What is Rotary Engine?

A rotary engine is essentially a standard Otto cycle engine, but instead of having a fixed cylinder block with rotating crankshaft as with a conventional radial engine, the crankshaft remains stationary and the entire cylinder block rotates around it.

The rotation of the bulk of the engine's mass produced a powerful gyroscopic flywheel effect, which smoothed out the power delivery and reduced vibration. Vibration had been such a serious problem on conventional piston engine designs that heavy flywheels had to be added. Because the cylinders themselves functioned as a flywheel, rotary engines gained a substantial power-to-weight advantage over more conventional engines. Another advantage was improved cooling, as the rotating cylinder block created its own fast-moving airflow, even when the vehicle was at rest.

Most rotary engines were arranged with the cylinders pointing outwards from a single crankshaft, in the same general form as a radial, but there were also rotary boxer engines and even one-cylinder rotaries.

Like radial engines, rotaries were generally built with an odd number of cylinders (usually either 7 or 9), so that a consistent every-other-piston firing order could be maintained, to provide smooth running. Rotary engines with an even number of cylinders were mostly of the "two row" type.

source: wikipedia

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Wankel engine

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Wankel engine is a type of internal combustion engine which uses a rotary design to convert pressure into a rotating motion instead of using reciprocating pistons. Its four stroke cycle takes place in a space between the inside of an oval-like epitrochoid-shaped housing and a rotor that is similar in shape to a Reuleaux triangle. This design delivers smooth high-rpm power, from a compact size. Since its introduction the engine has been commonly referred to as the rotary engine, though this name is also applied to several completely different designs.

The engine was invented by German engineer Felix Wankel. He began its development in the early 1950s at NSU Motorenwerke AG (NSU) before completing a working, running prototype in 1957. NSU then subsequently licensed the concept to other companies across the globe, who have continued to improve the design.

Because of their compact design, Wankel rotary engines have been installed in a variety of vehicles and devices such as automobilesracing cars, along with aircraft, go-karts, personal water craft, chain saws, and auxiliary power units. The most extensive automotive use of the Wankel engine has been by the Japanese company Mazda .

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