A review of free-piston engine history and applications.

⋆
R. Mikalsen, A.P. Roskilly ∗
Sir Joseph Swan Institute for Energy Research, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 7RU, United Kingdom.

Abstract

This document reviews the history of free-piston internal combustion engines, from the air compressors and gas
generators used in the mid-20th century through to recent free-piston hydraulic engines and linear electric generators.
Unique features of the free-piston engine are presented and their effects on engine operation are discussed, along with
potential advantages and disadvantages compared to conventional engines. The paper focuses mainly on developed
engines where operational data has been reported. Finally, the potential of the free-piston engine is evaluated and
the most promising designs identified.

Key words: free-piston, linear engine.

1. Introduction After being abandoned in the mid-20th century,

free-piston engines are being investigated by a num-
Extensive use of fossil fuels as an energy source ber of research groups worldwide as an alternative
for both sea and land based transport leads to sig- to conventional engine-generator sets or for gener-
nificant amounts of CO2 and other pollutants be- ating hydraulic power in off-highway vehicles. Po-
ing produced. Much research, particularly within tential advantages of the free-piston engine include
the automotive industry, is being undertaken to de- optimised combustion through variable compres-
velop more environmental friendly fuel chains, and sion ratio, leading to higher part load efficiency and
the fuel cell vehicle stands out as a promising tech- possible multi-fuel operation, and reduced frictional
nology for the future. Although superior in vehi- losses due to a simple design with few moving parts.
cle efficiency, the implementation barriers for such This document reviews the history of the free-
radical technology change are huge, and the com- piston engine with emphasis on recent applications,
plete fuel chain (‘well-to-wheel’) efficiencies are not and investigates the potential of free-piston engines
yet superior to those of conventional technology [1]. as an alternative to conventional technology. It is
Hybrid electric vehicles powered by conventional in- the result of an extensive background study on the
ternal combustion engines have the potential to re- subject and will be followed up by a more detailed
alise large emission reductions within a significantly design study and the development of a prototype
shorter timescale. engine.

⋆ This is a preprint version. This paper was published as: 2. Free-piston engine basics
Applied Thermal Engineering, Volume 27, Issues 14-15, Oc-
tober 2007, Pages 2339–2352.
∗ Corresponding author. Due to the breadth of the free-piston term, many
Email addresses: [email protected] (R. Mikalsen), engine configurations will fall under this category.
[email protected] (A.P. Roskilly). The free-piston term is most commonly used to dis-

Preprint submitted to Elsevier 17 February 2009

tinguish a linear engine from a rotating crankshaft
engine. The piston is ‘free’ because its motion is not LP HP
restricted by the position of a rotating crankshaft,
as known from conventional engines, but only deter-
mined by the interaction between the gas and load
forces acting upon it.
This gives the free-piston engine some distinct
characteristics, including (a) variable stroke length
and (b) the need for active control of piston mo-
tion. Other important features of the free-piston en-
gine are potential reductions in frictional losses and Fig. 1. Single piston hydraulic free-piston engine [6].
possibilities to optimise engine operation using the 2.2.1. Single piston
variable compression ratio. A single piston free-piston engine is shown in Fig-
ure 1. This engine essentially consists of three parts:
a combustion cylinder, a load device, and a rebound
device to store the energy required to compress the
2.1. The original next cylinder charge. In the engine shown in the fig-
ure the hydraulic cylinder serves as both load and
rebound device, whereas in other designs these may
R.P. Pescara [2] is usually credited with the inven- be two individual devices, for example an electric
tion of the free-piston engine with his patent dating generator and a gas filled bounce chamber.
from 1928, but other vendors, among others Junkers A simple design with high controllability is the
in Germany, were also working on free-piston ma- main strength of the single piston design compared
chinery at this time. Since then, a high number of to the other free-piston engine configurations. The
patents describing free-piston machinery or related rebound device may give the opportunity to accu-
to such machinery have been published. 1 The orig- rately control the amount of energy put into the
inal Pescara patent describes a single piston spark compression process and thereby regulating the
ignited air compressor but the patent seeks to pro- compression ratio and stroke length.
tect a large number of applications utilising the free-
piston principle.
Pescara started his work on free-piston engines 2.2.2. Dual piston
around 1922 and he developed prototypes with both
LP
spark ignition (1925) and diesel combustion (1928).
The latter led to the development of the Pescara
free-piston air compressor [4]. Pescara continued his
work on free-piston machinery and also patented a
multi-stage free-piston air compressor engine in 1941
[5].

HP

2.2. Piston configuration Fig. 2. Hydraulic dual piston free-piston engine [7].

The dual piston (or dual combustion chamber)

Free-piston engines are usually divided into three configuration, shown in Figure 2, has been topic for
categories based on the piston/cylinder configura- much of the recent research in free-piston engine
tion. A fourth category, free-piston gas generators, technology. A number of dual piston designs have
identifies engines where the load is extracted purely been proposed and a few prototypes have emerged,
from an exhaust turbine and not from a load device both with hydraulic and electric power output. The
mechanically coupled to the engine.
Below follows a description of the different cate- 1 For a comprehensive timeline of free-piston engine devel-
gories of free-piston engines. opments, see Aichlmayr [3].

