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Development of Free Piston Engine Linear 2014-01-1203

Generator System Part 1 - Investigation of Published 04/01/2014

Fundamental Characteristics
Hidemasa Kosaka, Tomoyuki Akita, Kazunari Moriya, Shigeaki Goto, Yoshihiro Hotta,
Takaji Umeno, and Kiyomi Nakakita
Toyota Central R&D Labs Inc.

CITATION: Kosaka, H., Akita, T., Moriya, K., Goto, S. et al., "Development of Free Piston Engine Linear Generator System
Part 1 - Investigation of Fundamental Characteristics," SAE Technical Paper 2014-01-1203, 2014, doi:10.4271/2014-01-
1203.
Copyright © 2014 SAE International

Abstract Introduction
Free Piston Engine Linear Generator (FPEG) with features of The free Piston Engine was originally developed by Pescara
thin and compact build, high efficiency and high fuel flexibility is [1] in 1928. The most common applications were free piston air
developed. The FPEG consists of a two-stroke combustion compressor [2, 3, 4] at that time. In the past decades, many
chamber, a linear generator and a gas spring chamber. The researchers combined Free Piston Engines with Linear
key technologies to realize stable continuous operation are Generator (i.e. FPEG), to create completely innovative
lubricating, cooling, and control logic. energy-conversion devices [5, 6, 7]. Following factors lead to a
number of studies of FPEG concept:
This paper proposes the original structure of the FPEG for
enabling stable continuous operation. The main feature is a 1. High thermal efficiency: The piston stroke and thus the
hollow circular step-shaped piston. The smaller-diameter side compression ratio can be controlled through generating load
of the piston constitutes the combustion chamber, and the [8]. This allows to realize multi-fuel flexibility [9] or practical
larger-diameter side constitutes the gas spring chamber. The application of PCCI (Premixed Charge Compression
larger cross-sectional area of the gas spring chamber leads to Ignition) combustion [9, 10].
lower compression temperature of the gas spring chamber and 2. Low friction: There are a few moving parts in FPEG: piston
consequently decreased heat loss. In addition, an oil cooling and exhaust valves. And also, the piston side force is
passage is built in the column stay, which ensures the enough reduced due to linear motion of the piston.
cooling ability of the piston. 3. Low vibration: Due to the elimination of the mechanical
power output, the associated fluctuating forces and
To assess the performance of the proposed structure, one- moments are greatly reduced on the chassis. In addition, the
dimensional cycle simulation was developed. In this twin opposed pair of FPEG can cancel out the vibration.
simulations, spark ignition combustion (SI) and premixed
charged compression ignition combustion (PCCI) were Based on the above-mentioned advantages, a number of
assessed. Output power of 10kW was obtained with both SI papers about FPEG have been published [11, 12, 13, 14, 15,
and PCCI combustion cases. In addition, high thermal 16]. The papers show that there are mainly two types of FPEG
efficiency of 42% was realized in the PCCI combustion case. structure. One is a structure with two opposed combustion
chambers as shown in Fig. 1, and the other with one
As an experimental study, a FPEG prototype with a two-stroke combustion chamber and one gas spring chamber as shown in
SI combustion system was constructed. Stable operation of the Fig. 2. However, in almost all the cases, characteristics of
prototype was achieved. Then the unique piston motion and its FPEG motion were investigated only by numerical simulation,
effect on combustion and power generation in the FPEG and thus whether or not the characteristics are really attained
prototype were experimentally analyzed. was not verified through experiments because in any case the
FPEG did not have a concrete cooling and lubricating system.
In addition, the reliable control mechanism which enables
stable firing operation remains to be established.
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Recently, Kock [Link] proposed a gas spring chamber type a column stay located inside the hollow piston, a cooling
FPEG, and achieved stable operation experimentally [9]. oil passage can be constructed in the column stay, which
However, this FPEG is simply consisted of three individual ensures cooling the piston. In addition, the inner periphery of
units such as a combustion chamber, a linear generator and a the hollow piston serves as a sliding surface on the column
gas spring chamber connected by rods in series. Thus, the stay, which enables to surely keep the small clearance
realistic configuration suited for vehicle installation and for between the magnet and the coil to improve generating
continuous operation with enough cooling and lubricant efficiency.
capability is not considered. 3. The magnet is set far from the piston top, that is, the heat
conduction path from the combustion-chamber-side piston
Therefore, in this study, a compact and thin FPEG structure top to this magnet is sufficiently long, which prevent the
with a cooling and lubricating system enabling continuous magnet from degaussing by heating.
operation was firstly designed. Then, the characteristics of
FPEG motion were precisely investigated via both numerical
simulations and experiments. As a result, unique piston motion
and its effect on combustion and power generation have been
clarified. This paper focuses on the FPEG structure, the piston
motion, and the features of combustion and generation.

