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Wankel Engine PDF
Wankel Engine PDF
Wankel Rotary
y Engines
g
• The advent of the automobile in 1896 to set the stage for a proper
rotary combustion engine.
engine.
• Prior to 1910,
1910, more than 2000 patents for rotary pistons were filed.
filed.
Fig.1
4) How Rotary Engines Work:
• In a piston engine, the same volume of
space (the
(th cylinder)
li d ) alternately
lt t l does
d
four different jobs
jobs;; intake, compression,
combustion and exhaust.
exhaust.
• The rotor follows a path that looks like something you'd create with
a Spiro graph.
graph.
• This path keeps each of the three peaks of the rotor in contact with
the housing, creating three separate volumes of gas
gas..
• The RX-
RX-7, which went on sale in 1978, 1978, was probably
p y the most
successful rotary-
rotary-engine-
engine-powered car
car..
Fig. 7
The output shaft
11) How it’s put together:
• A rotaryy engine
g is
assembled in layers.
• The two-
two-rotor engine we
took apart has five main
layers
aye s tthat
at are
a e held
e d toget
together
e
by a ring of long bolts.
bolts.
Fig. 11
Th partt off th
The the rotor
t h housing
i th
thatt h
holds
ld th
the rotors
t
(Note the exhaust port location.)
• The center piece contains
two intake pports, one for
each rotor.
rotor.
• I the
In th center
t off eachh rotor
t isi
a large internal gear that
rides around a smaller gear
that is fixed to the housingg
of the engine.
engine.
Fig.
g 15
The mixture is compressed here.
¾ Combustion
• The rotary engine has far fewer moving parts than a comparable four-
four-stroke
piston engine.
engine.
• A two
two--rotor rotary engine has three main moving parts
parts:: the two rotors and
the output shaft
shaft..
• This minimization of moving parts can translate into better reliability from
a rotary engine.
engine. This is why some aircraft manufacturers prefer rotary
engines to piston engines
engines..
¾ Smoother
• All the parts in a rotary engine spin continuously in one direction, rather
than violently changing directions like the pistons in a conventional engine
do.
do.
• Most notable is that they are considerably simpler and contain far
fewer moving parts
parts;; for instance, they have no valves, valve trains,
etc..
etc
• The manufacturing costs can be higher, mostly because the number of these
engines
g produced is not as high
p g as the number of p
piston engines.
engines
g .
• They typically consume more fuel than a piston engine because the
thermodynamic efficiency of the engine is reduced by the long combustion
combustion--
chamber shape and low compression ratio.
ratio.