HiPerTEC
      
 
Video Details
The HiPerTEC (High Performance Toroidal Engine Concept), engineered by ATS, provides an unprecedented power-to-weight ratio in an internal combustion engine. Hundreds of pounds lighter than a traditional engine of comparable power, the HiPerTEC employs combustion processes that are far more fuel-efficient. The engine achieves the ultra-high power to weight ratio with a patented torus design that incorporates double-faced pistons set at 90° intervals, reciprocating in equal but opposite directions for vibration-free operation.

Further research and development led to the demonstration of two- and four-stroke operation of the free-piston design. This unique configuration allows for a variable compression ratio, controlled by a sophisticated computer system. To achieve this flexibility the system operates independent, pneumatically actuated, intake and exhaust valves. Adapting to power-intensive needs, the HiPerTEC offers cycle switching (four- to two-stroke) while in operation, and/or multiple HiPerTEC engines can be joined in tandem. With less weight, more power, and increased fuel efficiency, the HiPerTEC engine was the first major breakthrough engineered by ATS.

 

 
Videos
ATSVB0017 - Episode 7
Differences Between Prototype 2&3

Sep 17, 2009 - 01:32Karl V. Hoose: ATSVB0017 - Episode 7 Differences Between Prototype 2&3 Sep 17, 2009 - 01:32 For Applied Thermal Sciences video blog, my name is Karl Hoose. In this prototype, the biggest change is definitely the Engine Control System that we put together. It's a lot more robust, we are using -- we actually combined our expertise with a company called Driven that makes Engine Control System software for research institutions and industry members and stuff that are involved in engine research and development. And this control system has a -- throws a bit of twist into their typical work because it's a free-piston engine as opposed to the traditional slider crank engine. But with both of us putting our heads together it looks like we’ve come up with a really good engine control system that's going to do what we needed. We’re also going to be extracting power out of this engine, so everything is set up, it's hooked up to a Dyno Monitor because of their reciprocating motion of this engine what are outputs, we actually run this through a converter to get rotary motion and connect it to a Dyno Monitor to measure the power output of the engine. So we are all set up. This is the prototype set up to really measure the performance of this engine what it can do, and so we hope to have those numbers in the very near future. Total Duration: 2 Minutes
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ATSVB0025 - Episode 6
Prototype 2: Thermal Effects, Fuel Intake & Controls
Nov 09, 2009 - 01:52Karl V. Hoose: ATSVB0025 - Episode 6 Prototype 2: Thermal Effects, Fuel Intake & Controls Nov 09, 2009 - 01:52 For Applied Thermal Sciences video blog, my name is Karl Hoose. We needed to get the operating characteristics in the four-stroke mode and trying to get some thermal effects in there because that's a big portion of the engine’s capability, is how well it can handle the amount of energy that it's basically releasing in the engine. You’re going to get so much of its coming out as work, the rest of it for the most part is coming out as heat whether it's through the exhaust or soaking into the engine so we really had to look at that. And because there was a number of modifications and design, uniqueness in the design for this engine, we spend a fair amount of time on the valve actuation methods, fuel addition or fuel delivery system to it and then also the controls, the controls for a free-piston engine are quite a bit different than a slider crank. You have that added complexity of trying to control the piston stroke length, which doesn’t turn out to be that typical. It's just how do you trigger this thing, how do you keep everything moving? You don’t want the engine to stall out, I mean, the transition from starting to running takes place in a stroke or two, so it's very quick. So the engine control was a major driver and we really got into that in the second prototype and made it a major focus for the follow-on prototype which is the third prototype that we were moving into. Total Duration: 2 Minutes
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ATSVB0024 - Episode 5
Prototype 2: 4 Stroke Operation

