operation of two strokes and it would
make more sense to just remove the valves and have it
operate as a 2 stroke with oil in the crankcase instead
of in the gas. Check out the Miller cycle engine it
uses a supercharger and it basically keeps the intake
valve open and it force the air into the cyclinder until
the SC hits its limit then it closes and let's the
piston compress the air the rest of the way. Since a lot
of energy in a engine is lost to the crank having to
push against the air charge. Letting a turbo or SC do
the compressing at least until it reaches it's limit
does save a bit of power. Of course we should be taking
the gasoline and splitting it and using the hydrogen
as fuel and the carbon to build the cars and if we reduce the weight then we increase the efficency. It all
comes down to power to weight ratio and that will save
more fuel. A carbon fiber unibody car, aluminum engine
and of course smaller will save alot of pollution and
wasted fuel. OF course we all need to get used to going
much slower then we do and cruising at 80-90 mph on the
highway get's us to our destination faster it also gets
us to the gas station faster!! Hence more pollution if
we slowed down to say 65 tops (for all vehicles) the
fuel consumption would drop as well as wear and tear and
of course the number of deaths!!