DOUBLE ACTING MCE-5 ENGINE

PAPER SUBMITTED BY:

R.N.Rambalaji
Saravana Sridar
Pre-final year, mechanical engineering,
Coimbatore Institute of Technology,
Coimbatore.

PAPER CLUSTER :

ADVANCED IC ENGINES

DOUBLE ACTING MCE-5 ENGINE

R.N.Rambalaji, Saravana Sridar
Pre-final year Mechanical Engineering
Coimbatore Institute of Technology, Coimbatore
r.n.rambalaji@gmail.com
saran.theprince@gmail.com
Abstract
In the present case scenario, the development of a new IC
engine with high efficiency, high power, low emission levels,
multi-fuel option with mass production capability is in high
demand. Hybrid vehicles conform to the above said criteria.
Unfortunately, refining a technology until it is affordable and
performs well enough for the mass market takes a while, and we
might not have electric cars for a few more years. In the
meantime, we engineers are trying to squeeze more life out of
ICEs.
The double acting MCE-5 engine can produce high power
with high efficiencies. The MCE-5 is an all-in-one engine block
integrating both innovative components that transmit power
from the piston to the crankshaft, and exclusive actuators, which
permit controlling the engine Compression Ratio. . Based on the
combination between a rod-crank mechanism and long-life gears,
the MCE-5 is an all-in-one VCR technology integrating both
power transmission and Compression Ratio control.

lot of flexibility that our conventional engine doesnt and

double acting principle can be easily applied.
II. WORKING PRINCIPLE OF A DOUBLE ACTING ENGINE
The double acting engine works on the principle that both
the sides of the piston are used to compress the charge
alternatively and produce two power strokes in four strokes of
the piston
The principle is explained as below,
A. INITIAL POSITION:

Its conservative combustion chamber and its totally conventional

and invariable piston kinematics allow making the most of knowhow related to combustion and performance control.
The MCE-5 provides an individual, continuous and reactive
Compression Ratio control to each cylinder of the engine. Its
wide control range comprised between 7:1 and 20:1, permits
serving all VCR strategies with no limitation.
Thanks to its reasonable production costs and exclusive features,
the MCE-5 could rapidly lead to a new generation of fuel
efficient, powerful and attractive vehicles, while opening the way
to crucial engine design strategies for the future. With double
acting principle integration we get two power strokes for four
strokes rather than a single power stroke in conventional IC
engine

I. INTRODUCTION
Its been more than two centuries earlier the first working IC
engine was developed. Since then the IC engines have
undergone numerous changes to improve its performance in
terms of power and efficiency.
Both power and efficiency can be improved by using the
piston to compress the charge on both sides of the piston.
Unfortunately our conventional engine does not have the
flexibility to support double acting principle.
With the development of advanced technologies, in the
present scenario, there is every possibility of developing a
double action IC engine. The MCE-5 technology provides a

Let the piston be at its Top Dead Centre (TDC).

B. STROKE 1

During the first stroke the piston moves from TDC to BDC
thus producing vacuum and thus makes the charge to fill in
the upper part of the cylinder.

Now a spark is provided and the charge in the upper

cylinder burns and pushes the piston downwards (power
stroke), thus simultaneously compressing the charge in the
lower part of the cylinder.

C. STROKE 2
E. STROKE 4:

Now during the second stroke, the piston moves from BDC
to TDC, thus compressing the charge in the upper part of the
cylinder. At the same time vacuum is created in the lower part
of the cylinder as the piston moves from BDC to TDC and
now charge enters the lower part of the cylinder i.e. the area
under the piston
D. STROKE 3