2
dual piston engine configuration eliminates the need ternative means of controlling vibrations. A further
for a rebound device, as the (at any time) work- advantage of the opposed piston design is reduced
ing piston provides the work to drive the compres- heat transfer losses due to the opposed piston cylin-
sion process in the other cylinder. This allows a sim- der (elimination of the cylinder head), and this also
ple and more compact device with higher power to allows uniflow scavenging to be used, giving high
weight ratio. scavenging efficiency.
Some problems with the dual piston design have, The absolute need for a piston synchronisation
however, been reported. The control of piston mo- mechanism is the most important disadvantage of
tion, in particular stroke length and compression ra- the opposed piston design. This, together with the
tio, has proved difficult.This is due to the fact that need for a dual set of the main components, makes
the combustion process in one cylinder drives the the engine complicated and bulky. Achten [8] consid-
compression in the other, and small variations in the ers the opposed piston design and rejects this, and
combustion will have high influence on the next com- the only modern opposed piston free-piston design
pression. This is a control challenge if the combus- reported is the hydraulic engine developed by Hibi
tion process is to be controlled accurately in order and Ito [11].
to optimise emissions and/or efficiency [3,8]. Exper-
imental work with dual piston engines has reported 2.2.4. Gas generators
high sensitivity to load nuances and high cycle-to- Free-piston gas generators (or gasifiers) are free-
cycle variations [9, 10]. piston engines feeding hot gas to a power turbine.
The only ‘load’ for the engine itself is that to su-
2.2.3. Opposed piston percharge the intake air, the output work is taken
An opposed piston free-piston engine essentially out entirely from the power turbine. Free-piston gas
consists of two single piston units with a common generators were used in some large-scale marine and
combustion chamber. Each piston requires a re- stationary powerplants in the mid-20th century, and
bound device, and a load device may be coupled to attempts were made to use this principle in auto-
one or both of the pistons. Figure 3 shows an op- motive applications. Figure 4 illustrates an opposed
posed piston free-piston engine, with a mechanical piston free-piston gas generator plant.
piston synchronisation mechanism. Bounce chamber Supercharge pump
Bounce chamber Combustion chamber Intake air valve Scavenge air box

Piston synchronisation

Fig. 3. Illustration of an opposed piston free-piston engine Exhaust gas receiver

with piston synchronisation mechanism.
Power turbine
The opposed piston principle was used almost Fig. 4. Illustration of a free-piston gas generator
exclusively in the early free-piston engine designs
(1930-1960), and mechanical linkages connected the Compared to a conventional gas turbine, the free-
two pistons to ensure symmetric piston motion, as piston gas generator has the advantage of high com-
illustrated in the figure. These engines served suc- pression and pressure ratios. It further differs in the
cessfully as air compressors and later as gas gener- way that the work needed to compress the intake air
ators in large-scale plants, often with a number of is already extracted from the gas when supplied to
units feeding a single power turbine. the power turbine. Consequently, the gas fed to the
The main advantage of the opposed piston con- turbine holds a lower temperature which reduces the
figuration is the perfectly balanced and vibration- materials requirements and allows the turbine to be
free design. This feature is not shared by any of placed further away from the combustor without ex-
the other free-piston configurations, which need al- tensive heat transfer losses.

3
 The operational characteristics of a free-piston
gas generator do not differ much from those of other
free-piston engines of the same configuration. The Load
opposed piston free-piston gas generator was the
topic of much research in the mid-20th century and
Bounce chamber
many reports can be found describing the design Combustion chamber
and operation of such engines. However, as con- (a) Single piston free-piston engine configuration.
ventional gas turbine technology matured, the free-
piston gas generator concept was abandoned. The
only reported modern application of this concept is FR
the single piston free-piston gas generator presented FL
FC
by Johansen et al. [12].

3. Free-piston engine unique features

x
The free-piston engine has a number of unique fea- Max stroke
tures, some give it potential advantages and some
represent challenges that must be overcome for the
free-piston engine to be a realistic alternative to con- TDCN BDCN
ventional technology.
A
B

ML ML
3.1. Operating principle
(b) Free body diagram of the mover in a single piston free-
piston engine.
The free-piston engine is restricted to the two-
Fig. 5. Piston dynamics of a single piston free-piston engine.
stroke operating principle, as a power stroke is re-
quired on every cycle. Although two-stroke engines
FR , load force FL . x denotes mover position, TDCN
suffer from poorer performance compared to four-
and BDCN illustrate nominal top dead centre and
strokes, this performance gap is declining and recent
bottom dead centre positions and ML are the me-
years have seen an increased interest in small scale
chanical limits of the motion. The mover itself will
two-stroke engines.
have a mass mp .
Applying Newtons 2nd law to the moving mass in
3.2. Piston dynamics and control Figure 5b, the piston motion can be described with

In conventional engines, the crank mechanism and X d2 x

F i = mp . (1)
flywheel serve as both piston motion control and en- dt2
i
ergy storage. The piston motion control ensures suf-
ficient compression in one end and sufficient time Knowing that the combustion cylinder and the
for scavenging in the other, while the energy stor- bounce chamber will have characteristics similar to
age provides energy for the compression of the next those of a gas spring, it becomes clear that they
charge. In the free-piston engine the motion of the will produce a bouncing-type motion of the piston.
mover at any point in the cycle is determined by the Adding a load force, this must have appropriate
sum of the forces acting upon it. Hence, the interac- characteristics or be subordinate the other two to
tion of these forces must be arranged in a way that ensure a reciprocating motion of the piston. If a re-
ensures the mover motion is within acceptable lim- bound device with other force-position characteris-
its for all types of operation if the concept is to be tics than a bounce chamber is used, such as a hy-
feasible. draulic cylinder, the operational characteristics will
For an engine as shown in Figure 5a, one can be slightly different but the same principles will ap-
derive the mover motion mathematically using a ply.
free-body diagram as shown in Figure 5b. The forces Figure 5b further shows the different parts of the
working on the mover are: combustion chamber engine stroke. Area ° A shows the piston position
pressure force FC , bounce chamber (rebound) force range where the compression ratio of the engine is

