Russell,

On Wed, 01 Mar 2006 19:58:27 +1300, Russell McMahon wrote:

> 3. You could try "my" 'Pistonless Piston Pump. I invented this as a 
> rocket propellant pump some years ago and only subsequently found out 
> that Lockheed Martin had patented the idea about 4 years before that. 
> A version of this was independently invented by and being developed in 
> secret by Flometrics (see it at 
> http://www.flometrics.com/rockets/rocket_pump/rocketpump.htm) when I 
> caused them some consternation by publishing my design.

I can't quite see why it's that complicated - why not just meter the Very High Pressure into the top of the 
main tank and force it out that way?  What does the oscillating flow achieve, apart from a pulsed output?

> They now have 
> numerous patents on various aspects. An idea which I have public 
> domained and which is *NOT* covered by the LM patent is to use a 
> single chamber pump. The LM patent is based on 3 or more chambers with 
> 2 being mentioned as a throw away at the very end. 2 chambers is fine. 
> If you wish, you can use 2 or more of public domain single chamber 
> pumps with a common controller running them in appropriate phase 
> relationship, when they look suspiciously like the patented version. 
> It so happens that one of the very first British patents (1750s?) was 
> for a mine pump that worked on the same principle - there is little 
> new under the sun.

Are you referring to Thomas Savery's pump?  In which case it was 1698!  :-)

Cheers,


Howard Winter
St.Albans, England


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