Low Fuel-Consumption, High-Altitude Capable, Heavy-Fuel Internal Combustion (IC) Engine Concepts for Unmanned Air Vehicles (UAV)

Internal Combustion engines (IC) are bound in their ability to create power primarily by the volume of air an engine is able to deliver to the combustion chamber. This formula has particular import at high altitude, where air pressure decreases, resulting in a correlative power loss. Traditional solutions for generating higher compensating air pressure are limited to external add-on devices such as turbochargers and superchargers. These external devices carry penalties with regard to complexity, fuel inefficiency, weight, reliability, and cost. We propose a means of generating pre-compression and continuously constant boost to maintain engine power at high altitude. Our proposal utilizes an internal engine chamber which would automatically calibrate and compensate for lapse rate at all altitudes, without added weight, complexity, size or cost. It can be expected that this approach to altitude compensation would significantly increase the payload and range of UAVs over traditional turbo and supercharged solutions. In Phase II, we expect to employ 3D CFD/FEA and construction of an optimized test engine to validate the internal altitude compensation/ pre-compression chamber. These two interrelated components will produce the ability to supply a constantly optimal and massive boost to any aircraft without penalty as regards weight, size, cost or complexity.