4
sufficient for fuel autoignition. For the engine to run, will not largely influence the efficiency of the engine.
engine TDC must be within this area. Area ° B shows A conventional engine may have to operate over a
the piston position range where the scavenging ports range of inefficient speeds or torques and only parts
are open and the burnt gases can be replaced with of the operational time on the design conditions.
fresh charge. For the scavenging to be efficient, the Both Hibi and Ito [11] and Achten et al. [13] report
piston needs to spend a sufficient amount of time in very good part-load performance for hydraulic free-
this area in every cycle. piston engines using PPM and Achten et al. present
These requirements are absolute and for the en- a direct comparison to a conventional engine-pump
gine to be practical, an engine control system needs showing significantly better part-load performance
to be able to meet these requirements for all types of for the free-piston engine.
engine operation. Accurate control of piston motion Such frequency control also allows frequency
currently represents one of the biggest challenges for changes to take place instantaneously and step
developers of free-piston engines. wise. Somhorst and Achten [14] report an idle speed
of the Innas Free-Piston Engine with auxiliaries of
1 Hz (60 rpm). An illustration of the principle is
3.2.1. Frequency control shown in Figure 6.
For an engine with a gas filled bounce chamber,
the spring-mass nature of the system means that TDC 2.5Hz
the frequency and stroke length are closely related.
The system will operate at its natural frequency, BDC

and the pressure in the gas springs (i.e. spring stiff- 5Hz

ness) can only be varied over a limited range. The

Piston position

stroke length is strictly limited by the need for suf-

10Hz
ficient compression and scavenging, hence there will
likely be limitations in the frequency control pos-
sibilities of the engine. This also limits the power 20Hz
output range of such free-piston engines, which has
been noted by a number of authors as a problem
with the free-piston design. 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1
For engines with different types of rebound de- t[s]

vices, very high levels of controllability can be

Fig. 6. The principle of pulse pause modulation frequency
achieved. The best example of this is the Pulse control of a single-piston free-piston engine with 20 Hz max-
Pause Modulation (PPM) scheme for hydraulic imum frequency [14].
free-piston engines, presented by Achten et al. [13].
The same principle has been employed by several
other authors. 3.2.2. Starting
The Pulse Pause Modulation frequency control The free-piston engine cannot be cranked over
pauses the piston motion at BDC using a control- several revolutions for starting like conventional en-
lable hydraulic cylinder as rebound device. At BDC gines and other methods for starting must therefore
the piston velocity is zero and the upwards motion be implemented. Starting can be achieved by im-
will only begin when the rebound device releases the pulsing the piston to give it sufficient energy to reach
stored energy. The frequency can therefore be con- top dead centre, or by driving the piston back and
trolled by applying a pause between the time the forth until it reaches sufficient compression. The lat-
piston reaches BDC and the release of compression ter can be achieved if the load device can be run as
energy for the next stroke. The frequency can in the- motor, e.g. with an electric machine or a hydraulic
ory be varied down towards zero, there is no min- cylinder. If the impulse strategy is used, it is crucial
imum frequency like the idle speed in conventional that the engine starts on the first stroke and that
engines. This is possible because the piston motion the engine control system is able to keep the engine
in each stroke is not frequency-dependent — the mo- running after this.
tion profile will have the same form regardless of The mid-1900’s engines mainly used compressed
operating frequency. air to aid starting, by rapidly introducing it into
Another consequence of this is that the frequency the bounce chamber. Achieving combustion on the

5
first stroke was not reported to be a problem, be- cylinders must also be considered. Furthermore, the
cause high compression ratios were achievable with load device may be subjected to heat transfer from
this method. More challenging was to immediately the engine cylinders.
control the amount of air in the bounce chamber to Known free-piston engine loads include electric
achieve sufficient scavenging for stroke number two, generators, hydraulic pumps and air compressors.
since the bounce chamber was now full of high pres- The dynamic properties of these differ widely. Im-
sure starting air. Although some reports indicate portant factors when determining the feasibility of
that starting was a challenge for the free-piston en- a linear load for a free-piston engine are: Moving
gines, this is never mentioned as a crucial problem. mass, physical size, efficiency and load force pro-
Most linear engine generator concepts use the file. The following characteristics are typical for the
electric machine in motoring mode to start the mentioned load devices:
engine. Recent single piston and opposed piston – Hydraulic pumps typically work against a high
hydraulic free-piston engines use stored hydraulic discharge pressure. Combined with the incom-
energy to start the engine. Since the rebound de- pressible working fluid, this allows a small unit
vices in these engines are hydraulic cylinders, the with very low moving mass. The efficiency of
first stroke is not different from any other stroke such units is generally high and high opera-
and starting represents no problem. tional flexibility has been demonstrated using
electronically controlled hydraulic control sys-
3.2.3. Misfiring tems with fast-acting valves in free-piston en-
Misfiring may represent a problem in the free- gines. The load force of a hydraulic pump is
piston engine, since it does not have energy storage approximately constant, due to the constant
capable of driving the engine for several revolutions discharge pressure.
like the flywheel in a conventional engine. Hence, if – Electric generators can be relatively compact
the engine fails to build up sufficient compression or in size but often suffer from a high moving
if other factors influence the injection/ignition and mass due to magnets or back iron in the mover,
combustion, the engine may stop. The same result required to supply or direct the power generat-
may follow from a mistiming in the fuel injection or ing magnetic flux within the machine. The ef-
ignition timing. ficiency of electric machinery is, however, gen-
Although this has often been mentioned as a po- erally very high. The load force of a permanent
tential problem in theoretical surveys on free-piston magnet electric machine coupled to a purely
engine feasibility, such problems are not mentioned resistive load will be proportional to the trans-
by any of the reported experimental work on free- lator speed, although other designs or the im-
piston engines reviewed. plementation of power electronics may allow
variations on this.
– Air compressors were the original free-piston
3.3. Free-piston loads load devices but are not necessarily better
suited for this purpose than the other two.
The free-piston engine requires a linear load, and The variable stroke of the free-piston engine
for the overall system to be efficient the load must may lead to poor volumetric efficiency of the
provide efficient energy conversion. The rotating air compressor when operating at varying
power source, such as internal combustion engines load levels. If operating with atmospheric in-
and turbines, has been the de facto standard for let pressure, a large compressor cylinder is
many years within electric power generation but also needed resulting in a large and heavy con-
rotating hydraulic and pneumatic machinery are struction. One advantage is that a stepped
highly developed technologies. A challenge for free- compressor piston can be applied, giving a
piston engine developers is to find linear equivalents compact multi-stage compressor. The load
of these machines with comparable performance. profile of an air compressor is like that of a
The mechanical requirements for free-piston en- gas filled bounce chamber in the compression
gine load devices are high since the load is coupled phase and with an approximately constant
directly to the mover, and the load will be subjected load force when the discharge valves are open
to high acceleration forces. Secondary effects from towards the end of the stroke.
the high accelerations such as cavitation in hydraulic Figure 7 illustrates the typical load characteristics

