Rotatorque-Engine

[Schoenrock]

Hello,
my name is Markus Schönrock. I invented a new kind of Rotary Combustion engine. You can see everything about the RotaTorque on www.rotatorque.com, my privat Homepage. At the moment it is only awailable in German, but there are lots of animations that are easy to understand.
As you can see, the first Prototype is ready and works.
For the next stage of development I want to build the second "evolutioned" Prototype. There are lots of invenstigations to be made, such as electronic ignishion, injektion, some hours Dyno testing and so on.
I need to find people who can help me to start the next stage, so I try to make the RotaTorque-engine as public as posible.

I am looking foreward to your reactions
and hope you understood my bad english

Markus

[smoregrava]

Cool thing. didn't find any pictures of the finnished engine. Have you used it in any application?

[Karl_T]

What are you using for rings? (vanes) That looks like a nearly impossible technical challenge to have a ring that will slide and hold the pressures of combustion.

Karl

[Schoenrock]

Hello smoregrava,

you can find some pictures under http://www.rotatorque.de/page51.htm.
The first engine has only 96 cm³. I had to cool it by dripping water over it.
With this engine I only wanted to test, if my Idea will work. The second Prototyp will be some bigger und with internal cooling.

Markus

[Schoenrock]

Hello Karl,

The engine is completly out of Graphit. Dry operating Vacuum Pumps and compressors work the same way. There is only a very small gap between Rotor and Housing. The sliding vanes need a minimum speed to tighten up.

Sorry, but I really have to refresh my english

Markus

[devincox]

Very interesting design. Any movies of it running?

Devin

[peter.blais]

What would you say are the advantages of this over a conventional wankle type rotary? Odviously, there is no longer an eccentric shaft, but to me it looks like it will complicate the seals somewhat as they are no longer fixed, and we all know the apex seals were always the trouble spot or one of the trouble spots in wankle type engines.

[Schoenrock]

Hello

the oldest version of an rotary vane engine I found, worked with steam:
http://www.dself.dsl.pipex.com/MUSEU...oule/soule.htm
Today there are many different applications for the rotary vane principal:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotary_vane_pump
http://www.everestblowers.com/dryvane.htm
http://home.wxs.nl/~brink494/schpmp_e.htm
http://www.pneumofore.com/technology...vane-principal
http://www.cashflo.co.uk/Vane.html

Nearly in every airplane like a Cessna is a dry running rotary vane vacuum pump installed because of its reliably und they don´t have any seals.
You can also find rotary vanes in industrial compressors and hydraulic pumps.
The only thing I tryed, is to combine the rotary Principal with an internal combustion.

Sorry, I cannot deal with a video. I gave my first Prototype away for some professional Dyno-Testing. A large company (- I don´t want to tell the name at the moment -) that is interested on the Rotatorque, damaged it by turning it much to high. I told them to stop at 3000 1/min but they ignored it.
Now I need to build a new one, as soon as possible.
But it costs a lot of money for a private inventor.

Markus

[RotarySMP]

Schöne Grüßen aus Wien Markus

"Nearly in every airplane like a Cessna is a dry running rotary vane vacuum pump installed because of its reliably und they don´t have any seals." I'd agree that most light aircraft vane vane type vaccuum pumps but wouldn't agree on the reliablity.

How does a graphite housing stand up the combustion process? Have you Chromed your bore?

How do you do side seals? The smallest wankels (model engines) also don't need them if you control the housing thickness to very close tolerances. In a bigger engine, thermal expansion makes these clearances differcult to maintain.

The Apex seal issues of the early wankels were basically solved by the early seventies 12A's. The marketing need to inject a little sump oil rather than a more optimised two stroke type oil also leads to gumming up of the seals in their slots on the Mazda engines. Have you looked into springs behind your vanes to help your sticking issues?

