Category: Possible inventions

One of the problems with internal combustion engines is that it’s hard to get the fuel/air mixture in a cylinder to burn evenly.

In spark ignition systems, the ignition is finely timed but very localised. In a compression ignition (eg diesel) system, it’s harder to control the spatial/temporal distribution of the burn, although it does tend to be a more gradual process (which avoids ‘knock).

Today’s invention is to add a tiny amount of extra friction to the relative motion of piston and cylinder.

Using strips of eg carbon steel on the piston as shown (green), and a cup-shaped piston crown, will generate a gradually increasing shower of tiny sparks as the piston rises on the compression stroke.

This allows a more gradual and spatially-spread burn, but also makes that repeatable from cycle to cycle.

The friction strips could be made easily changeable every few thousand miles or they could continuously be fed along the interior cylinder wall (red).

When a handgun is being fired, the hammer strikes the bullet casing which is higher than the handgrip. This results in a slight torque which causes the barrel of the weapon to point downwards, very slightly off target, before the powder ignites.

Today’s invention is a way to overcome this source of inaccuracy.

Here the trigger (red) is located above the barrel (green), so that when the hammer (blue) strikes, its action is directly in line with the centre of gripping forces, lessening the above effect.

Today’s invention is to equip future aircraft carriers with towers which can be withdrawn beneath the flight deck.

Just as in Gerry Anderson’s Marineville, when the vessel is under attack, all of those huge windows of the bridge and flight control room descend beneath the armoured deck, or at least leave only slit windows exposed.

Moving these towers up and down could be achieved using lifts of the type already used to move aircraft below deck.

It’s aircraft-carrier-of-the-future time again.

Today’s invention is a carrier which consists of many smaller vessels, each of which accommodates several aircraft and takes the form of a fast hydrofoil.

To launch their aircraft, the mini carriers raise them to the top decks using the T shaped lifts as usual, after having first linked 2 or 3 vessels together.

This would require a robust docking mechanism, for operation in a high sea (hydraulic anchors perhaps).

The speed of these hydrofoils would enable aircraft launches using shorter decks than normal, so that a large number of aircraft could get airborne simultaneously.

This kind of distributed carrier would be harder to hit with weapons, although landing would require the smaller ships to form at least a group of, say, three.

This could be done very rapidly and away from the centre of any conflict.

Today’s invention employs the principle of the falling woodpecker toy.

This is used as an emergency fire escape for very tall buildings.

The idea is that by allowing a mass (the escapee) on a spring to oscillate up and down, the collar (green) to which it is attached alternates between gripping and slipping on the pole (the woodpecker is actually optional).

Since each woodpecker descends at a fixed rate, many hundreds of them could be falling safely down a single (strong, fireproof) pole simultaneously (thus avoiding the need to use lifts or staircases).

Unlike the pole in a firestation, users need only attach themselves by using a harness and would require no skills or training.

I’ll admit I’m a big fan of tracked vehicles, from snowbikes, to NASA launch crawlers to military tanks.

Today’s invention is a new form of track, especially for vehicles which are subject to damage or attack.

Imagine that the tracks are replaced by a series of parallel chains. These are driven by having a sprocket wheel for each chain -so that the drive wheel might have 5-10 co-axial sprockets.

This would avoid many problems associated with loading tracked vehicles onto trains (when they often need to be equipped with narrower track ‘shoes’)…we’d simply fit only the innermost two or three chains. In addition, when damaged, replacement of one or two chains would be much simpler than the very heavy (and space-wasting) sections of normal track.

Finally, each chain would be made from hardened links whose geometry mimics the metal puzzle shown. These can be joined without the need for any pins etc (making use of the small amount of slack, which tracks always have, to slide links together).

Today’s invention is a way to make drinking more exciting.

A cup has a number of testtubes inside, each filled with some different liquid. The outside of the cup is tinted or opaque, so that users can’t see what is going on inside.

The green top forms a seal with the top of the testtubes. A drinker rotates the green top around a vertical axis, so that some testtubes are now in communication with a small number of bendy straws.

This allows the drinker to twist the top and make himself/herself an instant, random cocktail.
(See also #371: Rainbow drinks)