Nov 09, 2009 - 01:24Karl V. Hoose: ATSVB0024 - Episode 5 Prototype 2: 4 Stroke Operation Nov 09, 2009 - 01:24 For Applied Thermal Sciences video blog, my name is Karl Hoose. This concept can really work, it's got some legs under it. Now that we had proven it in two-stroke and that kind of pushed us right into the second prototype which we wanted to prove out a four-stroke operating free-piston engine which we didn’t think that it had been done. Environmental Protection Agency did mention in one of their websites that they had operated a free-piston engine in four-stroke mode, but we never heard anything about it. No any details, the engine design, anything like that, but we’re actually getting essentially more money from the office in naval research, we put together second prototype which was a free-piston engine with numerically actuated valves and ran at four-stroke mode. That was a demonstration for that first phase in that program and it worked. I mean it works, there is no boost in the intake, it's just naturally aspirated four-stroke operation of free-piston which is thus unheard of. Total Duration: 1 Minute
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ATSVB0022 - Episode 4
Military Applications

Nov 09, 2009 - 02:09Karl V. Hoose: ATSVB0022 - Episode 4 Military Applications Nov 09, 2009 - 02:09 For Applied Thermal Sciences video blog, my name is Karl Hoose. When you look at it from a military standpoint which they not only have the fuel savings requirement out there that everybody else does, but they also have the other driver which is saving lives. And that's a big motivator for the military especially if you look how much fuel they actually use and it's enormous. I mean with their -- as organizations go, they are the largest user of fossil fuels in the country as a single organization. But if you look at some of the statistics like the army, about 70% of the tonnage that they move, that they carry is fuel, and that's huge and you look at some of the situations in Iraq or when we have that type of event going on in the world, I mean there is just convoys moving fuel, I mean logistics to get fuel into that combat theater is. I mean it's enormous. I mean we might be paying $2-3 a gallon at the pumps here, but a time they actually get a gallon of fuel to the war fighter especially if they are on the frontlines. I mean you might be talking $400 a gallon, because now you have combat soldiers that have to move this and their convoy has to be protected. Male Speaker: That's a true cost. Karl Hoose: That's a true cost, yeah. They are just starting to bring all these statistics out now where they cover it up before, basically the military buy for a certain amount of fuel, for a certain dollar amount per gallon but actually getting that fuel to where it needs to go. That can be enormous. Total Duration: 2 Minutes
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ATSVB0019 - Episode 3
Free Piston Engines: Combustion Process & Power Extraction
Nov 09, 2009 - 03:30Karl V. Hoose: ATSVB0019 - Episode 3 Free Piston Engines: Combustion Process & Power Nov 09, 2009 - 03:30 For Applied Thermal Sciences video blog, my name is Karl Hoose. So I really looked at the thermodynamic cycle and doing that looking at the combustion process and carrying out that combustion process in a certain way, higher pressures, constant volume is really the way to get there for extracting more work because you have less entropy gain with those combustion processes and one of the engine types that could really push that one forward is free pistons. And a lot of free piston work was done back in the 1950’s by General Motors and a number of other entities out there but there is always a problem of how do you extract the work out of free piston engine the way that it kind of settle on back then was basically to use a free piston as a gas, kind of a gas generator where they would push the exhaust products from the free piston through a turbine. And then extract the work through the turbine. That had some complications of its own, the free pistons, I mean they worked great even back in the 1950’s they had efficiencies that were up in the 1945, maybe a little higher percent fuel conversion efficiency, and if you look at today’s engines, gasoline which runs at a lower combustion pressure, you are talking about 30% fuel conversion efficiency max. So when you are just kind of cruising down the road you are going to get even less than that. Male Speaker: [Indiscernible] efficiency conversions just weren’t there. Karl Hoose: They weren’t and that's the big driver for looking for game changing technology anyways. That was the big driver. There is a lot of room for improvement but how do you do it. And really you can't just look at some of the design features, friction and so forth with the slider crank design. You have to go to do something different, because the slider crank design, the pressures, again the gasoline fuel spark ignition engines are going to have near the pressure capability and the combustion process that you would have in a diesel but then the diesel engine is heavier to stay in those pressures. And so you have your advantages and disadvantages with both of those types of design, but with the free piston your Pressure Compression Ratio basically is completely variable. You can set a maximum on what you get from piston face to piston face but you get no slider crank there to turn everything back around so that piston is kind of free to move based on the forces that are on it. And so I really looked at that in knowing that maximizing the torque from the energy we get from combustion you are basically looking at a circle. And so that ended up being a circular type design which is a number of circular type designs out there torus type configuration that's what this is, but most of them were looking for a rotary kind of motion in order to get rotary power output. When you do that, you end up with a number of sealing issues and that's what happened with those designs. Total Duration: 3 Minutes
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ATSVB0018 - Episode 2
Early Interest in Piston Engine Design

