The Free Piston Engine | Shell Historical Film Archive

The free piston engine combines those of the two stroke diesel and the gas turbine. This documentary, from 1960, recalls the basic principles of the two-stroke engine and the gas turbine and then traces the development of the free piston engine from these two as a machine for producing hot, compressed gas. Witness how this gas propels the turbine blades, ultimately producing efficient and groundbreaking power
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#Shell #ShellFilmUnit #HistoricFilmArchive #Documentary #History #Engine #Engineering #FreePistonEngine #TwoStroke #2Stroke #GasTurbine #Diesel #DieselEngine #60s
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Shell’s surprising and captivating Historic Film Archive dates from 1934 and covers a rich mix of topics from technology, science and engineering to craftsmanship, motorsport and travelogue.
The Shell Film Unit, responsible for the content, was a highly celebrated part of Britain’s Documentary Movement. Key figures from that movement were involved, including: Jack Beddington, Edgar Anstey, Arthur Elton, John Grierson, Kay Mander, Stuart Legg and Douglas Gordon.
Its films were wide reaching, often screened in cinemas and through the non-theatric film distribution circuit, which brought film to educational establishments and organisations across the UK. While many films covered technological themes related to Shell’s activities, others were entirely unrelated and served purely to educate the general public.
As Shell innovated in technologies that would provide oil and gas products for the world, the Shell Film Unit also innovated in the technological advancement of film, incorporating graphics and different forms of animation as early as the 1930s.
During WW2 the Shell Film Unit was co-opted into war effort, making films for the Ministry of Information’s film division. Its prowess in technological documentary suited the MoI’s need for technical training films.
While the name and the medium has changed many times over the years, the documentary tradition lives on at Shell. Its contemporary film team is part of Shell’s multi-disciplinary in-house agency, Creative Solutions. It continues making award-winning factual content that informs and educates the public, now usually released on social media platforms.

[@shell]

If you enjoyed this video, please check out the full 'Shell Film Unit - Historic Archive' playlist, where you'll find lots more gems! kzbin.info/aero/PLEPIVJVCFQH2hoYONdHiQlVrvYQ-k4Xay

[@76629online]

I kept waiting for the pink panther to show up.

[@lucashinch]

Exactly! Narrated by "Jacques Clouseau".

[@pazsion]

ery similar art style and fluidity as the pink panther series... i would bet it is the same animation teams

[@larryscott3982]

⁠@@lucashinch No, Mel Blanc.

[@DavidRachlinMLIS]

I'm expecting him to be joined by The Peanuts.

[@user-es5mw6rz5r]

Instead a pink car

[@brianb-p6586]

The connecting rods dropping at 3:01, complete with sound effects, are a priceless animation feature.

[@jayderwin1]

I love these Shell mini documentaries

[@larryscott3982]

I had to Google this. At the beginning I thought this was only a concept engine. However there’s still new designs and applications of this engine today. Wow

[@jijzer3284]

Never seen one

[@Danger_mouse]

An internal combustion external turbine engine... What a crazy bit of design work.

[@brianb-p6586]

It's not the only one. There were British projects with reciprocating piston engines combined with turbines, such as the two Napier Nomad designs. There are still turbocompound diesel engines for heavy trucks, which use a turbine to provide a bit more power output by recovering exhaust energy.

[@Danger_mouse]

@@brianb-p6586 What trucks are using turbine recovery? I'm not Aware of any.

[@brianb-p6586]

@Danger_mouse currently Volvo offers turbocompounding in the D13TC engine. Cummins has offered it as an add-on to many engines, but as a modification. It was available as a factory feature on the Detroit Diesel DD15 for trucks, but may not be currently - I didn't check. Apparently Scania has also offered turbocompounding. From both Volvo and Detroit Diesel, it adds about 5% to 6% to the engine power output for the same fuel flow.

[@Danger_mouse]

@@brianb-p6586 OK, have never seen it used before. Not something we have I Australia. I've worked with several DD engines in off highway applications. Obviously we see numerous compound turbo charger set ups (my own Nissan Navara has them) but wasn't aware of the turbine system.

[@brianb-p6586]

@@Danger_mouse the common use of compound turbochargers certainly makes it more difficult to find information about turbocompound engines. The hardware looks about the same, except for an extra mechanical connection and a turbine without a mated compressor, so I'm sure there are drivers and even mechanics that have seen these systems and not realized it. I don't know how common they are are, although at one point Volvo made the D13TC standard equipment on the VNL (the main long-haul tractor model for North America).

