We all know how a conventional internal combustion engine works, with a piston and a crankshaft. But that’s by no means the only way to make an engine, and one of the slightly more unusual alternatives comes to us courtesy of a vintage Shell Film Unit film, The Free Piston Engine, which we’ve placed below the break. It’s a beautiful period piece of mid-century animation and jazz, but it’s also an introduction to these fascinating machines.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://hackaday.com/2024/03/04/retrotechtacular-the-free-piston-engine/