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Gold/Mining/Energy : Gold and Silver Juniors, Mid-tiers and Producers -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: ogi who wrote (56043)	1/27/2008 6:34:20 PM
From: E. Charters	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 78431

Problems with that engine are seen as low speed economy, and sealing between vanes and the undulatory-path-guides and cylinder sealing with outer casing. This plagues the Wankel too. HP to weight ratio is good. Sealing and wear is a problem with these machines. The people at Reg Tech say that they have a materials solution to that. The principle of the motor is the same as the child's push top toy, where a screw rod pushed down makes a gear turn. Looking at a sectional cut away along the shaft of the machine at one end of the motor, vane-plates are seen along the outside of the case arranged radially, attached by a pin on their inside edge to cylinders which move toward and away from the viewer reciprocally. The vanes' long dimension is along the shaft, and their short dimension is radial from the center. Movement is along the long dimension in the shaft's long dimension direction. The top and bottom of the vane follows a hill and valley path of constraining plates above and below the vanes that are at right angles and circumferential to the shaft. The vane's constraints/paths are in effect deformed base plates. The vanes therefore drag the rotor along this circular path. It is the same as having a merry go round with the horses going up and down over a fixed undulatory base and thereby dragging around an attached spoked wheel. The horses correspond to the vanes; the poles of the horses are the pistons; and cylinders and the radial spokes attached to horses are together the rotor. The base plate of the merry go round does not move and corresponds to the guides the vanes ride on. But it is the horse's up and down movement which makes the merry go round go round, not the spokes of the system, which are merely or merrily dragged around by the horse's having to move forward if they are to push to the extent that is given by their freedom of motion on their respective pole. The angle of he base plate to the vane is the torque limiter to the system. It would appear to be high, as the vane must wedge itself around according to its downward force and the resulting horizontal force given by the cotangent of angle of the ramp. So in a 30 degree base ramp angle a downward pressure of say 500 lbs, would produce 866 lbs of sideways force. The friction force on the vane is given by the sine of the ramp angle times the vertical piston force times the material factor. Perhaps 37.5 lbs with lubrication. (sine of 30 X .15 X 500) While this increases torque nicely it also indicates vane and path wear and sealing blow by would be increased. The axial vanes are moved by the piston elements, up and down axially (in the direction of the rotor shaft) within axial cylinders inside the rotor. Since a vane, once it moves up and down has to follow the circular hill and valley path of top and bottom fixed plates, this reciprocating movement makes the rotor rotate along the path. I guess if you change the timing, and a vane reverses its back and forth direction at any point, the rotor itself could reverse. Strictly Rube Goldberg --> What I would like to experiment with is a axially circular screw gear that goes thru another rotor's center with the screw gear driving the rotor that is at right angles to it. Rotation of the driving screw gear would be achieved by a rack and pinion reciprocating element, in the same plane as the driving rotor. A sync gear could time the engage and disengage of the rack gear. Or simple just a drive shaft rotor. Wear of the driving element could be reduced by a receiving or driven element that used roller pads. Why do that instead of using the more conventional reciprocation to rotation? Torque increase for one. Speed increase perhaps. Friction and mass could be reduced to a degree. The problem of converting reciprocal expansion to rotation has been around for a while. I have wondered too about pistons arranged radially around the edge of a turbine rotor, which are not connected mechanically to the turbine vanes but eject gas into the voids of the turbine rotor along its edge. The pistons along the edge use a shaft in order to return, or a spring, thus to create compression. Evacuation of the spent gas is achieved both at the piston's return travel and the rotation of the turbine rotor along it's path across exhaust valves. The return of the piston on the firing would seem to be wasted energy, but it is no worse than the standard evacuation stroke of a 4 stroke engine. Valves would have to control intake of the pistons in order not to create suck back on the rotor. The problem here is a slow rotor, and fast pistons. EC<:-}