6
of the mentioned free-piston engine loads. 3.5. The combustion process

Some reports have indicated that the combustion

in free-piston engines benefits from the high piston
speed around TDC. This leads to higher air veloc-
Gas force

Combustion products
ity and turbulence level in the cylinder, which ben-
efit air-fuel mixing and increase the reaction rate
and flame speed. The high piston acceleration just
after TDC leads to a rapid expansion, and time-
Linear alternator
dependent chemical reactions, such as NOx forma-
tion, are potentially reduced.
Achten et al. [13] present experimental results
Load force

showing significantly faster combustion in the In-

Air compressor
nas Free-Piston Engine compared to conventional
engines. Values for ignition delay are found to be
comparable to those found in conventional engines.
Tikkanen et al. [9] present similar experimental
Hydraulic pump
results, and both groups indicate that combustion
takes place predominantly in the premixed phase.
Fleming and Bayer [15] describe how theoretical
x1 x2 thermodynamic analysis of the engine processes had
to be drastically changed to achieve good agreement
Fig. 7. Characteristics of free-piston engine loads [3].
with experimental data, due to long ignition de-
lays and high heat release rate in the free-piston en-
gine. Baruah [16] reports significant advantages in
emissions for a spark ignited free-piston engine over
3.4. Simplicity
crankshaft engines, particularly for nitric oxides.
As a result of the particular operating character-
The simplicity of the free-piston engine compared istics, the in-cylinder heat transfer will also differ
to conventional technology is one of the driving between the free-piston engine and conventional en-
forces behind many of the recent free-piston en- gines. The rapid power stroke expansion gives less
gine developments. The elimination of the crank time available for heat transfer from the hot gases to
mechanism reduces the number of parts and the the cylinder wall, but increased in-cylinder gas mo-
complexity of a free-piston engine significantly and tion may have the opposite effect and increase the
this potentially gives a number of advantages: heat transfer rate. However, Uludogan et al. [17] in-
– Low frictional losses. Fewer moving parts in vestigated the effects of increased engine speed on
the free-piston engine give reduced frictional the combustion in a DI diesel engine and found that
losses. In addition, the absence of a crankshaft the advantages of increased fuel-air mixing far out-
eliminates losses due to crankshaft bearing weigh the disadvantages associated with increased
friction, and the purely linear motion leads to heat transfer.
very low side loads on the piston. This also A particular feature of the free-piston engine is
reduces the cylinder lubrication requirements. the ability of the combustion process to influence the
– Reduced manufacturing costs. The reduced speed of the expansion, due to the direct coupling of
number of parts in the free-piston engine the combustion cylinder to the low-inertia moving
results in lower manufacturing costs. member. A rapid combustion process and pressure
– Compactness. With reduced number of parts, rise may lead to a faster expansion and vice versa. In
the size and weight of the free-piston engine a conventional engine, the inertia of the crank sys-
can be reduced, giving a more compact unit. tem and flywheel ensures that the speed of the en-
– Low maintenance costs and increased lifetime. gine stays constant in the time frame of the combus-
The reduced number of parts and the reduced tion process. This intricate coupling between ther-
frictional losses reduce the maintenance costs modynamics and mechanics makes detailed mod-
of the free-piston engine.