Nov 09, 2009 - 03:53Karl V. Hoose: ATSVB0018 - Episode 2 Early Interest in Piston Engine Design Nov 09, 2009 - 03:53 For Applied Thermal Sciences video blog, my name is Karl Hoose. When I got up with my undergraduate degree I found a position in a small company in Long Island, 25% company that was started many years prior, but their focus was on ramjet/scramjet engines for the most part, high-speed propulsion. And so I really got into engines. At that point, I am not counting my days in high school with muscle cars and that kind of stuff, but I always had an interest in the engines in general, piston engines right up through high-speed propulsion. And getting the position in General Applied Science Laboratories in the Long Island, got me into it a bit more and working on federal contracts for the government and looking at their needs, understanding fuel efficiency needs out there, even though the industry wasn’t pushing in that direction really for the most part, they did a bit after the fuel crisis in the 1970’s but they really reduced the weight of the vehicles in order to get fuel mileage up. And not a whole lot was done with the fuel-conversion efficiency of the engines. But after me leaving 1:24 in Long Island and going back to school and get my graduate degree in Mechanical Engineering. I really focused in more on some of the piston engine research and development that was going on. And finishing up with that and having some time on my hands, not working in the area that I really wanted to work at it at that time. I just started sculpting out designs, piston engine designs that were done in the past and reasons for them not coming to market, and really the strong hold there is the automotive manufacturing companies and that industry is, I mean they’ve been using the slider crank piston design for over 100 years and it just fit. The infrastructure there is so strong. So trying to do something different is -- trying to get into that market anyways is very difficult as much as people try to do it over the years. But for them to have to retool the manufacturing, thrown other engine, different than the conventional engine something that they are used to, tooling up their manufacturing facilities, doing the R&D is just -- unless you can really promise them a larger share of a market or the market that they are in, it just isn’t going to happen. They try to do with the Wankel Engine, and that was some success, especially with John Deere and Mazda. They tried to push it into general aviation, but it always had its advantages and disadvantages, and nothing that was really that much superior to what was out there. So it's like why bother, you have to look for something that's basically game-changing technology. So that's what I had set out to do with looking from the standpoint of you’ve got so much energy in your fuel releasing it with the air, releasing the energy of the fuel with the air and from a thermodynamic standpoint and trying to figure out what's going to really help me extract more work. Total Duration: 4 Minutes
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ATSVB0016 - Episode 1
Toroidal Engine Program Status

Sep 17, 2009 - 01:41Karl V. Hoose: ATSVB0016 - Episode 1 Toroidal Engine Program Status Sep 17, 2009 - 01:41 For Applied Thermal Sciences video blog, my name is Karl Hoose. We are on our finishing up the fabrication and the third prototype for the HiPerTEC. This again is a two-liter swept volume engine, free-piston configuration with pneumatically actuated valve. So what we intend to do is demonstrate four-stroke operation as well as two-stroke operation in this next prototype. And actually switch between the two cycles while it's operating. Male Speaker: While it’s running? Karl Hoose: Yes. So the engines on the test stand, we are just finishing up the wiring now and within a week we should be starting to do the test and shake down and trying to get the engine started up. Male Speaker: Does it look much different? Karl Hoose: This one looks quite a bit different because we made it a little bit easier to work on, so when you see it will look a little bit lighter than the last prototype, but it will make it easier for us to work on and modify pieces if we need to, and make adjustments where necessary. It will have a much easier time in doing that. But again it's a laboratory model so when we get to the final version we’ll be packaged up in a nice package, easy to manage. Total Duration: 02 Minutes

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