Cyclone Power Technologies, Inc. (fka CYPW)

[BuddyWhazhizname]

Hey Tom,

Actually the WHE isn't uniflow. It has a ball valve inside each piston crown for exhaust (the original was a flapper valve in the piston crown, but OSU replaced that as well). Here's the parts photo from their Facebook page. The IAASP presentation has images of the ball inside the piston.

You just need a film of water one molecule thick to keep plastic "wet". Once that's gone, it's dry, and the friction characteristics will change dramatically.

I'm wondering if the top of the cylinder is going to be permanently dry. It's going to be the hottest area due to the uniflow of steam. Once the exhaust valve opens, the pressure drops dramatically and any moisture left on the hot metal will immediately flash into steam. Unless you pump water onto the cylinder wall ahead of the rings, they are going to go from a wet surface to a dry surface on every stroke.

This also brings up another question. You said Cyclone has been looking for plastics for inside the engine for years. They've been spending millions on R&D. There are only a handful of companies in the world that make these high performance engineering plastics. Cyclone must have already gone through every type of high performance plastic on the market, with no success.

Can OSU find a plastic that Cyclone hasn't already tried that will survive? The odds don't seem good.

Maybe that's why they are now in month 7 of the two month program to finish the 200 hour durability testing.