ANIMATED ENGINES

[zadok]

Great animated engines for those of us with a less than mechanical mind.
http://www.keveney.com/otto.html
http://www.keveney.com/twostroke.html
http://www.keveney.com/Wankel.html

[sAsLEX]

Crap takes a bit to get your head round how the wankel engine actually fits all together!

[gamgee]

cool never understood how a rotor worked until now, thanks

[Smorg]

cool never understood how a rotor worked until now, thanks

:eyepoke: :eyepoke:

[ktulu]

Thats awesome, really simple and easy to understand, something everyone should know really

[Big Dave]

And now for something ruder....Wankel Rotary Engine!
Rate your embarrassment A). High B) Hello C) good evening.

Python, M.

Nice work on the francis barnett 4 stroke - dem camshafts is too low.

[Warren]

I've seen these types of animated diagrams before and these particular ones are the best I have seen at explaining how the different types of engine work, especially with the individual steps below each diagram and some of the extra stuff like the cam shafts.

There are some other engine diagrams on that website as well if you visit:

http://www.keveney.com/Engines.html

[inlinefour]

However no substitute for the real thing.

[Colapop]

how does the shaft of the rotary turn? It looks like the piston and other bits move around the shaft and it goes nowhere.

Just dum I think....

[zadok]

The rotary certainly is amazing. It's so small, powerful and seemingly efficient, yet very heavy on fuel but. Maybe someone can explain that.

[Big Dave]

The rotary certainly is amazing. It's so small, powerful and seemingly efficient, yet very heavy on fuel but. Maybe someone can explain that.

It is actually a large combustion chamber - they were rated at 1300cc (mazda 13B) - but the volume is actually much higher depending on where it is in the 'stroke'. They can move a lot of fuel and they can rev to 30,000 if ungoverned.
Whilst it's also true that the rotary is more efficent in terms of changing the vectors of the mass of the pistons etc when compared to a reciprocating engine - they are really not that efficient at bang for buck.
They also have a design 'weakness' in the apex seal of the rotor and efficiency drops markedly if these are not in 100%.

[ManDownUnder]

The rotary certainly is amazing. It's so small, powerful and seemingly efficient, yet very heavy on fuel but. Maybe someone can explain that.

There's a wee rule of thumb that comes in handy...

If you have lots of horses, you have to feed them.

Size/capacity (small) isn't so critical to the conversation... if it's got high power output, assume a high fuel input.

[Ixion]

And now for something ruder....Wankel Rotary Engine!
Rate your embarrassment A). High B) Hello C) good evening.

Python, M.

Nice work on the francis barnett 4 stroke - dem camshafts is too low.

Hm - Fanny B only made one four stroke model, and that but for a few years, and it was actually a Blackburne engine.

Like James, Fanny B was the archetypical two smoker. (Most will have observed that the little Plodmocycle in the TV show Heartbeat is a Fanny B )

[warewolf]

how does the shaft of the rotary turn? It looks like the piston and other bits move around the shaft and it goes nowhere.

Actually, them's pretty poor diagrams. For example, the points operation is arse-about; in reality the points are opened to cause the spark. See How Automobile Ignition Systems Work .

Try: How Rotary Engines Work

The rotor is geared to the crank 3:1, so when the tacho says 9,000rpm the rotor is only doing 3,000. Compared to a conventional reciprocating piston engine, the rotor mass is thrashing around a helluva lot less.

Rotaries also dump a lot of heat into the exhaust. (The Suzuki RE5 has what could be described as air-cooled exhausts: there is a second skin around the exhausts which is open at the front to direct cooling air around the exhaust pipe as it runs down the length of the bike.) This heat is evidence of wasted combustion energy.

Driven sensibly, rotaries can return good fuel economy and power. But like bikes, who wants to???

Somewhere on another (packed up) computer I've got a bookmark for a really good rotary animation... however , googled this page: Rotary Engine Illustrated

Hope this helps!

(Hey! I used to work with a rotor-head; what can I say?)

[Motu]

I was working on rotaries before they were considered way cool - I thought they were way dumb,but was quite impressed when I drove one that could wheelspin into 3rd,cars didn't do that back then.We had a guy who did the motors,he'd stand at his bench surounded by weird bits,and laugh at us guys using ring compressors and knocking pistons into bores...he didn't even get his hands dirty.

We need the animation of the TS3 and Deltic too,if you can't figure out a rotary the deltic goes into the too hard basket.And how about the Puch split single?