The Wankel engine is a type of internal combustion engine which uses a rotary design to convert pressure into a rotating motion instead of using reciprocating pistons. Its four-stroke cycle takes place in a space between the inside of an oval-like epitrochoid-shaped housing and a rotor that is similar in shape to a Reuleaux triangle but with sides that are somewhat flatter. This design delivers smooth high-rpm power from a compact size. Since its introduction the engine has been commonly referred to as the rotary engine, though this name is also applied to several completely different designs.

The engine was invented by German engineer Felix Wankel. He began its development in the early 1950s at NSU Motorenwerke AG (NSU) before completing a working, running prototype in 1957. NSU then licensed the concept to companies around the world, who have continued to improve the design.

Because of their compact design, Wankel rotary engines have been installed in a variety of vehicles and devices such as automobiles including racing cars, along with aircraft, go-karts, personal water craft, chain saws, and auxiliary power units. The most extensive automotive use of the Wankel engine has been by the Japanese company Mazda.

History

In 1951, the German engineer Felix Wankel began development of the engine at NSU Motorenwerke AG, where he first conceived his rotary engine in 1954 (DKM 54, Drehkolbenmotor). The so-called KKM 57 (the Wankel rotary engine, Kreiskolbenmotor) was constructed by NSU engineer Hanns Dieter Paschke in 1957 without the knowledge of Felix Wankel, who remarked "you've turned my race horse into a plow mare". The first working prototype DKM 54 was running on February 1, 1957 at the NSU research and development department Versuchsabteilung TX.

Considerable effort went into designing rotary engines in the 1950s and 1960s. They were of particular interest because they were smooth and quiet running, and because of the reliability resulting from their simplicity.An early problem of buildup of crackles in the epitrochoid surface was solved by installing the spark plug in a separate metal piece instead of directly screwed on the block.

In the United States, in 1959 under license from NSU, Curtiss-Wright pioneered minor improvements in the basic engine design. In Britain, in the 1960s, Rolls Royce Motor Car Division at Crewe, Cheshire, pioneered a two-stage diesel version of the Wankel engine.

Also in Britain, Norton Motorcycles developed a Wankel rotary engine for motorcycles, based on the Sachs air cooled Wankel that powered the DKW/Hercules W-2000 motorbyke, which was included in their Commander and F1; Suzuki also made a production motorcycle with a Wankel engine, the RE-5, where they used ferrotic alloy apex seals and an NSU rotor in a successful attempt to prolong engine's life. In 1971 and 1972 Arctic Cat produced snowmobiles powered by 303 cc Wankel rotary engines manufactured by Sachs in Germany. Deere & Company designed a version that was capable of using a variety of fuels. The design was proposed as the power source for United States Marine Corps combat vehicles and other equipment in the late 1980s.

After occasional use in automobiles, for instance by NSU with their Ro 80 model, Citroën with the M35, and GS Birotor using engines produced by Comotor, as well as abortive attempts by General Motors that seems having come to the conclusion that the Wankel engine was some cents more expensive to built than an equivalent conventional engine, and Mercedes-Benz to design Wankel-engine automobiles, the most extensive automotive use of the Wankel engine has been by the Japanese company Mazda.



After years of development, Mazda's first Wankel engine car was the 1967 Cosmo. The company followed with a number of Wankel ("rotary" in the company's terminology) vehicles, including a bus and a pickup truck. Customers often cited the cars' smoothness of operation. However, Mazda chose a method to comply with hydrocarbon emission standards that, while less expensive to produce, increased fuel consumption, just before a sharp rise in fuel prices. Mazda later abandoned the Wankel in most of their automotive designs, but continued using it in their RX-7 sports car until August 2002 (RX-7 importation for Canada ceased with only the 1993 year being sold. The USA ended with the 1994 model year with remaining unsold stock being carried over as the '1995' year.). The company normally used two-rotor designs, but the 1991 Eunos Cosmo used a twin-turbo three-rotor engine. In 2003, Mazda introduced the Renesis engine with the RX-8. The Renesis engine relocated the ports for exhaust and intake from the periphery of the rotary housing to the sides, allowing for larger overall ports, better airflow, and further power gains. Early Wankel engines had also side intake and exhaust ports, but the concept was abandoned because of carbon buildup in ports. The Renesis engine solved the problem by using a keystone scratching side seal. (Masaki Ohkubo et al., SAE paper 2004-01-1790) The Renesis is capable of delivering with better fuel economy, reliability, and environmental friendliness than previous Mazda rotary engines, all from its 1.3 L displacement.

