An engine with no crankshaft, where the pistons float on air? It’s not a dream; it’s a free piston engine and it might be the next major advance in car tech. When we think of automotive technology of ...

Sandia National Laboratory led by Sandia researcher Peter Van Blarigan that has been testing physical components of free-piston engines which could be 50% efficient. This is about twice as good as ...

Heat is also a byproduct of friction. Think about rubbing your hands together to warm them up. The faster you rub your hands together, the hotter they get. Now think about the pistons in your ...

The internal combustion engine, for all its mechanical sophistication, still runs on a 19th-century mechanical idea: pistons rising and falling, a crankshaft spinning, a steam-age architecture ...

While Tesla, General Motors, Nissan, BMW and other automakers doggedly push to bring battery-powered vehicles into the mainstream, Achates (a-KATE-ezz) Power engineers are betting that an old ...

Piston rings are the seals in your cylinders, giving you better compression and power, but what happens if they wear or break ...

Mazda's five-decade-long, largely futile efforts on behalf of the rotary engine demonstrate how difficult it is to unseat the conventional piston engine. Yet new concepts continue to emerge, ...

Free-piston engine generators and linear machines represent an innovative departure from conventional rotary systems, offering high thermal efficiency and operational flexibility by eliminating the ...

The rotary engine was an unconventional design that delivered great power for its size. Here's what's good and bad about it.