Now a spark is provided in the lower combustion chamber and

now the piston is pushed above, thus enabling exhaust to take
place simultaneously.
And the process continues thus producing two power
strokes for four stokes of the piston.
This double acting principle can be successfully applied to our
conventional engine but with few cons. A conventional double
acting engine model is designed in CATIA and its kinematics
were simulated. The results were that such an assembly

working is completely feasible. The model designed is shown

in the fig below,

III. CHALLENGES MET BY CONVENTIONAL DOUBLE ACTING IC

ENGINES

The three main cons that affected the conventional double

acting IC engines is that
Piston radial stress is very high
At lower speeds of engine combustion in lower part of
cylinder doesnt takes place
At higher speeds, the design leads to high possibilities
of detonations in the lower part of cylinder.
These disadvantages that will hinder the development of a
conventional double acting IC engine can be debugged by
using Variable Compression Ratio-intelligent MCE-5
technology.
IV. VCR-BRIEF INTRODUCTION
Most of us are probably anxious to get rid of internal
combustion engines (ICE) and move on to electric motors. But
its a situation that is highly unlikely to happen in the next 20
years. So one has to find a technology that is high efficient but
at affordable cost and environment friendly.
One promising technique is the use of variable compression
ratios
In an internal combustion engine, the compression ratio tells
you what the ratio is between the biggest and smallest
volumes of the combustion chamber in the cylinder. The
concept of modifying that ratio is very old (around the 1920s),
but very few cars have actually used it.

`
The benefits of having a variable compression ratio are that
you can control much more precisely combustion and adjust
the variable to get the best performance for each situation
(acceleration, cruising, deceleration, etc). It becomes
especially potent - in theory - when combined with other
technologies like turbochargers, direct injection, variable
valve timing and lift, etc., from a green point of view, this
mean you could downsize an engine quite a bit while still
getting enough power and achieving high thermal efficiency.
It might even help with the use of (cellulosic) ethanol (which
has different characteristics from gasoline), or to reduce
emissions by optimizing combustion.
This could bring fuel economy to 6.0 L/100 km while
producing 50 hp more! And also imagine a small car that
doesn't need 200+ hp. A 0.8-liter version (or whatever) could
probably get very good MPG, possibly running on cellulosic
ethanol made from agricultural waste.
Variable Compression Ratio is not a revolution; VCR is only a
major technical evolution, which could rapidly be as
indispensable for SI engines as multiple Direct Injections for
Diesel engines
V. THE MCE-5 TECHNOLOGY
Different VCR prototypes have confirmed the exceptional
potential of VCR strategy, but they also revealed that

designing VCR engines that respond to mass-production

requirements is a tremendous technological challenge.
In this context, next step is to identify and study a design that
fulfils all indispensable features for a mass-produced engine in
terms of functionalities, robustness, reliability and durability
while presenting reasonable production costs.
The engine that popped up fulfilling all these qualities is the
MCE-5 intelligent engine.
MCE-5 technology entirely revolutionizes the current working
concept of our conventional IC engine.
It throws away our conventional four bar mechanism, and
integrates a new mechanism to achieve both friction losses
reduction and implementation of VCR-i techniques.

VII.

STRATEGY OF MCE-5 TECHNOLOGY

General strategy of the MCE-5 technology:

A)-Reduction of friction and pumping losses:
a) High downsizing;
b) High down speeding.
* enabling the reduction of frictional losses by a factor of
2.2 and pumping losses by 7
VI. WORKING PRINCIPLE OF A MCE-5 ENGINE
The conventional four bar mechanism is the main source of
the piston radial stress that hinder the development of double
acting engine. The piston radial stress and piston slap is
completely removed by using a roller guided piston in MCE-5
technology
Here the piston is made to reciprocate in the cylinder by a
roller guide. The reciprocation motion is converted in to an
oscillatory motion of a gear wheel, which is also attached to a
control jack for compression ratio control. The oscillatory
motion of the gear is converted in to rotary motion of crank by
a short connecting rod.

B) -Improvement of combustion-expansion effectiveness:

a) All loads optimization of relation between:
-Ignition Advance;
- Compression Ratio;
(CR for a wide range of (7:1 to18:1)

-EGR.
D) -Additional features:
a) Idle speed reduction;
b) Cold starting pollutant emissions reduction;
c) Maximum fuel flexibility (VCR)
MCE-5 technology eliminates the need for compromise
between BMEP and Compression Ratio. Fixed compression
ratio calls for compromise.