In 1961, the Soviet research organization of NATI, NAMI and VNIImotoprom started experimental development, and created experimental engines with different technologies.

Soviet automobile manufacturer AvtoVAZ also experimented with the use of Wankel engines in cars but without the benefit of a license. In 1974 they created a special engine design bureau, which in 1978 designed an engine designated as VAZ-311. In 1980, the company started delivering Wankel-powered VAZ-2106s (VAZ-411 engine with two-rotors) and Ladas, mostly to security services, of which about 200 were made. The next models were the VAZ-4132 and VAZ-415. Aviadvigatel, the Soviet aircraft engine design bureau, is known to have produced Wankel engines with electronic injection for aircraft and helicopters, though little specific information has surfaced.

Although many manufacturers licensed the design, and Mercedes-Benz used it for their C111 concept car, only Mazda has produced Wankel engines in large numbers. American Motors (AMC) was so convinced "...that the rotary engine will play an important role as a powerplant for cars and trucks of the future...", according to Chairman Roy D. Chapin Jr., that the smallest U.S. automaker signed an agreement in February 1973, after a year's negotiations, to build Wankels for both passenger cars and Jeeps, as well as the right to sell any rotary engines it produces to other companies. It even designed the unique Pacer around the engine, even though by then, AMC had decided to buy the Wankel engines from GM instead of building them itself. However, GM's engines had not reached production when the Pacer was to hit the showrooms. Part of the demise of this feature was the 1973 oil crisis with rising fuel prices, and also concerns about proposed US emission standards legislation. General Motors' Wankel did not comply with those emission standards, so in 1974 the company canceled its development, although GM claimed having solved the fuel consumption problem; unfortunately, they never published the results of their research. This meant the Pacer had to be reconfigured to house AMC's venerable AMC Straight-6 engine with rear-wheel drive.

Design

In the Wankel engine, the four strokes of a typical Otto cycle occur in the space between a three-sided symmetric rotor and the inside of a housing. In the basic single-rotor Wankel engine, the oval-like epitrochoid-shaped housing surrounds a rotor which is triangular with bow-shaped flanks (often confused with a Reuleaux triangle, a three-pointed curve of constant width, but with the bulge in the middle of each side a bit more flattened). From a theoretical perspective, the chosen shape of the rotor between the fixed apexes is basically the result of a minimization of the volume of the geometric combustion chamber and a maximization of the compression ratio, respectively. Thus, the symmetric curve connecting two arbitrary apexes of the rotor is maximized in the direction of the inner housing shape with the constraint not to touch the housing at any angle of rotation (an arc is not a solution of this optimization problem).

The central drive shaft, called the eccentric shaft or E-shaft, passes through the center of the rotor and is supported by fixed bearings. The rotors ride on eccentrics (analogous to cranks) integral with the eccentric shaft (analogous to a crankshaft). The rotors both rotate around the eccentrics and make orbital revolutions around the eccentric shaft. Seals at the corners of the rotor seal against the periphery of the housing, dividing it into three moving combustion chambers. The rotation of each rotor on its own axis is caused and controlled by a pair of synchronizing gears. A fixed gear mounted on one side of the rotor housing engages a ring gear attached to the rotor and ensures the rotor moves exactly 1/3 turn for each turn of the eccentric shaft. The power output of the engine is not transmitted through the synchronizing gears. The force of gas pressure on the rotor (to a first approximation) goes directly to the center of the eccentric, part of the output shaft.

