Posted on 06/23/2015 12:50:20 PM PDT by Red Badger
It is very similar to a Wankle in many ways. And it will suffer from the same problems like the Wankle had with the Apex seals for the rotors at the seal for the top of the combustion chamber.
They are talking power and weight, but I don’t see any talk about reliability/longevity.
The Wankle had good power to weight too,and the apex seals were and are problematic.
I like this thing in concept. but you have an issue with combustion chamber shapes, flame front travel, and plug timing. plus many others I haven’s talked about. I can see where you can introduce two plates to change the valve timing/overlap, but again, seals are going to be an issue. I don’t see it replacing the poppet valve and bump-stick for the foreseeable future.
Fascinating.
You made it sound NSFW for a minute...
http://newsoffice.mit.edu/2014/liquidpiston-small-efficient-rotary-engine-1205
http://papers.sae.org/2014-32-0104/
http://nextbigfuture.com/2015/06/lightweight-and-quiet-power-to-enable.html
http://liquidpiston.com/company/
Yes, I was wondering about efficiency and how well it would scale up. I miss piston powered airplanes. I also wondered about durability, of course.
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