[@turboslag]

That was utterly fascinating, I'd heard of free piston engines but never knew how they worked. And it solved a mystery me! That was how the Junkers air compressor worked on German U boats! I'd seen a couple of YT vids on them in operation, but could never understand how they worked, now I do😊

[@olsmokey]

0:45 de Havilland Comet. Nice to see an iconic aircraft here.

[@herzogsbuick]

i don't know what's better: how clever the engine's designed, or the mindblowing music and animation. but why choose?!

[@halfnelson6115]

At the beginning, the man said he was worried about "complexity." 😂

[@kellyb.mcdonald1863]

Music is a passport to being happy!!! I Love The Music!!! and The Boss Voice, and old coined phases, etc. Have a Beautiful Day!!!

[@timtim8468]

Free piston engines were made by Junkers in the mid 20s. They made opposing position engines too. Some are on display at the museum in Dessau, at the old runway. Junkers also made airplanes, including the first all metal airplane.

[@carlnapp4412]

Nicht zu vergessen die vorzüglichen Otto-Flugmotoren.

[@NionXenion-gh7rf]

Polzunov made them in 1700's.

[@anthonyxuereb792]

Junkers made the jet engines for the wonder plane of WWII, Me-262

[@nemo6686]

Funky graphics: would that be the same Peter Arthy on the credits that animated The Beatles' Yellow Submarine? Nice engine too; can't believe I'd never heard of it before.

[@soldiersvejk2053]

Didn’t expect such high quality educational video from an oil company. Subscribed!

[@jollins]

Loving the music on this

[@K-FOREST_Original]

Good evening! it's Tuesday. Korea/Seoul is in the middle of the third cold wave (snow and cold). I Wishing you good health and good things for the rest of the week. And always cheering for your beautiful/fascinating activities. ^^

[@WilsonPendarvis-tn3wm]

Thank you for your kind thoughts and warm wishes, and the best to you as well

[@gabrielcoelho2346]

Take care not to get sick mate, 10 degrees centigrade is enough for me to start oozing snot

[@brianb-p6586]

The TV Morar featured at 12:00 only ran with the free-piston gasifiers and turbine for a few years; they were replaced with a diesel engine about 1967.

[@brianb-p6586]

While a turboshaft engine is described at 2:22 as having a single rotary part, in fact practical turboshaft engines have at least two shafts (one with the compressor and first turbine stage; the other with the power turbine stage), and often three. There are also various ancillary components, normally run through critical high-speed gearboxes... and that was true even in 1960. The compressor and first turbine stage together are the gas generator, and in this case the free-piston machine directly replaces the conventional gas generator.

[@88SC]

I also wondered for years how they worked. Pratt and Whitney experimented with a toroidal free piston engine. Only have seen one picture of it.

[@ethan5305]

This engine concept is actually making a resurgence! but in a different way. Instead of producing thermal energy for a turbine, the linear motion can generate electricity. A generator is simply magnetics passing by a coil, this can happen via rotation or reciprocation. So you could make a very compact but powerful engine for a hybrid car with high reliability since there can be theoretically as few as one moving parts.

[@vylbird8014]

It's a nice idea, and not a new one - Tesla patented a steam-driven electrical generator based on the same idea. But getting good efficiency from it is another matter. You can't optimise the magnetic path nearly so well as you can in a generator, and you're limited to one pole so it'd have to operate at stupidly high speeds to get a decent power output.

[@alexlo7708]

The reciprocal movement of the heavy cylinders itself created loss.

[@trygvetveit4747]

NOx?

[@vylbird8014]

@@alexlo7708And that's before you strap the piston to a big heavy copper wire coil. Plus you'd have to run the engine at... what? 6000 RPM absolute minimum, I'd guess? Your car engine will do that no problem, but that's with very small pistons. Not that it can't be done. I can see ways. But the engineering problems are severe enough that it's more practical just to use a crankshaft and generator.

[@NionXenion-gh7rf]

​@@trygvetveit4747NOy

[@jacketrussell]

Man, that music was some crazy hepcat stuff!

[@crosshairs007]

The wikipedia article on this says that the main challenge for this desgin is 'engine control' but doesn't go into specifics, can anyone expand on that a bit? What about control of the engine is hard? Does it have trouble with dieseling or something?

[@brianb-p6586]

The air springs ("cushions") must have the right stiffness to return the pistons to the right position, and that depends on the power level. The result is that the operator likely had to add or remove air from the air spring cylinders to keep it running properly.

[@crosshairs007]

@@brianb-p6586 Oh, so throttling up requires adding more air to the 'springs' because the pistons are being pushed harder? That makes sense.

