Liquid-Piston Steam Engine

Abstract

A liquid-piston steam engine is suitable for waste heat recovery from automobile exhaust gas since it has high efficiency at low temperature region and high reliability at high temperature. In this work, heat loss from heating section inlet is investigated and new structure is proposed to reduce this heat loss. In addition, the effect of coolant temperature on thermal efficiency is investigated and an opposite trend of conventional thermal engines is found. Thermal efficiency of 8.8% at heating temperature of 270˚C, cooling temperature of 90˚C and operation frequency of 3Hz is achieved with the improved liquid-piston steam engine.