Figure 3. FPEG with “W-Shape” piston

Simulation Analysis of FPEG

Figure 1. FPEG with combustion chamber at both ends Calculation Conditions

In order to investigate a unique piston motion and assess the
performance of the proposed structure, one-dimensional cycle
simulation was developed. The target output power of FPEG
was set to 20kW by a pair of two units, which enables B/C
segment vehicle (3750∼4200mm-long vehicles) to cruise at the
speed of 120 km/h. In this paper, the subject of the
investigation is one FPEG unit.
Figure 2. FPEG with combustion chamber and gas spring chamber at
each end The forces acting on the moving piston were pressure of two
cylinders and the magnetic force. According to Newton's
second law, the free piston's acceleration is governed by the
FPEG Structure and Features equation of motion (1).
The FPEG in Fig. 3 is based on a double piston system. At one
end of the piston, there is the combustion chamber. The
burned gas is scavenged out through exhaust valves mounted
in the cylinder head of the combustion chamber, and the fresh (1)
air brought through scavenging port at side wall of the cylinder
liner. An adjustable gas spring chamber is built into the end
opposite of the combustion chamber. A part of the kinetic
energy of the piston stores in the air spring and extracted on (2)
the return stroke to the combustion chamber side. The mover
is mounted at outer periphery of the piston. The mover and the Where, m is mass of the piston, Pcomb is pressure of the
stator together compose the linear generator. The main feature combustion chamber, Pair is pressure of the gas spring
is a stepped piston shape, called “W-Shape” in this study. The chamber, Acomb is piston surface area facing the combustion
smaller-diameter side of the piston constitutes the combustion chamber, Aair is piston surface area facing the gas spring
chamber, and the larger-diameter side constitutes the gas chamber, and Fmag is a braking force of the generator. Here, c
spring chamber. The “W-shape” piston has the following is the product of the generating load divided by the piston
advantages; speed. It is defined as “Generating load coefficient”. The free
piston is free from side forces due to without any restriction of
1. The lower pressure can realize the required spring rate of crank mechanism so that the friction force is considered to be
the gas spring because of the larger piston surface area of much smaller compared to the magnetic force. Therefore, we
the gas spring chamber side, which enables to decrease assumed that the friction force is neglected in this simulation.
heat loss from the gas spring chamber due to the lowered
compression temperature.
2. Since the piston has a hollow structure and moves along
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In this simulation analysis, two cases of spark ignition (SI) and