The best way to visualize the action of the engine in the animation at left is to look not at the rotor itself, but the cavity created between it and the housing. The Wankel engine is actually a variable-volume progressing-cavity system. Thus there are 3 cavities per housing, all repeating the same cycle. Note as well that points A and B on the rotor and e-shaft turn at different speed, point B moves 3 times faster than point A, so that one full orbit of the rotor equates to 3 turns of the e-shaft.

As the rotor rotates and orbitally revolves, each side of the rotor gets closer and farther from the wall of the housing, compressing and expanding the combustion chamber similarly to the strokes of a piston in a reciprocating engine. The power vector of the combustion stage goes through the center of the offset lobe.

While a four-stroke piston engine makes one combustion stroke per cylinder for every two rotations of the crankshaft (that is, one half power stroke per crankshaft rotation per cylinder), each combustion chamber in the Wankel generates one combustion stroke per each driveshaft rotation, i.e. one power stroke per rotor orbital revolution and three power strokes per rotor rotation. Thus, power output of a Wankel engine is generally higher than that of a four-stroke piston engine of similar engine displacement in a similar state of tune; and higher than that of a four-stroke piston engine of similar physical dimensions and weight.

Wankel engines also generally have a much higher redline than a reciprocating engine of similar power output, in part because the smoothness inherent in circular motion, but especially because they do not have highly stressed parts such as a crankshaft or connecting rods. Eccentric shafts do not have the stress-raising internal corners of crankshafts. The redline of a rotary engine is limited by wear of the synchronizing gears. Hardened steel gears are used for extended operation above 7000 or 8000 rpm. Mazda Wankel engines in auto racing are operated above 10,000 rpm. In aircraft they are used conservatively, up to 6500 or 7500 rpm. However, as gas pressure participates in seal efficiency, running a Wankel engine at high r.p.m. under no load conditions can result in the engine destruction.

National agencies that tax automobiles according to displacement and regulatory bodies in automobile racing variously consider the Wankel engine to be equivalent to a four-stroke engine of 1.5 to 2 times the displacement; some racing sanctioning bodies ban it altogether.

Engineering

Felix Wankel managed to overcome most of the problems that made previous rotary engines fail by developing a configuration with vane seals that could be made of more durable materials than piston ring metal that led to the failure of previous rotary designs.

Rotary engines have a thermodynamic problem not found in reciprocating four-stroke engines in that their "cylinder block" operates at steady state, with intake, compression, combustion, and exhaust occurring at fixed housing locations for all "cylinders". In contrast, reciprocating engines perform these four strokes in one chamber, so that extremes of "freezing" intake and "flaming" exhaust are averaged and shielded by a boundary layer from overheating working parts.

The boundary layer shields and the oil film act as thermal insulation, leading to a low temperature of the lubricating film (max. ~200 °C/400 °F) on a water-cooled Wankel engine. This gives a more constant surface temperature. The temperature around the spark plug is about the same as the temperature in the combustion chamber of a reciprocating engine. With circumferential or axial flow cooling, the temperature difference remains tolerable.

Four-stroke reciprocating engines are less suitable for hydrogen. The hydrogen can misfire on hot parts like the exhaust valve and spark plugs. Another problem concerns the hydrogenate attack on the lubricating film in reciprocating engines. In a Wankel engine this problem is circumvented by using a ceramic apex seal against a ceramic surface: there is no oil film to suffer hydrogenate attack. Since ceramic piston rings are not available , the problem remains with the reciprocating engine. The piston shell must be lubricated and cooled with oil. This substantially increases the lubricating oil consumption in a four-stroke hydrogen engine.