7
elling of the free-piston engine complex, and models cluding gasoline, diesel fuel and crude oil, and states
developed for conventional engines are therefore not that ’It seems that these engines do not care whether
necessarily suitable of modelling free-piston engine they get fuel with octane or cetane numbers’. He
processes. further states that the engine runs satisfactorily on
vegetable and animal oils, with the only noticeable
3.5.1. Combustion optimisation effect being the engine power output varying accord-
The variable compression ratio in the free-piston ing to the heat content of the fuel. The same con-
engine may allow an optimisation of the combus- clusion is also reached by other authors [21].
tion process not achievable in conventional engines.
Given that a sufficiently accurate piston motion con- 3.6. Balancing
trol system can be realised, the compression ratio
can be regulated during operation to achieve best The inherent vibration-free design was an often
possible performance in terms of efficiency or emis- reported advantage of the early opposed piston air
sions. Free-piston engines with compression ratios compressors and gas generators. These engines, from
as high as 50:1 was reported in the mid-20th cen- the earliest air compressor designs in the 1930’s to
tury [18]. the gas generators developed during 1940-1960, all
had mechanical linkages synchronising piston mo-
3.5.2. Homogeneous charge compression ignition tion. Aichlmayr [3] describes the first presentation of
Homogeneous charge compression ignition the Junkers free-piston air compressor at the Leipzig
(HCCI) engines compress a premixed charge until it fair in 1936, where the excellent dynamic character-
self-ignites, resulting in very rapid combustion but istics of the engines were demonstrated by suspend-
with poor control of ignition timing. The free-piston ing the compressors from the ceiling in a single steel
engine is well suited for this since the requirements cable and balancing pencils on the running engine’s
for accurate ignition timing control are lower than housing. Underwood [22] states that the smoothness
in conventional engines. Potential advantages of of the General Motors GMR 4-4 ’Hyprex’ gas gen-
HCCI include high efficiencies due to close to con- erator was ’frequently demonstrated by balancing a
stant volume combustion and the possibility to nickel on a horizontal machine surface’.
burn lean mixtures to reduce gas temperatures and For the single piston and dual piston engine, how-
thereby some types of emissions. HCCI operation of ever, balancing issues need to be addressed when
free-piston engines has been attempted by among mounting the engine. Vibrations may be cancelled
others Aichlmayr [3] and van Blarigan [19]. out by running two or more engines in parallel,
A quasi-HCCI approach is mentioned by Hibi and but this requires accurate control of engine speed.
Ito [11]. Diesel fuel is injected very early in the com- Another possibility is to apply counterweights, as
pression process but after the intake and exhaust demonstrated by Braun [23]. Disadvantages of coun-
ports have closed. The fuel does not ignite at in- terweights are a more complex design, increased
jection because the temperature and pressure are engine size and weight and additional friction losses.
too low, but distributes more or less evenly within Achten [8] states that for the 17 kW hydraulic free-
the cylinder and self-ignites when the pressure and piston engine considered in his paper, vibrations
temperature reach higher values. Ignition occurs at can be accounted for when mounting the engine
multiple points around the cylinder and the burning and that the acceleration forces will have about the
fuel spray with high local temperatures is avoided. same magnitude as in conventional engines.

3.5.3. Multi-fuel operation 3.7. Mechanical requirements

The nature of the free-piston engine makes it well
suited for multi-fuel operation. The variable com- High pressure gradients, resulting from high fuel
pression ratio combined with modern engine tech- burn rate, lead to high forces and accelerations and
nology, such as variable fuel injection and valve tim- increased mechanical requirements in the free-piston
ing, enable the free-piston engine to run satisfacto- engine. Flynn [20] reported that the major problems
rily on a wide range of fuels. in free-piston engines are the mechanical wear and
Flynn [20] reports the successful operation of a damage, mainly due to high temperatures and pres-
free-piston engine on a range of different fuels, in- sures.

8
 Due to the variable stroke of the free-piston en- to drive compressors; (b) demand for variable power
gine, high peak pressures may be also be experienced output disfavoured the narrow-output free-piston
during transient operation or from operation of the air compressor for portable applications; (c) low fuel
engine at too high compression ratios. prices and a limited market for such applications dis-
couraged the development of such unconventional
4. Reported free-piston engine applications design.

Since the free-piston engine was first developed 4.1.1. Reported free-piston air compressors
around 1930 a number of different designs have been Junkers One of the earliest successful free-piston
proposed using the free-piston concept. The major- engine applications was the air compressor devel-
ity of these were, however, not commercially suc- oped by German company Junkers in the early
cessful. This section gives an overview of known 1930’s. The Junkers air compressor was first ex-
free-piston engine developments, with an empha- hibited in 1936 and was used by the German navy
sis on engines where experimental results or op- during World War 2 to provide compressed air for
erational performance data have been reported. It launching torpedoes. After the war, US company
should be noted that in addition to these a high Worthington continued development on the Junker
number of patents describing free-piston machinery model with only minor design changes [27].
exist, where the actual development of the engines The Worthington-Junkers air compressor was an
has not been reported. opposed piston, diesel-powered unit with multiple
compressor stages and no rebound device, as the
4.1. Free-piston air compressors compressed air left in the clearance volumes in the
compressor cylinders provided the work to drive the
The original free-piston configuration proposed next compression. This was possible because the
by Pescara was an air compressor, and these ma- compressor had constant power output and the fuel
chines proved to possess some very attractive fea- pump was set to deliver a fixed amount of fuel, with
tures. Despite the large research efforts on the free- on-off control regulating the delivery of compressed
piston gas generator during 1940-1960, the air com- air [4].
pressor is by many considered to be the only really A mechanical synchronisation mechanism con-
successful free-piston engine concept. The excellent necting the two pistons ensured vibration-free op-
performance of the air compressors was a strong con- eration. Starting was done with compressed air, by
tributor to the later significant research efforts put manually moving the pistons to its outer positions,
into the free-piston gas generator. pressurising the compressor cylinders and then re-
These engines were of the opposed piston type, leasing the pistons. London and Oppenheim [26]
making them vibration-free. Farmer [4] discusses report that a compression ratio of 40:1 was achieved
how the interaction between the bounce chamber with this method, virtually ensuring ignition and
and the compressor cylinders controls the compres- unproblematic starting.
sion energy delivered to the combustion cylinder and Toutant [27] reports that the unit occupied about
makes the engine essentially self-regulating. 50 % of the space required by a conventional electri-
Despite its apparent good performance, the free- cally driven compressor and that this, together with
piston air compressor did not gain widespread com- good fuel efficiency, gave the unit great advantages
mercial success. No reports of serious lacks or flaws in submarine installations.
in the concept explaining this can be found, except
that the free-piston air compressor had a narrow
output range. Most reports are, in fact, of the oppo- Braun linear engine In a more recent approach,
site opinion, such as McMullen and Payne [24] who Braun and Schweitzer [23] present a single piston
state that the free-piston air compressor has proved free-piston engine. The load device in the described
’reliable and efficient under all conditions of service’. engine is an air compressor but the authors state
Beachley and Fronczak [25] evaluate the lack of that any suitable linear load may be applied. The en-
success of the free-piston air compressor and present gine operates on a crankcase-scavenged, two-stroke
some possible factors, including that (a) stationary spark ignited cycle and counterweights make the en-
installations tended to use cheaper electric motors gine completely balanced. A compression ignition

