Investigators who study about combustion in the cylinders of reciprocating piston type internal combustion engines have been encountered embarrassments due to the difficulties of adjusting specific parameter without interfacing other parameters such as cylinder wall temperature, gas composition in the cylinder, existence of cylinder lubricant etc. A Rapid compression-expansion machine, the piston position and speed of which are able to be controlled by means of a system controlled electrically and actuated hydraulically, could be utilized as one of the most preferable countermeasures against those difficulties. Several units of the Rapid compression-expansion machines were developed but the speed-up of frequency of piston movement is still the problem to be improved to cope with actual speed of internal combustion engines.
The author designed and manufactured a new rapid compression- expansion machine electrically controlled and hydraulically actuated and then examined the performance. The results of experiments revealed acquirements of certain improvement on piston speed preserving the stability of frequency response and reproducing accurate compression ratio of cylinder, those are the key function for the in-cylinder combustion experiments on internal combustion engines.