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Your Complete Guide To The Rotary Engine

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Your Complete Guide To The Rotary Engine

How Does a Rotary Engine Work?

A basic dictionary definition gets us halfway to explaining a rotary engine: a rotary motion is essentially something revolving around a center axis. In this case, a triangular rotor is spinning around an output shaft, which leads us to the next question - so, what is a rotary engine? The rotary engine has one thing in common with the traditional piston engine: internal combustion, and that's about it. Unlike a conventional internal combustion engine, which has cylinder banks, rods, a crankshaft, and pistons, a rotary engine consists of these three essential parts:


  • A barrel-shaped housing
  • Triangular rotor
  • Output shaft

There are other components, like an intake and outlet port and spark plugs to ignite the fuel, but a rotary engine only has these three major components, which is part of what makes it so attractive. In trying to answer the question, "How does a rotary engine work?", the easiest way to explain it is as follows. Imagine a side-on diagram in the shape of a barrel. Inside the barrel-shaped (oval) combustion housing, there are two or three triangular rotors. The open spaces between the rotors and the housing are known as chambers. As with a typical car, fuel and air are mixed and ignited by a sparkplug, moving the rotors around a fixed output shaft. The rotors and output shaft are connected, which supplies power to the wheels. Every other engine configuration, including the inlineV, VR, and W configurations use what we know as a traditional piston.

Specifications

A rotary engine's specifications can be misleading. It's small, but it packs a punch. Well, at least in the horsepower department. The last production car to use a rotary engine was the Mazda RX-8. The engine specs for the RX-8 are as follows:

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Author: GERHARD HORN

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