| Patent application number | Description | Published |
|---|
| 20100275577 | ROCKET ENGINE INJECTORHEAD WITH FLASHBACK BARRIER - Propellants flow through specialized mechanical hardware that is designed for effective and safe ignition and sustained combustion of the propellants. By integrating a micro-fluidic porous media element between a propellant feed source and the combustion chamber, an effective and reliable propellant injector head may be implemented that is capable of withstanding transient combustion and detonation waves that commonly occur during an ignition event. The micro-fluidic porous media element is of specified porosity or porosity gradient selected to be appropriate for a given propellant. Additionally the propellant injector head design integrates a spark ignition mechanism that withstands extremely hot running conditions without noticeable spark mechanism degradation. | 11-04-2010 |
| 20110005195 | ALUMINUM POROUS MEDIA - Disclosed are materials of variable density or tiered porosity micro-fluidic porous media structures of sintered metal or other materials, and methods of making same. An embodiment discloses an aluminum porous media element of variable density having a tiered porosity micro-fluidic media structure. A method of making the aluminum porous media element disclosed herein includes mixing a binding agent with a metal powder to generate a first mixture, heating the first mixture to a sub metal sintering temperature to get a homogeneous composite of the metal powder and heating the homogeneous composite to a metal sintering temperature to sinter-bond the metal powder to get a porous media of first porosity. | 01-13-2011 |
| 20110008739 | DETONATION WAVE ARRESTOR - An apparatus and system disclosed herein provides detonation wave arrestor including a detonation wave deflector and a burst element. The detonation wave arrestor disclosed herein attenuates and defects the propagation of a detonation wave characterized by a supersonic flame front propagation. The detonation wave arrestor provides deflection of detonation wave towards the burst element. The rupture of the burst element provides venting of hot gases remaining from the detonation, thus providing separation and attenuation of combusted gas residuals. The detonation wave arrestor disclosed herein may be used in a combustible fuel delivery system. | 01-13-2011 |
| 20110146231 | Tiered Porosity Flashback Suppressing Elements for Monopropellant or Pre-Mixed Bipropellant Systems - Monopropellant and pre-mixed bipropellant storage and supply systems for rocket engines and other work producing systems are subject to damage when detonation progresses upstream from a combustion chamber to and through supply lines. Interposing one or more micro porous or micro fluidic elements into the supply conduit can limit the flame front that accompanies such unintended detonation, but inevitably restrict the flow of the propellant to the combustion chamber. A tiered micro fluidic element where a bulk of the element has relatively large pores but forms a structurally robust supports a second, relatively thin region having appropriately small mean pore diameter provides an effective flashback barrier that can resist catastrophic failure during such detonations. Such elements can be used in isolation, or they can be incorporated into detonation wave arrestors or pressure wave-triggered cut-off valves or the like to decrease the incidence of unintended detonations. | 06-23-2011 |
| 20110180032 | INSULATED COMBUSTION CHAMBER - An insulative piston or piston cap creates a highly thermally resistive path in the axial direction of the piston or piston cap toward a crank case of an engine. An insulative cylinder is configured to be positioned around the insulative piston and adjacent an insulative cylinder head, and to provide thermal resistance in the cylinder's axial direction. The insulated cylinder head is configured to resist heat flow in the axial direction away from the crank case. High temperature insulation surrounding these structures is configured to resist heat flow out of a combustion chamber of the engine. These insulative components, together, form the fully insulated combustion chamber. | 07-28-2011 |
| 20110219742 | SUPERSONIC COMBUSTOR ROCKET NOZZLE - A supersonic combustor as a component of a rocket nozzle offers improved utilization of available chemical energy that may be released from combustion gasses flowing through the rocket nozzle. A subsonic combustor sub-sonically accelerates an exothermically reacting combustion gas up to a nozzle throat. The supersonic combustor expands and super-sonically accelerates the exothermically reacting combustion gas beyond the nozzle throat. The dimensions of the supersonic combustor may be selected such that the supersonic combustor achieves a slow rate of cooling of the combustion gasses without creating shockwaves within the supersonic combustor. A supersonic discharge expands and super-sonically accelerates the now substantially non-reacting combustion gas through a supersonic discharge of the rocket nozzle. The momentum of the combustion gas leaving the supersonic discharge propels the rocket nozzle in the opposite direction due to the principle of conservation of momentum. | 09-15-2011 |
| 20110239962 | LOW SPECIFIC EMISSION DECOMPOSITION - An alternative or supplement to combustion within an engine is decomposition of nitrous oxide into two parts nitrogen, one part oxygen. This decomposition releases thermal energy that may be captured and converted to useful work. Traditional combustion engines are limited to oxidizer/fuel ratio ratios near the proportional mixture of fuel and oxidizer that achieves complete combustion of the fuel. The presently disclosed technology increases the oxidizer/fuel ratio above that of all traditional combustion engines and still achieves useable power output primarily through decomposition of nitrous oxide. Decomposition of nitrous oxide into nitrogen and oxygen in an engine outputs two parts nitrogen and one part oxygen, which is roughly equivalent to oxygen rich atmospheric air. Output of carbon dioxide and other undesirable chemical compounds is avoided when compared to combustion of a carbon-hydrogen fuel and an oxidizer containing oxygen. | 10-06-2011 |
| 20120031091 | HIGH EFFICIENCY ENERGY CONVERSION - A high efficiency energy conversion system disclosed herein incorporates a piston assembly including a sealed cylinder for storing a working fluid and an energy conversion element attached to the piston assembly. A kinematic mechanism such as a cam lobe or a scotch yoke may be used as the energy conversion element. In one implementation, the kinematic mechanism may be configured to provide rapid piston expansion in a manner so as not to allow the expanding working fluid inside the piston to achieve thermodynamic equilibrium. In an alternate implementation, the kinematic mechanism is further adapted to generate a compression stroke in a manner to provide the working fluid inside the piston to achieve thermodynamic equilibrium conditions throughout the compression stroke. | 02-09-2012 |
