Brayton Cycle - History

History

In 1872, George Brayton applied for a patent for his Ready Motor. It is a reciprocating oil-burning engine. The engine used a separate piston compressor and expander. The compressed air was heated by internal fire as it entered the expander cylinder. Brayton produced and sold "Ready Motors" to perform a variety of tasks like water pumping, mill operation, even marine propulsion.

Critics of the day claimed the engines ran smoothly and had an efficiency of about 17%.

Today the term Brayton cycle is generally associated with the gas turbine, even though Brayton only built piston engines.

The Brayton cycle is a cycle which can be used in both internal combustion engines (such as jet engines) and for external combustion engines.

Although the Brayton cycle is usually run as an open system (and indeed must be run as such if internal combustion is used), it is conventionally assumed for the purposes of thermodynamic analysis that the exhaust gases are reused in the intake, enabling analysis as a closed system.

Another piece of Brayton cycle history was its use in the Selden patent. In the early days of the automobile, a creative attorney "Selden" claimed to have a patent for the internal combustion powered version. The patent drawings showed the use of Brayton cycle engine. Instead of paying royalties, Henry Ford fought the Selden patent. Ford argued his cars used the four-stroke Otto cycle and not the Brayton engine shown used in the Selden auto. Ford won the appeal of the original case.