9
version of the engine is also reported to have been 6. In relation to this, Aichlmayr [3], however, notes
successfully operated. that the gas turbine was in its infancy in the 1940’s
Extensive testing of the engine is reported, among and that this must be considered when comparing
this 15,000 hours of operation without breakdown the two plants.
and 40,000 consecutive starts without a miss. The A particular feature of the free-piston gas gener-
authors state that superior fuel economy is possible ators, giving them an advantage over conventional
due to the on/off control of the compressor, where gas turbines, was the low temperature of the gas sup-
conventional engine-compressor sets would run idle. plied to the power turbine. This was a result of the
work required to compress the inlet air already hav-
ing been extracted before the gas was fed to the tur-
4.2. Free-piston gas generators bine. This allowed the free-piston unit to be placed
further away from the power turbine without exten-
In the late 1940’s the free-piston gas generator sive heat losses from the hot gases, a feature that was
attracted interest for use in large-scale powerplants, one of the driving forces behind the development of
and later also for vehicle propulsion. Many variants such engines for automotive use.
emerged, and both General Motors and Ford Motor Despite some well documented advantages, the
Company had working prototypes aimed for vehicle free-piston gas generator never became a real com-
propulsion. Larger free-piston gas generators were petitor to either the diesel engine or the gas turbine.
installed in a number of stationary powerplants and Some of the reasons for the limited success of the
in some marine installations. Much experience in free-piston gas generator are:
the operation of free-piston machinery is reported – High development efforts were put in to
in this period. both conventional diesel engines and gas tur-
These engines were typically diesel powered, op- bine technology, giving rapid performance
posed piston engines with mechanical synchronisa- increases.
tion of the two pistons. The synchronisation mech- – The matching of a pulsating-flow compressor
anism did, in addition to evening out possible force with a continuous-flow turbine proved prob-
differences, also drive the accessories such as fuel in- lematic, giving low part-load efficiency and
jection pump, oil pump and water pump. The start- limiting the gas generator to constant power
ing of the engines was, similar to the Junkers air applications [18, 20].
compressor, performed by rapidly introducing com- – High failure rates and low lifetime and avail-
pressed air into the bounce chambers. ability were reported, related to high pressure
These engines were highly supercharged and and temperature operation [20].
operated on higher mean effective pressures than – The engines did not provide large advantages
conventional diesel engines [26]. The most impor- in weight or fuel economy compared to con-
tant advantages of free-piston gas generators were: ventional engines and could not compete with
low fuel quality requirements, vibration-free design, the power to weight ratio of the gas turbine.
good dynamic response and low turbine material re- With the maturing of conventional gas turbine tech-
quirements due to lower inlet temperatures. London nology, development of the free-piston gas generator
and Oppenheim [26] state that the fuel economy of was largely abandoned in the early 1960’s. [3,18,20]
the free-piston gas generator power plant was com-
petitive with conventional diesel engines and 80-
100 % better than conventional gas turbine plants. 4.2.1. Reported free-piston gas generator
The specific weight was somewhere between the applications
low specific weight of the gas turbine and the high SIGMA The model GS-34 free-piston gas genera-
specific weight of the conventional diesel engine. tor manufactured by Société Industrielle Générale
McMullen and Ramsey [28] claim that the higher de Mécanique Appliquée (SIGMA) in France was
free-piston gas generator efficiency compared to the one of the most successful free-piston engines ever
conventional gas turbine was due to the higher com- made. The development of the GS-34 was finished
pression pressures. They state that free-piston en- in 1944, and it was based on Pescaras patents.
gines could achieve an end-of-compression pressure The GS-34 was an opposed piston, diesel powered
of 100 times the atmospheric pressure, whereas in unit aimed for large scale applications such as ma-
the simple type gas turbine this value was around rine and industrial powerplants. The engine had an

10
output power of around 1000 kW and a setup with SIGMA GS-34 gas generator in the mid-1950’s. This
multiple engines in parallel, supplying a single tur- ultimately led to the development of two free-piston
bine was frequently used. Huber [29] reports that in gas generators, the GM-14, which was based on the
October 1957, 90 gas generators with a total run- SIGMA engine, and the GMR 4-4 ’Hyprex’.
ning time of about 250 000 hours were in commercial A marine powerplant based on six GM-14 units
use and more units were on order. was installed in the GTS William Patterson, a
The engines were used in various installations United States Maritime Administration vessel,
such as stationary plants, the largest one being the in the late 1950’s but with disappointing results.
Cherbourg power plant consisting of 8 gas genera- Specht [30] evaluates the powerplant and reports
tors feeding one turbine and giving 6000 kW electric a number of problems during the test period but
power output. As marine powerplants, free-piston also explains how some of them were addressed.
gas generators were installed in 21 minesweepers Problems include air pulsation and noise in the
of the French Navy. Huber reports favourable re- machinery room, piston ring breakage, difficulties
sults with excellent vessel manoeuvrability using in matching gas generators with turbines, and high
gas generators compared to conventional diesel en- maintenance costs. Reported advantages of the pow-
gine propulsion. Other marine installations are also erplant included high manoeuvrability, the possibil-
mentioned, in addition to other applications such ity of rapid change in power level, easy maintenance
as locomotives and the powering of pumps and of the units with low implications on vessel opera-
compressors. tion, and high flexibility in operation due to the 6
Intake air Intake air
gas generators and 2 turbines. The fuel economy is
Air box Fuel injector reported to have been comparable to conventional
technology. Specht concludes that the gas generator
plant is unsuitable for scaling up due to the neces-
sary increase in number of units, increasing labour
costs for maintenance and operation.
The GMR 4-4 ’Hyprex’ was a dual (’siamesed’)
Scavenge pump Exhaust flow to turbine opposed piston, diesel free-piston engine aimed for
Bounce chamber automotive applications, and had power output of
around 185 kW at 2400 rpm. Underwood [22] lists
Fig. 8. Illustration of the SIGMA GS-34 free-piston gas gen-
erator [26]. (Note that the illustration is simplified for clar- the reasons for the chosen siamesed design, which
ity.) include a more compact unit and reduced pressure
oscillations at the turbine inlet. The engine was in-
stalled in a car, the XP-500, for testing, making this
Power output 1138 hp
the first car in the world to be powered by a free-
Weight (approx.) 8000 kg piston engine. Despite optimistic reports from the
Speed 613 rpm GM engineers, the Hyprex could not compete with
conventional engines and was abandoned [18].
Cylinder bore 0.34 m
Bounce chamber bore 0.90 m
Stroke 0.44 m Ford Like General Motors, Ford saw a potential in
Compressor pressure ratio 5.42
the free-piston gas generator for automotive appli-
cations in the mid 1950’s. Frey et al. [31] mention
Engine compression ratio 8.5
the potential advantages of mounting the gas gener-
Piston mass 503 kg ator in the front of the vehicle and the power turbine
Overall thermal efficiency 34.6 % in the rear, thereby eliminating the drive tunnel and
Table 1 achieving better weight distribution (this is also dis-
SIGMA GS-34 design and performance [26]. cussed by Underwood of General Motors [22]).
Frey et al. showed analytical models for the design
of a free-piston gas generator and they described the
General Motors General Motors (GM) gained in- development of a 150 hp, 2400 rpm unit. They re-
terest in the free-piston engine concept after test- port initial development difficulties regarding start-
ing a number of free-piston engines including the ing, breakage of piston rings, injection pump fail-

