Research on the operational characteristics of a pneumatic automotive engine

The use of modern power units in transport with internal combustion engines cannot fully resolve environmental issues caused by traffic, particularly in densely populated urban areas with over one million inhabitants. One promising approach to improving transport's environmental safety is the use of engines that operate on compressed air as the working medium. This is due to several advantages of pneumatic engines compared to other energy systems: high safety levels, ease of transportation, environmental friendliness, low production costs for pneumatic vehicles and compressed air, as well as the ease of recycling air batteries and energy systems. This study presents a mathematical model that enables numerical calculations and optimisation of the key energy and operational characteristics of reciprocating pneumatic engines with a crank-slider mechanism and a given gas distribution mechanism. The modelling results indicate that a four-cylinder pneumatic engine is the most promising option. The developed variant provides the required power output of up to 14 kW depending on the input pressure and achieves a P-V diagram filling coefficient within the range of 0.68-0.76