[@alexlo7708]

They were replaced by a combined cycle , gas-steam turbine later.

[@brianb-p6586]

The mechanism shown at 8:43 which synchronizes the pistons and drives the fuel injection pump may be light, but it is as complex as two crankshafts. In a modern engine there is no needed for mechanical fuel injection pump drive, and synchronization can be done by a computer controlling the valves which are operated manually for the start cycle, so this mechanism would not be included.

[@carteradams1079]

Shell, after seeing Thunderhead289 adapt a Honda 190 carburetor to a v8, how much can you squeeze if you put a weed eater carburetor on a Honda Civic?

[@saiello2061]

We now used gas powered turbines to generate our electricity. Must be because the free piston concept turned out to be less efficient, otherwise they'd still be around.

[@vylbird8014]

The gas turbines we use today are practical because of advances in materials and in high-precision manufacture of the elaborately shaped turbine blades. That's a hard enough task even today, but back then it was right on the edge of what could be manufactured making gas turbine engines very expensive and very hard to maintain.

[@brianb-p6586]

Gas turbine engine efficiency is described at 2:10 as "low", and by today's standards the gas turbines of 1960 were indeed not efficient. Since then pressure ratios and combustion temperatures have been increased and large gas turbine efficiency is good compared to other engine types. Recuperation - which is not used in aircraft due to weight nd bulk - also improves gas turbine engine efficiency.

[@badhairday462]

I Love the Music 😂

[@anthonyxuereb792]

Thanks, I'll look up the French Diesel. Imagine the built- in redundancy with multiple units as shown.

[@therocinante3443]

That music was incredible. It was so much better than it had any right to be.

[@uTube486]

I wonder why they are no longer around.

[@vylbird8014]

Because their efficiency may have been impressive when the film was made, but it didn't stay that way. Gas turbine engines advanced rapidly with refinements in materials, and soon achieved performance and reliability that far surpassed free piston gasifiers.

[@princeoftheblues]

The missing element is now easier with neodymium magnets: coils positioned to take power directly from magnets mounted in the pistons.

[@jesseharriott4253]

So imagine your engine runs your turbo and your turbo shaft runs your clutch and transmission. Super odd lol

[@douro20]

Junkers back in the 1940s developed a free-piston diesel engine air compressor. It had a single piston and an external rod which operated the injection pump which could also be used to move the piston during the starting procedure. A version with a two-stage compressor was made for powering heavy air tools and a four-stage compressor was used in submarines- this four-stage version is still being produced in China for the same purpose.

[@yakacm]

Simplicity itself, lol. I take it that fact that no one has heard of this means it didn't work in practice?

[@spuddy345]

The Norwegians used it on a submarine but I have no idea how successful it was.

[@trygvetveit4747]

LOL Its the sterling engine sweden use in their Uboats who "sank" one of USs Air craft carriers in early 2012? And its almost 99 percent efficient... Makes you wonder why its not for you and me to buy? ;) Also i think Our Norwegian Navy new u boats also will use this consept @@spuddy345

[@vylbird8014]

It worked just fine. But that gas turbine engine the video dismisses early on because of the manufacturing difficulty and poor reliability? Yeah, those problems were solved by advances in materials and tooling. That rendered these gasifier engines obsolete, as the gas turbine could provide a lot more power and efficiency.

[@brianb-p6586]

You haven't heard of this, but millions of us have. It's not secret, just obscure. It fell out of use because it wasn't as practical at the time as other designs. Other uses of free piston engines can work.

[@brianb-p6586]

No heat engine is 99% efficient,@@trygvetveit4747 . The Kockums 75 kW Stirling-engine generator sets used in Saab's Gotland-class submarines and a few others are no exception; they are relatively efficient, but that means perhaps 50%. Also, the Kockums Stirling engines are not free-piston designs, so they are irrelevant to this discussion.

[@nigelmitchell351]

Did the gentleman narrating this go on to run a hotel in Torquay ?

[@MisterHolaMan]

they could also add coils and magnets to make the oscillating pistons give electricity

[@vylbird8014]

Someone above you in the discussion suggested it. On paper, yes - but in practice there are some serious engineering challenges to that approach. Mostly that the pistons just don't move anywhere near fast enough.

[@srfurley]

@@vylbird8014 Generate at low frequency, then add a rectifier reeding a three phase inverter at whatever frequency you want?