11
ures and poor combustion, but describe how most of was abandoned before completion. The reasons for
these were addressed by improvements in the design. this are not known.
Noren and Erwin [21] described the development Diesel common rail
of the Ford model 519 free-piston powerplant and Combustion chamber
the implementation of that in a farm tractor. The
authors state that in the tractor, the free-piston
powerplant is more compact, has lower weight and Intake air
provides more freedom in the mounting of the en-
Turbocharger
gine than a comparable conventional diesel engine.
Based on results from the test vehicle they report su-
perior torque characteristics for the free-piston gas
generator unit over a conventional piston engine, il- Intercooler
lustrated in Figure 9. Where the crankshaft engine
torque will decrease at reducing speeds and the en-
gine will finally stall or a gear shift has to be made,
the free-piston unit torque increases at lower speeds.
Other reported advantages of the free-piston unit
are vibration free operation and low noise. Power turbine

Bounce chamber

Turbine engine Charge air compression chamber

Fig. 10. Kværner KLC free-piston gas generator [12].

Drawbar pull

4.3. Hydraulic free-piston engines

Piston engine
Many of the modern approaches in free-piston en-
gine technology are hydraulic engines, in which the
combustion piston is directly coupled to a hydraulic
pump cylinder. A number of projects are ongoing,
both within academia and in industry. Most of these
Engine rpm
units are aimed at off-highway vehicles such as fork-
Fig. 9. Torque characteristics of the free-piston powerplant lift trucks and earth-moving machinery and, conse-
compared to a conventional engine [21]. quently, most developments are of small size (typ-
ically 30-50 kW). Such vehicles typically have high
hydraulic loads from vehicle accessories and propul-
Kværner In a more recent approach, the Norwe- sion, and they are commonly powered by a conven-
gian company Kværner ASA designed an 8-cylinder, tional diesel engine coupled to a hydraulic pump.
8 MW free-piston gas generator together with Hydraulic free-piston engines may apply a hy-
Norwegian University of Science and Technology draulically driven rebound device, using part of the
(NTNU) [12]. The engine is a single-piston gas gen- produced hydraulic energy to return the piston, or
erator, illustrated in Figure 10, and experimental a bounce chamber. A number of prototypes have
results from a one-cylinder test engine is reported. been developed in recent years and experimental re-
The developers derived a control strategy for pis- sults from these are currently being reported. The
ton motion control, controlling TDC, BDC and syn- reports show generally good fuel economy and very
chronisation of the cylinders in addition to supervi- good performance at part load.
sory control objectives of load and combustion opti-
misation [32]. This engine is the only reported mod- 4.3.1. Reported hydraulic free-piston engine
ern attempt of building a free-piston gas generator. applications
However, through personal communication with the Toyohashi University Researchers at Toyohashi
developers the authors have learnt that this project University of Technology in Japan have been doing

12
research in the field of hydraulic free-piston engines
for more than 20 years. They have reported experi-
mental results from both single piston [33] and op-
posed piston [11] diesel powered free-piston engines.
The latter is the latest published work, with re-
ported engine hydraulic thermal efficiency of 31 % 2 .
The authors state that this value stays practically
constant even with very low hydraulic power output.
The fuel injection is hydraulically actuated and the
fuel is injected very early in the compression process
to achieve a combustion process similar to that of a
homogenous charge compression ignition engine.
Hibi and Ito [11] further present an alternative pis-
(a) The working principle of the Innas Free-Piston Engine.
ton synchronisation method for the opposed piston
engine, eliminating the traditional mechanical link-
age. The pistons in the hydraulic free-piston engine
are synchronised by using a combination of the elec-
tronically controlled hydraulic rebound device and
a mechanical spring. A small synchronisation error
is reported, but this is not large enough to affect the
performance of the engine.

