Porsche Just Broke the Mold With a Six-Stroke Engine Patent
You’ve heard of two-strokes and four-strokes– but Porsche wants to produce a six-stroke internal combustion engine
In a typical Porsche engine, the internal combustion process has four strokes. Well, in the vast majority of production ICE applications, that is. It’s the intake stroke, the compression stroke, the power stroke, and the exhaust stroke.
If you have a solid grasp of ICE platforms, just tune me out here. If not, or if you forgot, here we go. During the intake stroke, the engine welcomes fuel and air into the cylinder. After that, the compression stroke involves upward pressure from the piston pushing the mixture to the top of the cylinder.
Following the compression stroke, the mixture ignites and forces the piston back down during the power phase. Finally, the exhaust stroke vents the gases out of the cylinder. Rinse and repeat several hundred or thousands of times a minute. For ease of memory (and perhaps a bit scandalously) many enthusiasts refer to it as “suck, squeeze, bang, blow.”
However, Porsche has a new vision for the internal combustion engine. Rather than employing a common sequence like a two-stroke or (more commonly) a four-stroke engine, a new patent outlines a six-stroke engine.
The six-stroke engine patent includes additional compression and power strokes beyond that of the four-stroke process
According to Porsche’s patent for the six-stroke engine, the mill will add a compression stroke and a power stroke to the existing intake, compression, power, and exhaust sequence. However, instead of the traditional “suck, squeeze, bang, blow,” the patent outlines something of a two-part process with three strokes each.
Specifically, the six-stroke engine could operate by first employing an intake, compression, and power stroke process. Then, the engine would follow that up with compression, power, and exhaust strokes. Think “suck, squeeze, bang, squeeze, bang blow.”
However, it’s not just for bragging rights. The design will effectively lessen how far the piston has to travel inside the cylinder walls. It will also create two separate top and bottom dead centers. Better yet, Porsche asserts that, despite the complexity (and perhaps propensity for issues), the engine may improve efficiency and power output.
Photos: Porsche