B. Piston
Unconventional piston kinematics can lead to unexpected
behaviours and defects related to internal aerodynamics and
engine components noise emissions, durability, and
mechanical efficiency. Taking this in to account the guided
piston is an exclusive MCE-5 feature that radically simplifies
piston design with features like; high compression ratio
precision, conventional piston kinematics; low friction losses
and high reliability are the critical features that will eliminate
piston slap and radial stress, which have a direct impact on
friction losses, blow by, noise emissions, wear and oil
consumption

High BMEP (to serve downsizing + downspeeding)

penalizes possible max Compression Ratio;
High Compression Ratio (increased expansion
efficiency) penalizes possible max BM

.
MCE-5 technology thus combines the advantage of diesel and
gasoline engines.

VIII.

MCE-5 TECHNOLOGY DESCRIPTION

A. Crankcase:
The MCE-5 multi-cylinder crankcase is developed to
implement all VCR strategies without limitations in order to
derive maximum effectiveness without any associated risks. In
addition, this crankcase maintains all the MCE-5 technologys
potential to reduce friction losses and to increase the
mechanical resistance and durability of engines, by providing
a more robust structure.

The opportunity to reduce rings tension and resulting friction

losses is mainly due to the fact that the MCE-5 roller-guided
piston preserves bore cylindricity, this ensures a well
distributed ring/cylinder pressure and an improved sealing and
oil consumption control during the whole engine life.

C. Roller:
The roller helps to guide the piston in a rack. As a result,
torque on crankshaft no longer results from forces applied to
the cylinder by the piston, but from forces applied to rollers.

F. Crank and rod:

The MCE-5 crank and rod offers another potential friction

reduction source, due to the big-overlap and rigid MCE-5
crankshaft (its crank radius is reduced by half).
Indeed, hydrodynamic bearings diameter could be reduced
thanks to improved natural crankshaft rigidity

D. Gear wheel:
The gear wheel is an asymmetrical component with a complex
shape. It comprises 4 high-loaded teeth subject to gas
pressure and high inertia forces at Top Dead Centre (TDC),
and 4 low-loaded teeth only subject to low inertia forces at
BDC. The gear wheel also comprises rolling surfaces, which
work together with those of the piston rack and of the control
rack. In addition, the opening made inside the gear wheel to
house the rod small-end has 2 axial rod-stop surfaces.

IX. COMPRESSION RATIO CONTROL TECHNIQUE

In fact, the first factor for the hindrance of the development of
double acting engine is removed by the roller guided piston.
The next two cons of double acting conventional IC engine
can only removed by applying VCR techniques.
In a MCE-5 engine, the compression ratio is controlled by
hydraulic jacks at present. With our current technological
revolution, an ECU unit and sensors can replace the hydraulic
jacks.

Forging is taken as the mass-production technique for these

gears. Depending on instantaneous tangential stress applied to
their teeth, the MCE-5 spur gears present an efficiency that
always remains between 99.2 and 99.7%.
Thanks to their high efficiency, the MCE-5 spur gears
guarantee an advantageous final friction losses balance to the
entire engine block.
E. Control jack:
The control jack maintains a precise compression ratio
control with hydraulic jacks or with a ECU unit.

A) ECU and its evolution:

Engines are more sophisticated and efficient in 2008 than
they were in the past but less so than they will be in the future.
They are equipped with many sensors that send information to
the engine control unit (ECU) indicating the position of the
accelerator pedal, the intake airflow, and the oxygen content
in the exhaust gases or even the engine speed. The ECU can
thereby respond to the drivers torque demand, prepare an airfuel mixture with the proper proportions or obtain the highest
efficiency from gas expansion. The ECU manages the
operation of the engine via actuators that it controls
electrically. These actuators are, for instance, used to regulate
the opening of the throttle valve, the amount of fuel injected,
the valve timing or the ignition timing. The ECU has tables
that indicate the adjustments required for each actuator given
the engines operating conditions.

