Rotary Engine - Explained

Explanation of how a rotary engine works. With only 3 moving components, these are an engineering marvel. A look inside at what actually happens.

Comparison with traditional piston cylinder engines:

Advantages:
- Number of moving parts (Only 3 main moving parts, rather than 40+)
- Compact, and lightweight.
- Will not catastrophically fail. (Main concern is apex seals)
- Can rev very high.

Disadvantages:
- Not as efficient.
- Poor emissions.
- Low compression ratio (ties in with efficiency)

Category:

Autos & Vehicles

Tags:

• rotary
• engine
• how
• it
• works
• explaine
• engineering
• inside
• view

[NicksCorvetteMan]

Felix Wankel was a genius. It's really sad that his engine never really took off. At least Mazda took interest in the Wankel engine and won at Le Mans overall in 1991 with the Mazda 787B.

[EngineeringExplained]

@NicksCorvetteMan I agree completely, I think it's an incredible engine. Unfortunately there's no base, and not enough engineers working to make it efficient. No catastrophic failure; sounds like reason enough to use it in the racing scene.

[NicksCorvetteMan]

@EngineeringExplained The FIA completely banned Rotor engines at the end of 1991.

[EngineeringExplained]

@NicksCorvetteMan Curious as to the reasoning? Emissions? 

[NicksCorvetteMan]

@EngineeringExplained Because they said it had unfair weight advantages compared to piston engines.

[EngineeringExplained]

@NicksCorvetteMan Haha, I originally wrote "Emissions? Weight?" But thought how could something be banned because it's too light. They should be allowed to place weights where they wish, not ban a design with advantages. Kills innovation.

[MW2L3G3ND]

thank you very much i understand much better now :)

[Myrtone]

In Rolls-Royce design, the rotors were in pairs, each pair being sequential rather than parallel. In each pair, R1 takes in air and compresses it and R2 takes in the compressed air and compresses it further, it is then mixed with fuel and autoignition occurs, the expanding gasses first drive R2 around and then are pushed out of the chamber and drive around R1 before being pushed out again.

[Myrtone]

@EngineeringExplained Even more increadible than the petrol wankel is the diesel wankel developed by rolls-royce, which seems to have been workable, but was not even put into production.

[EngineeringExplained]

@EngineeringExplained I should note that although there are 3 power strokes per rotation of the rotor, there is one power stroke per rotation of the crankshaft. My first comment can be a little misleading in this sense.