premixed charge compression ignition (PCCI) combustion were
both assessed. The reason why two cases are assessed is as
follows. In a PCCI combustion case, high thermal efficiency is
expected due to the features of low heat loss and high degree
of constant volume, whereas difficulty in controlling ignition
timing is concerned. On the other hand, in a SI combustion
case, ignition timing must be somewhat controlled by adjusting Figure 4. Overview of linear generator
spark timing in spite of the relatively lower thermal efficiency.
Thus, in this study, a FPEG system with SI combustion is first The main geometric parameters of free piston engine used in
investigated and then another system with PCCI combustion is this simulation are listed in Table 4. The dimensions were set to
planned to be examined. suit required generating output, 10kW. Standard stroke in Table
4 means initial stroke corresponding to compression ratio of
Tables 1 and 2 indicate main models used to evaluate the 15.8 in the combustion chamber and compression ratio of 4.0
combustion process for PCCI and SI combustion, respectively. in the gas spring chamber, respectively. The actual
As shown in Table 1, in PCCI combustion case, the Multi-step compression ratio in FPEG is determined by the interaction of
Shell model [17] was used to model ignition until the gas electro-magnetic force of the linear generator and gas
temperature exceeds 1000K. Above 1000K, a simplified pressures in both the combustion chamber and the gas spring
version of the laminar-turbulence characteristic time chambers. The scavenging ports fully open when the piston
combustion model [18] is used. As shown in Table 2, arrives at gas-spring-chamber-side TDC of the initial stroke.
combustion rate in SI combustion case was estimated by
originally developed UniDES-G model [19], in which Table 4. Specifications of free piston engine
combustion rate is estimated by averaged temperature,
pressure, equivalence ratio in the combustion chamber at
previous cycle and also map data of in-cylinder turbulence
histories calculated in advance. For the process of gas
exchange, it is assumed that in-cylinder burnt gas is
immediately exchanged for fresh intake gas when the
scavenging ports open and are connected with the combustion
Results and Discussions in PCCI Combustion
chamber. Case
Figure 5 shows the operational region as a function of the
Table 1. Calculation model for PCCI quantity of injected fuel amount and generating load coefficient
derived from formula (2). It should be noted that the FPEG can
have some problems such as misfire and excessive
combustion due to the lack of crank mechanism. As shown in
the region (a) of Fig. 5, if the input energy, that is, injected fuel
amount, is not enough for the specified generating load
Table 2. Calculation model for SI coefficient, the actual stroke length decreases. As a result,
misfiring occurs and the piston velocity finally reduces to zero,
which means that the FPEG becomes inoperative. On the
other hand, if the input energy is excessive for the specified
generating coefficient corresponding to the region (b) of Fig. 5,
To produce generating efficiency map used in this simulation, a the oscillation amplitude is increased, which causes excessive
commercial magnetic field analysis software, JMAG, was used. compression ratio and unacceptable high pressure of the
The base parameters for the calculation with JMAG are listed combustion chamber. In addition, if both the input energy and
in Table 3. As illustrated in Fig. 4, the linear generator is a the generating load coefficient are excessive corresponding to
3-phase permanent magnet brushless generator, with the the region (c) of Fig. 5, the unacceptable generating load is
stationary coil (3-phase, Y-connected, 6-coil), moving magnet occurred. Consequently, continuous and stable operation is
(4-pole permanent magnet) and the iron-cored stator. realized in the region (d) in Fig. 5.

Table 3. Specifications of Linear Generator As an example of the steady-state operational point clarified in
Fig. 5, the result obtained under the operating condition as
listed in Table 5 is shown. Figure 6 shows the comparison of
the piston position between the FPEG and a conventional
reciprocating 2-stroke engine with a crank mechanism, where
both engines have the same stroke, compression ratio and
piston frequency as listed in Table 5. In FPEG without any
crank mechanism, the piston position is not defined with crank
angle so that the piston position is defined with the distance
from the middle point of standard stroke in this study. Also, the
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sign of piston position is defined as positive for the combustion-

chamber side and negative for the gas-spring -chamber side,
respectively. In addition, it should be noted that in this study,
ignition timing is prescribed with the piston position instead of
crank angle.

From Fig. 6, the unique piston motion of FPEG is obvious.

Compared with the conventional engine, the free piston
decelerates in compression stroke whereas it accelerates more
quickly in expansion stroke, especially just after top dead Figure 6. Piston position of Free-piston engine and Crank engine
center (TDC). The highly deceleration and acceleration of
FPEG make the piston stay in only shorter time around TDC
than a conventional engine. This can become worse due to
acceleration in expansion stroke. On the other hand, it can be
effective to reduce high-temperature gas retention time and
thus heat loss from the combustion chamber wall. In addition,
practical application of PCCI combustion leads to further
improve thermal efficiency. It is suggested that the FPEG has
lots of advantages based on the unique dynamic
Figure 7. Pressure of combustion chamber
characteristics.

Figures 7 and 8 indicate the in-cylinder pressures of the

combustion chamber and the gas spring chamber under
continuous operation. Figure 9 shows gas temperature history
in the gas spring chamber. From the comparison between Fig.7
and Fig.8, the sufficiently lower pressure of the gas spring
chamber is realized because of the larger sectional area of the
gas-spring-chamber-side piston, which enables to decrease
Figure 8. Pressure of gas spring chamber
heat loss from the gas spring chamber. Additionally, the lower
pressure leads to lower compression temperature under the
reaction temperature of cool flame as shown in Fig 9, which
prevents the mist of lubricant oil from igniting in the gas spring
chamber.

Figure 9. Temperature of gas spring chamber

Results and Discussions in SI Combustion

Case
An analysis in SI combustion case was conducted in the similar
way to that in PCCI combustion case, especially focusing on
Figure 5. Operational area of FPEG the effect of ignition position (that is, ignition timing prescribed
Table 5. Calculation conditions
with piston position as described in the previous chapter) on
combustion and generation.

