Patent ID: 7950357

Claim:
A method for operating an internal combustion engine, the engine comprising: at least one power cylinder having a power chamber defined at least in part by a power piston, the at least one power cylinder having an intake valve and an exhaust valve, at least one compression cylinder having a compression chamber, which is defined at least in part by a compression piston, the compression cylinder having a fresh charge intake valve and a flow-through valve, and a flow-through chamber, which is connected with the compression chamber when the flow-through valve is open and which is connected with the power chamber when the intake valve is open, wherein the method comprises: flowing-in fresh charge into the compression chamber while increasing the volume of the compression chamber, compressing fresh charge located in the compression chamber while decreasing the volume of the compression chamber, pushing-over the compressed fresh charge into the flow-through chamber, pushing-out the fresh charge located in the flow-through chamber into the power chamber, combusting the fresh charge located in the power chamber while increasing the volume of the power chamber and while converting thermal energy into mechanical output power and discharging the combusted charge while decreasing the volume of the power chamber, wherein the volume of the flow-through chamber increases during at least a part of the pushing-over step and, at the end of the pushing-out step, the volume of the flow-through chamber is less than 15% of the maximum volume of the flow-through chamber.