Rotary engines

Rotary engines

A rotary engine is a type of internal combustion engine that operates using a rotational motion rather than a reciprocating motion. This type of engine is typically found in rotary-engine vehicles and is known for providing smooth output torque characteristics. One example of a rotary engine is the Wankel rotary engine.From: Applied Combustion [2019], Combined influence of ignition chamber volume and spark plug channel diameter on the performance of small-scale natural gas Wankel rotary engine [2021]

Internal Combustion Engines

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Published in Mehrdad Ehsani, Yimin Gao, Ali Emadi, and Fuel Cell Vehicles, 2017

Mehrdad Ehsani, Yimin Gao, Ali Emadi

Another advantage of the rotary engine is the reduced number of parts— typically 40% of the number of parts moving in a V-8 engine, although the advantage over a four-cylinder engine would be less. This has certain implications for easier and faster manufacturing of the engine.

Combined influence of ignition chamber volume and spark plug channel diameter on the performance of small-scale natural gas Wankel rotary engine

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Published in Engineering Applications of Computational Fluid Mechanics, 2021

Huichao Jiao, Jinxiang Liu, Run Zou, Nana Wang

Despite the low vibration and noise, high specific power, and broad fuel adaptability, the Wankel rotary engine (WRE) had faded out of the passenger car market due to its inherently poor efficiency and emissions (Meng et al., 2021). However, such disadvantages of the WRE have been gradually remedied by applying clean energy such as natural gas (Blank, 2007; Fan, Pan, Liu et al., 2015). The combination of the small spark ignition WRE (SI-WRE) and natural gas has drawn much attention in recent years due to the increasingly serious environmental problems (Erbil, 2011; Hemmati-Sarapardeh et al., 2020) and has been applied in many advanced platforms, including micro generators (Hack et al., 2016), range extenders (Sakib et al., 2017; Zambalov et al., 2020), and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) (Boretti, 2015). Therefore, developing small natural gas SI-WREs has become more and more meaningful.

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Internal Combustion Engines

Combined influence of ignition chamber volume and spark plug channel diameter on the performance of small-scale natural gas Wankel rotary engine