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Seventy Years In The Life Of A Wankel

2024

Video: Seventy Years In The Life Of A Wankel

Video: Seventy Years In The Life Of A Wankel
Video: See Thru Rotary Engine MAX RPM - 29000 (Wankel Engine) 2024, March
Seventy Years In The Life Of A Wankel
Seventy Years In The Life Of A Wankel
Anonim

EQUIPMENT

ENGINE

Seventy Years from the Life of Wankel

This year

performed

seventy years patent

on a rotary piston engine.

Arkady ALEKSEEV

Throughout the history of the car, attempts to replace the piston engine familiar to us with some other one did not stop. Once a steam engine tried to compete with him, from time to time an enthusiasm for electric cars flared up, in the late 60s, some companies turned to a gas turbine seriously. Among these eminent rivals, however, who have not yet overcome the brainchild of Maybach, Daimler and Benz, there is one who nevertheless made his way to the automobile conveyor. But he did not win either. It is a rotary piston engine.

The inventor Robert Wankel came up with the idea of such a motor as early as the 1920s, when the design of the car was not well established and the most diverse, sometimes outlandish in terms of modern concepts, solutions were proposed. At the same time, the idea looked quite timely. It seems that its essence is understandable - a certain body of complex shape rotates (more precisely, performs a complex rotational-vibrational motion) inside a cylinder, which is also not ordinary. The cylinder is then partitioned into several chambers, in which, in fact, the workflow is organized. However, the main difficulty is the manufacture of such a cylinder: its base is the epitrochoid - a complex geometric curve. It is clear that they were able to realize this only a few years later, when the development of technology made it possible to make surfaces of such complex shape. By the way, in the same years, joints of equal angular velocities appeared, also with parts of high accuracy and complex configuration.

But after the construction of the prototypes, one more difficulty arose: what should be the rotor seals and how to make them? And although the technology of that time already had a variety of ways to seal moving joints, this problem could not be solved then.

Once again, they started talking about a rotary piston engine in the late 60s. At the Frankfurt Motor Show in 1967, the NSU Ro80 car appeared - a car with an interesting design and … Wankel engine. Initially, the creators wanted to call it "Rotary", but the famous international "Rotary Club", uniting influential businessmen, was categorically against it.

The visible embodiment of a long-standing idea, which once seemed a technical curiosity, could not but have an impact on other automobile companies. Mazda, as they say, immediately bought a license for this engine and released the Mazda-Cosmo Sport 1100 model, and Rolls-Royce and Daimler-Benz began research in this direction.

The general interest, it would seem, guaranteed the motor a quick introduction on many brands of cars. And here it is just right to recall the strengths of a rotary piston engine. Firstly, it is noticeably (10-15%) less than its "classic" brother and, as a result, lighter. It has fewer moving parts, no valves, and generally a gas distribution system, it has an unusually high liter capacity. Combining several, as they are called, single-section Wankel engines, designers have the opportunity to offer an aggregate of greater power, while slightly increasing the size of the motor. Two-section engines were most widely used, but three-section engines were also found.

The surge of interest did not last long, however. Soon the NSU company left the stage, and only Mazda kept cars with such an engine in its program; the most famous of these is the RX-7 model, a sports supercar. As “Driving” has already written about this more than once, he produces such engines and VAZs. Initially, of course, they were used on all kinds of “catch-ups” of the special services, now they are offering to everyone who has the appropriate amounts. Recently, a message came that VAZ remains the only manufacturer of "wankels" - Mazda stops production of the RX-7.

Now, as you know, the time has come to talk about the shortcomings of the rotary piston engine. One of them, probably the most fundamental, is that the shape of the cavities is far from optimal for the working process of the internal combustion engine. Take a look at the diagram: the combustion chamber is a sort of elongated crescent. This configuration has two weaknesses: firstly, heat losses to the walls of the combustion chamber are large (since their surface is large) and this, of course, reduces the thermal efficiency of the motor and, of course, its efficiency. And secondly, for the same reason, higher exhaust emissions. Of course, designers can still fight with the latter: an additional candle was installed in the combustion chamber, and a catalytic converter in the exhaust tract. True, there is a silver lining - although the shape of the combustion chamber predisposes to detonation, because of the intense cooling and mixing of the unburned mixture, the propensity for it in this engine is small.

Be that as it may, the flaws outweighed the scales - and Wankel’s motors didn’t take root. And the current state of affairs hardly promises them bright prospects. However, in the history of technology more than once happened: many years later, engineers returned to already seemingly hopelessly forgotten designs. By the way, the 70-year history of the “Wankel” also testifies to this.

Robert Wankel and his engine.

"Wankel" from Togliatti.

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