Figure 10 shows the actual compression ratio as a function of

the ignition position and the generating load coefficient with the
constant amount of injected fuel. As shown in this figure, as the
generating load coefficient decreases, the actual compression
ratio is increased through increased kinetic energy of the piston
due to decreased braking-force to the piston. In the case that
this increase of compression ratio was continued, misfire
happened at the ignition positions of both over +47.4 mm and
under +47 mm, which caused a halt of the continuous
operation.
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As mentioned above, the free piston decelerates more quickly the desired output generating power of 10kW for both
before TDC, and also accelerates more quickly after TDC. combustion cases. Based on the promising result, the
When the ignition timing is so earlier before TDC, the proposed specifications as listed in Table 4 were adopted.
combustion chamber pressure becomes kept to be lower than
that of conventional engines, which slows down the flame Table 6. System performance
propagation and causes unstable combustion. On the other
hand, when the ignition timing is so close to TDC or after TDC,
main combustion occurs in expansion stroke, the combustion
chamber pressure decreases rapidly with piston position, which
also slows down the flame propagation and causes unstable
combustion.

As the results, it should be noted that the range of ignition Specification of Prototype FPEG
position for stable operation of FPEG is limited and much To validate the feasibility of the proposed structure, a prototype
narrower than that of conventional engines. It is understood as shown in Fig.11 has been built. The overview of the
that estimation of the appropriate ignition position before experimental setup of the FPEG is also shown in Fig. 12. The
experiments is essential. combustion unit was designed as a uni-flow scavenging type,
two-stroke gasoline engine. As particular features, ceramic
coated piston rings and cylinder liner developed in our
laboratories were applied in order to ensure smooth slide of the
piston even under insufficient lubricating oil [20]. And also
poppet valves were positioned in a water-cooled cylinder head
and actuated by hydraulic valve-trains to universally control
exhaust valve timing. In addition, gasoline direct injection was
adopted in order to reduce unburned hydrocarbon emissions
exhausted through scavenging process. A spark plug with a
pressure transducer was mounted at the center of cylinder
head in order to measure precise in-cylinder pressure during
scavenging and combustion periods.
Figure 10. Effect of generating load coefficient and ignition position on
compression ratio
Particular features of the gas spring unit are as follows. A resin
The obtained results from the cycle simulation on performance cylinder liner and resin piston rings are adopted. The gas mass
of the proposed FPEG system with the specifications of Table 4 in the gas spring chamber was variable by means of a
are shown in Table 6, for both PCCI and SI combustion cases. pressure regulating valve. This allows varying stiffness of the
The evaluated items are actual compression ratio, maximum gas spring, which is one of the variables to shift the FPEG
in-cylinder pressure, power generation output, indicated system to different operating points.
thermal efficiency and overall system efficiency. Overall system
efficiency was obtained for the product of indicated thermal The linear generator was designed as a permanently excited
efficiency, mechanical efficiency and generating efficiency. It is synchronous machine which consists of a 3-phase permanent
understood that the proposed system is expected to achieve magnet brushless generator with the stationary coil, moving
magnet and the iron-cored stator. The mover is based on
neodymium-iron-boron magnets. The corresponding power
electronics drive the machine asboth a motor and a generator.

Figure 11. Schematic of a prototype FPEG

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Test Results and Discussion

The feasibility of the proposed FPEG structure was
investigated through the prototype engine test. The operation
condition is listed in Table 7. In this study as the first step, the
operation frequency was set to 23Hz though the target
frequency is 40Hz derived from the cycle simulation.

