Air Powered Engines

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Air powered engines are not new, but they sure are interesting. Take a look at this French engine. Mike Smyth has made a number of interesting small air engines. On his site he even has detailed instructions to build your own.

This is what Mike says about his radial cylinder air engine “The radial cylinder configuration has the advantage that at least one cylinder is on a power stroke at all times. This allows the engine to self start from any position and it also allows the engine to run at very low RPM without a flywheel. The valve design is similar to the V-twin except the valves are integrated with the crankshaft. This eliminates the need for the external timing gears. The intake and exhaust timing are independently adjustable.”

Air engine reving.

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22 Comments


  1. I think this has the potential to be true ‘no pollution’ engines. You can run compressors off solar, that means no pollution. You can move the fuel in rubes and tanks; there are methods that allow you to transfer with effectively NO leakage, or such so small that it is unnoticeable. And finally when it is used you extract energy, and anything that exacts will 100% clean! It’s the Perfect solution.

    Other then that I think they are just plain cool, since you need no other fuels there isn’t a fire risk, etc. Could be used with other gases like CO2 for more range. And the noise is great. Also, you can fill at a station like gas in a few seconds or minutes, or you can run a small compressor from home. It has advantages of electric convenient, and it has gasoline convince, with nothing bad! W00t!


  2. Everything said about the advantages are very interesting.That is if it were possible to do.The prototypes that are being tested mounts tanks for the air at a pressure of at least 200 bar (about 3200 psi) and for better autonomy ,300 bar (4800 psi).I don´t know of any regular car service station where you can charge your tanks with that pressure.Second point is that if one person studies carefully the data that can be obtained in internet,it can be seen easily that the amount of energy acumulated in 3 or 4 tanks, that is what can be installed in a car, is totally insuficient.


  3. I think air powered motors are pretty cool, I have a small motor no bigger than my hand and im going to try to build one. But whats kinda stupid about it is that, 1-do you realize how fast an air motor would use the air? It would mostlikely not go very far untill dying 2-were would you store enough pressure to run for miles? 3-they don’t got much power to do anything any how except like the motor video above can run an 18in fan blade with no problem-but im meaning like trying to push a car, back then i used to have an air powerd motor the size of my finger(the motor came out of a toy-i didn’t make it) and i had it reving really fast and i touched it and it just stoped. BUT if you have enough pressure to push a car with a big air motor it wont last very long at all.


  4. Hi ronsforge,

    I am sure there are lots of limitations and we may never see a viable air powered car. But I think of all the air powered tools and what they can do (given enough CFM). A air sander can develop tremendous speed and an impact gun can provide hundreds of pounds of torque.


  5. cool little engine you could make a little fan out of that if you could some how get a tiny compressor powerful enough. As for otherwise if you put a compresor in a car, it would be kinda hard to hear, espcialy in a traffic jam


  6. To-Alan parekh-That is true about the air powered tools(I never thought of that, until you said somthing).
    also to ryan-yeah thats kinda true too but you know they make some air compresors very quiet, like the compressor my grandpa gots all you hear is the pistons pumping air, and plus what makes it not so loud is its an oil crankcase unlike his old one, you had to wait till its done to hear anything.


  7. Oh and also i just now thought of this(may be crazy and may work, i was thinking if you had a car that ran on air maby the tires can turn a pistion to pump air in a tank while your driving, but the flaw is it would rob the power being used to run the motor.


  8. hi would You please give me a blue print of a mini jet engine so i can build it thanks


  9. How about combing fly wheel technology with it?


  10. it really a future engine.might it replace gasoline in net 50 years


  11. Why not supply liquid nitrogen to run these things, since air is mostly nitrogen, and liquid is as compressed as it gets? oh yeah, the ambient heat required to evaporate it might give a few people freezer butn!


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