[@vylbird8014]

@@srfurley That's not the problem. It's that the induced EMF is proportional to the rate of change of magnetic flux. You have to get that rate up really high in order to get enough voltage to generate a lot of electrical output, or to generate anything efficiently. For that you need either really fast movement, or a design with a lot of poles - that's why a typical power-station alternator runs at sixty revolutions per second. Fine for a small engine, they can hit that speed easily enough - but not for the big one you want to make lots of electrical power. You're going to be limited to a few kilowatts. It's not that it can't be done. It's just that by the time you account for all the engineering issues, it's easier to just use a crankshaft.

[@brianb-p6586]

It's not just on paper,@@vylbird8014 . There are working linear engines driving linear generators. Libertine sells the generators commercially, and they are used in the "Karno" linear generator set from Nikola Motor. The Karno design runs at 25 Hz (1500 cycles per minute).

[@brianb-p6586]

@@vylbird8014 generators in power stations are unlikely to run as fast as 3600 RPM. To produce 60 Hz power, they turn 3600 RPM with two-pole generator (1 pole pair) 1800 RPM with four-pole generator (2 pole pairs) 1200 RPM with six-pole generator (3 pole pairs) 900 RPM with eight-pole generator (4 pole pairs) 720 RPM with ten-pole generator (5 pole pairs) 600 RPM with twelve-pole generator (6 pole pairs) 514 RPM with fourteen-pole generator (7 pole pairs) etc 3600 RPM is typical for very small generator sets, such as hand-portable gasoline units 1800 RPM is typical for industrial engine-driven generators and utility hydroelectric and wind-powered generation 1200 RPM is found in marine diesel-electric propulsion In a quick search for large diesel generator sets I found an example from Kawasaki using a Kawasaki-MAN 18V48/60 engine producing 18 MW at 514 RPM. A linear generator can use multiple pole sets to provide the same multiplication of frequency as in rotating generators, but in most applications synchronous operation isn't important anyway - output is just rectified to DC.

[@paradiseisland69]

There are concept where you just use an opet piston engine to move an an copper cylinder trough a copper wire coil to produce electricity Wich can run an electric engine so it's an hybrid car.

[@WilsonPendarvis-tn3wm]

Fascinating… Spock

[@wallacegrommet3479]

Beatnik music

[@vicscott7872]

MV Morar ???

[@abilalpk]

I was expecting Charlie Chaplin, Modern Times.

[@douro20]

Too bad none of these SIGMA free piston gas generators exist anymore- at least that I know of.

[@hasanakdag6447]

😊❤❤❤😊

[@TheJustinJ]

Here's a novel concept. Use rocks. Radioactive rocks.

[@Nick-ye5kk]

The graphics department seem somewhat over enthusiastic today.

[@nicolasbecerramondaca6004]

:)

[@patrickshannon4854]

I thought the video was very good. The music made my teeth hurt.

[@jannejohansson3383]

Fun engine, but how good it was in reality? I don't have ever seen these in use. When heat is lost before turbine, volume of gasses and air going in turbine is low too. Maybe overall productivity is so poor that doesn't change minds of engineering this thing. Jet motor have less moving parts, not oscilatin ones and it's light too. If this is the best engine, why they don't put it to airplanes? It's so light, that train is obviously happy with it. It's still working, so I cannot criticised more.

[@Deshbhakt-hx9du]

❤😂🎉🎉😂😂😂❤❤😂🎉🎉😂❤❤😂🎉🎉😂❤❤😂🎉🎉

[@BIBIWCICC]

SHELL - World pollution world problems.

[@nigelpennick1974]

Another 'great British invention' of that era that was impractical. So much money was spent on engineering that didn't work.

[@stuartburton1167]

What has Britain got to do with the free piston engine. It was invented by an Argentinian and developed in Switzerland, Germany and Italy.

[@glike2]

Will this still have any utility with zero CO2 emissions technologies? Shell has a lot of responsibility in the 3-4 decades delays in zero emissions technology that really just needed investment incentives to overcome incumbents, and now is cheaper than fossil fuel power

[@NullHand]

NASA has adapted the free piston concept to the Stirling Hot Air engine. Uses linear alternators for electric power extraction and any high grade heat source (solar, radiologic). They have one that just completed 14 years of continuous operation, no maintenance. Their usage is long duration-deep space, where combustion just isn't a thing anymore.

[@samuellourenco1050]

And why this would ever fit the discussion? Lithium based technologies are far more damaging to the environment, from mining to disposal. I would rather prefer an engine that just produces CO2 that can be recycled, as the engine itself.

[@freds7988]

The level of technology we have reached to let you write your comments, readable by the whole world is not the result of the candle light, little birds and animal traction .

[@captainboing]

The awful music... Every informational film from this era did the same

[@tammmacdonald7723]

The music is awful.