Figure 14 shows the actual and reference positions of the

piston under the operating condition as listed in Table 7. Figure
15 indicates in-cylinder pressure and heat release rate in the
combustion chamber. As shown in Figs. 14 and 15, the
Figure 12. FPEG system with hydraulic valve actuation proposed structure and control method enable the stable
operation of the FPEG, although the obtained trajectory is not
optimized at this moment.
Control System of FPEG
In the simulation analysis described in the previous chapter, From the comparison between the actual and the reference
electricity is assumed to be generated based on the generating piston positions in Fig. 14, the controller tracks the desired
load coefficient. However, it is thought that the control positions of top dead center within the error of 0.5 mm, which
algorithm only with generating load coefficient is not able to enables to realize the desired ignition condition and stable
prevent the problems such as collisions of the piston with the combustion with the cycle variations in indicated mean
cylinder head or the gas-spring-chamber wall due to excessive effective pressure of less than 3% continuously for more than 4
speed of piston, and stopping operation due to misfire, hours continuously.
because abnormal combustion and cycle variation are apt to
be caused in the real operation. In addition, the measured output power of the prototype is
shown in Fig. 16. In this figure, the positive value designates
Thus, in order to investigate the unique piston motion and its the electric power generated by the linear generator, and
effect on combustion and power generation under continuous negative value denotes the electric power is delivered for
operation of the FPEG, the controller was designed to ensure driving the piston. From Figs. 14 and 16, the operating principle
the compression ratio to be kept to the values which enable of the FPEG with combustion and generation is understood:
stable combustions. That is, in this case, the generating load During the latter period of the expansion stroke, the piston
coefficient is set to be not constant but variable. The coefficient position precedes the reference position so that the linear
is determined by a feedback control method based on position generator brakes the piston. As the result, the kinetic energy of
and velocity of the piston. The reference values of the position the piston is converted to electric energy.
and velocity are set on the basis of the results of the cycle
simulation conducted in advance. Figure 13 shows an example Table 7. Operation conditions
of time histories of actual and reference positions of the piston.

In the case of FPEG without any crank mechanism, the piston

position is not defined with crank angle as mentioned above,
even though the information of piston position is essential to
control not only timings of fuel injection, ignition, opening/
closing exhaust valves, but also mode selections of driving or
generating of the linear generator. Therefore, instead of the
crank angle, the displacement of piston from a standard
position was detected by counting number of the plural-lines
grooves engraved on the side surface of the piston body with
gap sensors fixed on the inner wall of the cylinder block. The
detailed method of detecting and control piston position is
reported in the next paper “Part 2” written by the same authors.

Figure 14. Actual and reference positions of piston

To investigate the effect of the ignition position on the stability

of combustion in FPEG, the ignition position (ignition timing)
was retarded by 1.0mm at the operation condition as listed in
Table 7. Figure 17 shows the actual piston motion versus the
reference piston position, and Fig. 18 shows pressure and heat
Figure 13. Outline of piston position control approach
release rate in the combustion chamber. Figures 17 and 18
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indicate that retarding ignition timing caused the misfire and the
excessive combustion mutually. As mentioned above, if the
ignition position is so close to TDC that main combustion
occurs in expansion stroke, where, with piston descending, the
combustion chamber pressure decreases more rapidly in the
FPEG than in a conventional engine, which slows down the
flame propagation speed so that causes unstable combustion
and then misfire.
Figure 18. Pressure and heat release rate of combustion chamber

Figure 15. Pressure and heat release rate of combustion chamber

Figure 19. Power output of linear generator

Summary and Conclusions

In this study, both the FPEG structure with a cooling and a
lubricating system enabling continuous operation and control
system logic have been developed. And then, the
characteristics of FPEG motion were investigated via both
numerical simulations and experiments. As the results, the
Figure 16. Power output of linear generator following points are clarified.

Figure 19 shows the measured output power. As shown in Fig. 1. The obtained results from the cycle simulation indicate that
17, the actual piston position was depart from the reference the required output generating power of 10kW is obtained in
position after the second top dead center in this figure, so that both SI and PCCI combustion cases. Also, it is clarified that
the linear generator accelerated the piston assembly at the stable operation is capable in the limited operation range. In
following expansion and compression strokes as shown in Fig. addition, high thermal efficiency of 42% was suggested to
19. As a result, the compression ratio exceeded the desired be realized in PCCI combustion case.
value and reached 14.0, which caused the excessively rapid
2. With the prototype FPEG with the “W-shape” piston and
combustion. The rapid combustion made the piston position
two-stroke SI combustion system, stable operation is
shift to the reference position and then the misfire operation
successfully accomplished for more than 4 hours, without
cycle reappeared due to the retarded ignition timing.
any cooling and lubricating problems. From the results of
stable operation, the operating principle of the combustion
These results indicate that the precise control of the ignition
and generation is understood.
position is essential for stable operation of the FPEG. In
addition, the unstable operation can be occurred by not only 3. The experimental analysis with changed ignition position
ignition timing but also other operation factors. Therefore, (corresponding to ignition timing) shows that the precise
development of recovery algorithm from misfire to stable control of ignition position is essential for stable operation
combustion is essential. of the FPEG. Since unstable operations and thus misfire
can be occurred by other operation factors than the ignition
timing, the recovery algorithm from the misfire to stable
combustion is essential.

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