The ECU also has logical functions that allow real-time

calculation of certain values that are not in its tables. All
modern engines today operate according to these principles.
There is, however, an essential parameter over which the ECU
has no control: the compression ratio. Yet, this parameter
directly conditions engine efficiency, pollutant emissions and
the engines torque and power performances. Compression
ratio control has so far never been possible for lack of an
appropriate technology. This shortcoming has led to increased
fuel consumption, limited torque and power and less control
over pollutant emissions. The fixed compression ratio
represents a real technological lock on gasoline engines that
MCE-5 is now opening by providing a variable compression
ratio. This new actuator, which allows compression ratio
control, drastically increases the performances and energy
efficiency of gasoline engines.

When the engine operates at high speeds, the compression

ratio is made less, so that detonation does not occur.

X. POWER AND TORQUE COMPARISON BETWEEN A 4 CYLINDER

DMCE-5 ENGINE AND A V-6
Indicated power IP = (IMEP*A*L*n*100)/60 KW
IP = Indicated power
IMEP = Indicated mean effective pressure
A = Area of the bore
L = Stroke length
n= number of cycles per minute
Let us assume,
Let IMEP be 10 bar, bore diameter be 10cm, stroke length be
12cm
Speed of engine be 3500 rpm
Let the piston bar diameter be one fifth of piston diameter.
Power produced in the
Upper power stroke
= {(10)*(*(5*10^2)^2)*(12*10^-2)*3500*100}/60*2
=27.495 kW
~ 37 hp
Power produced in
Lower power stroke
2)*3500*100}/60

= {(10)*(*(4*10^-2)^2)*(12*10^=17.9 kW
~ 24 hp

Indicated Power produced by the double acting engine

= 37+24
= 61 hp
Assuming the same values,
Indicated Power produced by conventional
Single cylinder 4s engine
= {(10)*(*(5*10^2)^2)*(12*10^-2)*3500*100}/60*2
~ 37 hp

B) Compression ratio control in double acting engine:

There will be two knock sensor will be continuously
monitoring the pressure and temperature in both the upper and
lower combustion chamber and send signals to the ECU, thus
aiding to achieve the optimal compression ratio. The CR
sensor accurately points the position the control jack, thus
providing precision compression ratio control.
With the aid of the ECU unit it is possible to switch CR
from 7:1 to18:1 in a mere 25-50 ms.
Thus when the engine is at low speeds, the compression
ratio in the lower chamber is made high and thus aiding the
combustion in the lower chamber at low speeds.

Increase in power produced with double acting principle per

cylinder = 65%
Let the MCE-5 double acting engine be a 4 cylinder,
Hence indicated power produced by a 4 cylinder MCE-5 =
244 hp
Frictional losses will account for 22% of the indicated power,
With our VCR concept MCE-5 technology integration, we
will have frictional losses less than that of the conventional IC
engine. The frictional losses in the MCE-5 engine are around
8-12%. Let us assume it to be 13% with a worst case scenario
For the DMCE-5 IC engine,
Assuming the frictional losses to be 13%,
Friction losses
= 31.72 hp

Hence brake power produced by

4 cylinder DMCE-5
For conventional IC engine,
Let the conventional engine be a V-6
Indicated power produced by V-6
Assuming frictional losses to be 22%
Frictional losses
Hence brake power produced by V-6
BP produced by 4 cylinder DMCE-5 engine
BP produced by 6-cylinder
4s conventional engine

= 212.28 hp

=222 hp
= 48.84 hp
= 173.16 hp
= 212.28 hp
= 173.16 hp

We know,
Torque produced
= (BP*60000)/ (2*3.1428*N)
Torque produced by a 4 cylinder
= 432 Nm
Torque produced by a V-6
= 352 Nm
Increase in torque
= 23%

All these results yield a single fact that DMCE-5 can replace
much bigger engines but with comparable power and high
efficiency. Also the given figures will be doubled if a turbo
and direct injection is used with MCE-5 technology.
Thus comparing the performances of DMCE-5 and a V-6 we
find a 4-cyinder DMCE-5 producing more power and torque
than a much bigger conventional V-6.
XI. CONCLUSIONS
Thus there is every possibility of developing such a high
efficient, high power IC engine that is highly reliable and
robust which can be mass produced. Future cars and
automobiles require high efficient green technologies, with a
door opened for multi-fuel usage. This DMCE-5 technology
can provide all best possible solutions to our future cars, at
affordable prices.