Innas The Dutch company Innas BV is among the

(b) Photograph of the engine.
research leaders within free-piston technology today.
They have developed a single piston, diesel powered, Fig. 11. The Innas Free-Piston Engine (figures courtesy of
hydraulic free-piston engine, intended as an alter- Innas BV; reprinted with permission).
native to conventional engine and hydraulic pump
systems in off-highway vehicles [13]. The implemen- den report the development of a hydraulic free-
tation of the engine in a fork lift truck is also de- piston engine with a patented hydraulic control
scribed [34]. The developers claim that reduced ex- system [6, 35]. The unit is a single piston engine
haust emissions and lower fuel consumption can be similar to the Innas Free-Piston Engine, and the en-
achieved with the engine, due to a mechanically less gine illustrated in Figure 1. Unlike the Innas engine,
complex design and high operational flexibility. it is controlled with on/off control. The developers
The Innas Free-Piston Engine engine has 17 kW present the implementation of the engine in a hy-
power output, and indicated efficiencies of around draulic circuit and report a hydraulic efficiency of
50 % are reported [14]. The construction of the en- above 30 %.
gine is shown in Figure 11, and it utilises a complex
hydraulic control system. The engine uses the pulse Tampere University Researchers at Tampere Uni-
pause modulation control principle, described ear- versity of Technology, Finland, describe the design
lier in this text. Fuel consumption is reported to be and performance of a dual piston hydraulic free-
around 20 % lower than a conventional engine-pump piston engine prototype, illustrated in Figure 2 [9].
unit and at low loads even 50 % lower [13]. The engine is diesel powered, utilising electronic con-
Innas is currently also involved in a free-piston trol with a common rail injection system. Starting
engine generator project, under a European Union is done with stored hydraulic energy, using the hy-
programme. draulic pump to drive the piston.
Test results from the first test engine are de-
scribed, and show a piston motion different from
Technische Universität Dresden Researchers at
that of conventional engines and piston acceleration
the German university Technische Universität Dres-
peak values of more than double than those of com-
2 For comparison: a conventional diesel engine with fuel ef-
parable crankshaft engines. In comparison to con-
ficiency of 35 % coupled to a hydraulic pump with efficiency ventional engine piston motion, it is observed that
85 % would give a total (’hydraulic’) efficiency of 30 %. maximum piston velocity is lower for the free-piston

13
engine with equal mean piston speeds. The develop- This group of researchers is the most successful
ers state that the relative long periods of the stroke within academia regarding free-piston engine gener-
with almost constant piston velocity and the short ator research. It is one of very few that have reported
turn times at the dead centres benefit the hydraulic the successful development of a running prototype.
pump circuit. Total efficiency of 20 % was reported.
Intake port Coil Piston
The developers report cycle-to-cycle variation in
stroke for each cylinder of ±1 %, giving a variation in
compression pressure of around ±15 %. Combustion
pressures varying between 77-88 bar are reported.
The authors state that the results from the initial
tests were satisfactory as proof-of-concept for the Exhaust port Permanent magnets

hydraulic dual piston engine but that the control is-

Fig. 12. Illustration of the free-piston engine generator pro-
sues should be adressed. Recent publications inves- totype developed at University of West Virginia [38].
tigating engine control issues include Tikkanen and
Vilenius [36].
Sandia National Laboratories Van Blarigan [19]
presents the design of a dual piston free-piston en-
4.4. Free-piston engine generators
gine generator with 40 kW electric power output.
The engine employs homogeneous charge compres-
The free-piston engine generator consists of a free- sion ignition (HCCI) and is aimed to operate on
piston engine coupled to a linear electric machine. a variety of hydrogen-containing fuels. The HCCI
Such technology is currently being explored by a combustion is to achieve faster combustion than
number of research groups worldwide. The high effi- that in SI or CI engines, and to burn lean mix-
ciencies of electrical machinery, along with flexibility tures at high compression ratios and thereby re-
and controllability, make this an interesting concept. duce NOx emissions formation. Test results from
A driving force behind the interest in free-piston en- a compression-expansion machine are presented,
gine generators is the automotive industry’s increas- showing close to constant volume combustion with
ing interest in hybrid-electric vehicle technology. hydrogen, bio-gas and ammonia at equivalence ra-
Free-piston engine generator designs of both sin- tios of around 0.3.
gle piston and dual piston types have been reported. Van Blarigan states that operation on lean mix-
A bounce chamber may be applied in the single pis- tures and with low mean effective pressures is possi-
ton engine, but the use of the electric machine as ble without efficiency penalties due to the low fric-
rebound device has also been proposed. Implemen- tional losses in the free-piston engine.
tation of appropriate power electronics may allow
the use of the electric machine in motoring mode to
aid engine control and for starting. KTH, Stockholm A research group from Royal In-
stitute of Technology (KTH), Stockholm, Sweden,
has published a number of articles evaluating differ-
4.4.1. Reported free-piston engine generator ent electrical machine possibilities for a free-piston
applications engine generator [41, 42]. They state that finding
West Virginia University Researchers at Univer- an electrical machine fulfilling their requirements
sity of West Virginia describe the development of is a challenging task but find that the permanent
a spark ignited dual piston engine-generator [37]. magnet, transverse-flux machine is the most promis-
They have thoroughly documented their work and ing candidate. The transverse-flux machine benefits
findings in a number of publications, both concern- from a low translator mass compared to other per-
ing linear alternator design, design and operation manent magnet configurations but suffers from a
of the combustion engine and analysis of the com- low power factor and high manufacturing costs. The
bined system [10, 37–40]. An engine prototype is authors state that all the evaluated machines have
reported to have achieved 316 W power output at satisfactory efficiency but that none of them come
23.1 Hz, with 36.5 mm bore and 50 mm maximum close to achieving the specific power requirements.
stroke. High cycle-to-cycle variations are reported, Based on their initial findings, the transverse-flux
particularly at low loads. machine is further investigated and the development

14
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16