Design and fabrication of micromachined internal combustion engine as a power source for microsystems

In this paper, a new micromachined reciprocating engine utilizing the pressure built up by combustion has been designed and fabricated. As a basework for development of micromachined engines, initial combustion experiments have been performed using a microscale combustor made by conventional machining. From these experiments, a new micromachined engine has been proposed and its proper chamber dimension has been determined for stable ignition and flame propagation. The proposed engine has a unique structure simplified from the general reciprocating engines in order to make it suitable to be fabricated using MEMS processes and applied for movable microsystems. We have demonstrated actual one-shot combustion test of the fabricated prototype microengine and generation of a movable power using premixed hydrogen and air fuel.