) is an engine designer who developed the Di Pietro Motor air engine.

He qualified as Congegniatore Meccanico in Avellino and moved to Stuttgart

Stuttgart

Stuttgart is the capital of the state of Baden-Württemberg in southern Germany. The sixth-largest city in Germany, Stuttgart has a population of 600,038 while the metropolitan area has a population of 5.3 million ....

 to work on the Wankel rotary engine at the Mercedes Benz research laboratories 1969 and 1970. In 1971 he migrated to Australia where he established a construction engineering company. From his early experience with Wankel rotary engines, Angelo became interested in developing a more efficient engine than the traditional reciprocating internal combustion engine, and he has worked on various alternative concepts intermittently over the last 30 years. In 1999 he made a major design breakthrough with a Wankel rotary motor which runs on compressed air. The engine was called the Angelo Di Pietro's Rotary Positive Displacement Air Engine and Di Pietro claims that his engine is 100% more efficient than competitors' products and that the reduction in friction will allow the engine to turn with a pressure of 1 psi. http://www.engineair.com.au/airmotor.htm.

Di Pietro targeted locations in which automotive vehicles are required but cause immense health hazards such as produce markets and warehouses. Di Pietro was determined to find an alternative that was both environmentally conscious, comparable in desired power, and inexpensive.

Angelo Di Pietro's Rotary Positive Displacement Air Engine

The Di Pietro Motor, developed by the Australian company EngineAir, is a rotary engine

Rotary engine

The rotary engine was an early type of internal-combustion engine, usually designed with an odd number of cylinders per row in a radial configuration, in which the crankshaft remained stationary and the entire cylinder block rotated around it...

 powered by compressed air. It is smaller than any internal combustion engine

Internal combustion engine

The internal combustion engine is an engine in which the combustion of a fuel occurs with an oxidizer in a combustion chamber. In an internal combustion engine, the expansion of the high-temperature and high -pressure gases produced by combustion apply direct force to some component of the engine...

 although the size may differ between models.

Unlike other rotary engines, the Di Pietro motor uses a simple cylindrical rotary piston (shaft driver) which rolls, with next to no friction, inside the cylindrical stator.
Only 1 psi

Pounds per square inch

The pound per square inch or, more accurately, pound-force per square inch is a unit of pressure or of stress based on avoirdupois units...

 (≈ 6,8 kPa

KPA

KPA may refer to:* Kenya Ports Authority* Kiln phosphoric acid, a dry process to produce phosphoric acid at high temperature in a kiln* Kilopascal , a unit of pressure* Known-plaintext attack, a method of cryptanalysis* Korean People's Army...

) of pressure is needed to overcome the friction.

The space between stator and rotor is divided in 6 expansion chambers by pivoting dividers. These dividers follow the motion of the shaft driver as it rolls around the stator wall.
The cylindrical shaft driver, forced by the air pressure on its outer wall, moves eccentrically, thereby driving the motor shaft by means of two rolling elements mounted on bearings on the shaft. The rolling motion of the shaft driver inside the stator is cushioned by a thin air film. Timing and duration of the air inlet and exhaust is governed by a slotted timer which is mounted on the output shaft and rotates with the same speed as the motor.

Variation of performance parameters of the motor is achieved by varying the time during which the air is allowed to enter the chamber: A longer air inlet period allows more air to flow into the chamber and therefore results in more torque. A shorter inlet period will limit the air supply and allows the air in the chamber to perform expansion work at a much higher efficiency. In this way compressed air (energy) consumption can be exchanged for higher torque and power output depending on the requirements of the application.

Motor speed and torque are controlled by throttling the amount or pressure of air into the motor. The Di Pietro motor gives instant torque at zero RPM and can be precisely controlled to give soft start and acceleration control.

The Di Pietro Motor can be used in boats, cars, burden

Burden

-As a surname:*Arthur Scott Burden , American equestrian*Chris Burden, American avant-garde artist*Doug Burden , American rower.*Henry Burden, 19th century industrialist*Jane Morris née Jane Burden , English artists' model...

 carriers and other vehicles.

Environmental Implications

Operation of compressed air vehicles will usually be pollution free during operation. However the energy required for compression must be sourced, and will usually be derived from electricity, or an internal combustion engine. Depending on the method used to generate the electricity, the energy may still contribute some quantities of greenhouse gases and other pollutants, especially if fossil fuels are used.

However, the use of multiple alternative energy sources, such as solar panels to power generators/compressors, could decrease the need for electricity created by fossil fuels.

With the constant advancements in alternative ambulatory power by engineers such as Angelo Di Pietro of Engineair in Australia and Guy Negre of MDI in France, crude petroleum can be refashioned to be mainly used for industrial products such as plastics.

External links

• Engine Air Research and Development