Have you done any dyno work with varying intake and exhaust pipe lengths. Your design should benefit from harmonic tuning in a similar manor to the wankel. Here is a link to a very well done model dyno:

http://gallery.intlwaters.com/thumbnails.php?album=338
http://gallery.intlwaters.com/thumbnails.php?album=351

[Schoenrock]

Dear RotarySMP,

as you can see an the pictures below, the engine is completely made of graphite. Only the drive shaft is steel. The graphite I use is a special mixture for best tribological characteristic. It is also impregnated for high temperature use.
Because there is no material mix with different thermal expansion the gap tolerances from rotor to side housing are very small.
I use only centrifugal force for the vanes. I also tried th pressurize the vanes with compressed air, but it was not necessary. The vanes start tightening up at about 300 rpm. First I tried with petrol-gas mixture out of a small carburetor. When too much unburned petrol is in the engine the vanes may stick.
So I used Propane gas for all my testing.

Markus

[NC Cams]

Sealing has been the thorn in the side of ANY/ALL internal combustion engine designers/builders.

Reason: the violent temperature and pressure in concert with the notorious corrosive properties of the various fuels at the elevated temperatures make it VERY difficult for sealing to occur and to remain viable.

Piston rings use residual tension to force the ring against the wall. They also use gas pressure in concert with uneven cross sectional areas to affect side sealing of the ring within the grooves.

A combination of precision fittting and machining along with controlled slippage allows the rings to maintain a seal with the wall as well as the ring grooves in the pistons

A vane seal relies on two things to make it seal. The most obvious is centrifugal force. This shoves the vane out against the wall/bore to affect a seat at the vane face.

However there is also a pressure differential between the high and low pressure side of the vane. This comes into play so as to force the SIDES Of the vane against one side of the wall. When this occurs, however, a space exists on the high pressure side of the vane. Gas pressure (or fluid pressure in a hydraulic system) is then free to become applied to the BACK face/side of the vane so as to force the vane outward against the wall thus generating a pressure enhanced seal of the vane against the face and sides.

You need either centrifugal force or gas/fluid pressure to hold the ring out against the bore and against the ring land/groove to affect a good seal. Otherwise, compression loss WILL occur and the engine can't/won't run.

The lack of a natural spring in a lip seal in a rotary engine has been a real problem over the years. This is why they have come up with various mechanical spring designs so as to force the seals outward to affect a seal - the natural "spring" (aka outward tension) in a piston ring does this.

Air turbines and power steering pumps use this vane type of pump system to create pressure or extract work out of compressed or expanding fluids. However, in these cases, the operating environment is nothing like that in an IC engine. Stick a vane and these vane pumps won't work which, likewise, will occur if the concept were used in an IC engine.

Over the years, all sorts of neat IC engine ideas have been developed that SHOULD do all kinds of neat things to increase power and efficiency.

However, the simple addition of spark and fuel to the concept quite often brings doses of reality that have prevented the engines from reaching anywhere's near what their creators had envisioned.

Yes, the vane pump concept works in theory but sealing during cranking and under the duress of the combustion process will be your major challenges.

I would NOT count on vanes a pictured in post #8 as being sufficient for the proposed concept. They're probably going to need supplemental springs to affect a seal during the induction cycles to say the least.

[Schoenrock]

Thank you NC Cams for your statement.

In case of the second Prototype I want to calculate the centrifugal force pushing the rotary vanes. The vanes measure 60 x 40 x 6mm an they weight about 30 grammes. The possible continuous turning speed should be 2500 rpm. At this rpm the vanes will be pushed with 16 kg or 35 lbs against the housing. How much load do you think to need for tightening up?
In beginning I thought I need to pressurize the vanes from outside. With the first Prototype I tried it with different air pressure, but it was not necessary. The engine turned even slower because of the rising friction.

I know there will come problems to be solved. No one can aspect to develop a perfect new engine in such short time with only one person.

In 1876 as Nicolaus August Otto invented his Otto-engine he surly did not think about the complicated engines we have in our car today.
Any common rail diesel pump is more complicated than the RotaTorque-engine. The question is, if it is the right way to make the Otto-engine more and more costly by mechanic, just to save a tiny little bit fuel, or to think about another kind of combustion engine.
It is a difficult way because leading engineers will newer admit, 130 years of work may have gone into the wrong direction.

We all have seen what human intelligence is able to build. If I can get the manpower and the money to develop the RotaTorque for series, I am sure everyone wants to get this smooth enormous power the RotaTorque produces without any vibrations or oil change.

Markus