Lacey reported that Maradona "stayed in the engine-room, checking on the gauges and the pistons and giving a less spectacular through no less valuable performance".
Maradona, whose explosions of individual skill against England and Belgium had carried him to the final of a wave of universal acclaim – give or take the odd English cry of "Cheat" – stayed in the engine-room yesterday, checking on the gauges and the pistons and giving a less spectacular through no less valuable performance.
So robots may soon be fitted with plastic muscles instead of metal pistons and electric motors.Plastic muscles are not entirely novel, but improving their performance to the point where they might be industrially useful has been a long hard slog.
Their various components were manipulated by cables, springs, rods, levers, gears, hydraulic pistons and electric motors.
The institute's engineers, led by Fiodor Wischnjewsky, thought that adding a suitably fine powder to an old engine's oil would effect continuous running repairs by filling in tiny cracks and abrasions in the cylinders and pistons.
Around 97% of cars sold there today rely solely on the pistons, spark-plugs and cylinders of conventional petrol engines to power them (compared with about 50% in Europe).
For maximum efficiency, this is done just as the pistons arrive at the top of their stroke and the cylinder pressure is at its highest.Unfortunately, the fuel and air at top dead-centre are rarely mixed as thoroughly as necessary for complete combustion.
As the water inside the coils is superheated the steam is piped to a radial steam engine, which consists of six pistons.
But the gas-seals would be perfect if the pistons were liquid rather than solid.
Previous attempts to make an engine with liquid pistons have foundered for the obvious reason that liquids are less stable than solids.
Dr Hussain has taken a leaf out of Wankel's book and made his pistons rotate.