Materials

Unlike a piston engine, where the cylinder is cooled by the incoming charge after being heated by combustion, Wankel rotor housings are constantly heated on one side and cooled on the other, leading to high local temperatures and unequal thermal expansion. While this places high demands on the materials used, the simplicity of the Wankel makes it easier to use alternative materials like exotic alloys and ceramics. With water cooling in a radial or axial flow direction, with the hot water from the hot bow heating the cold bow, the thermal expansion remains tolerable.

Sealing

Early engine designs had a high incidence of sealing loss, both between the rotor and the housing and also between the various pieces making up the housing. Also, in earlier model Wankel engines carbon particles could become trapped between the seal and the casing, jamming the engine and requiring a partial rebuild. (This can be prevented in older Mazda engines by always allowing the engine to reach operating temperature). It was common for very early Mazda engines to require rebuilding after . Modern Wankel engines have not had these problems for many years. Further sealing problems arise from the uneven thermal distribution within the housings causing distortion and loss of sealing and compression. This thermal distortion also causes uneven wear between the apex seal and the rotor housing, quite evident on higher mileage engines. Attempts have been made to normalize the temperature of the housings, minimizing the distortion, with different coolant circulation patterns and housing wall thicknesses.

Fuel consumption and emissions

Just as the shape of the Wankel combustion chamber is resistant to preignition and will run on lower-octane rating gasoline than a comparable piston engine, it also leads to relatively incomplete combustion of the air-fuel charge, with a larger amount of unburned hydrocarbons released into the exhaust. The exhaust is, however, relatively low in NOx emissions; this allowed Mazda to meet the United States Clean Air Act of 1970 in 1973 with a simple and inexpensive 'thermal reactor' (an enlarged open chamber in the exhaust manifold) by paradoxically enriching the air-fuel ratio to the point where the unburned hydrocarbons in the exhaust would support complete combustion in the thermal reactor; while piston-engine cars required expensive catalytic converters to deal with both unburned hydrocarbons and NOx emissions. This raised fuel consumption, however (already a weak point for the Wankel engine) at the same time that the oil crisis of 1973 raised the price of gasoline. Mazda was able to improve the fuel efficiency of the thermal reactor system by 40% by the time of introduction of the RX-7 in 1978, but eventually shifted to the catalytic converter system. According to the Curtiss-Wright research, the extreme that controls the amount of unburned HC in the exhaust is the rotor surface temperature, higher temperatures producing less HC. They showed also that the rotor can be widened. Quenching is the dominant source of HC at high speeds, and leakage at low speeds. The shape and positioning of rotor recess-combustion chamber- influences emissions and fuel use, the MDR being chosen as a compromise. (Ritsuharu Shimizu et al., SAE Paper 950454, 1995)

In Mazda's RX-8 with the Renesis engine, fuel consumption is now within normal limits while passing California State emissions requirements. The exhaust ports, which in earlier Mazda rotaries were located in the rotor housings, were moved to the sides of the combustion chamber. This approach allowed Mazda to eliminate overlap between intake and exhaust port openings, while simultaneously increasing exhaust port area. The Renesis engine even meets California's Low Emissions Vehicle or LEV standards.

Advantages

Wankel engines are considerably simpler, lighter, and contain far fewer moving parts than piston engines of equivalent power output. For instance, because valving is accomplished by simple ports cut into the walls of the rotor housing, they have no valves or complex valve trains; in addition, since the rotor rides directly on a large bearing on the output shaft, there are no connecting rods and no crankshaft. The elimination of reciprocating mass and the elimination of the most highly stressed and failure prone parts of piston engines gives the Wankel engine high reliability, a smoother flow of power, and a high power to weight ratio.

The surface/volume-ratio problem is so complex that one cannot make a direct comparison between a reciprocating piston engine and a Wankel engine in terms of the surface/volume-ratio. The flow velocity and the heat losses behave quite differently. Surface temperatures behave absolutely differently; the film of oil in the Wankel engine acts as insulation. Engines with a higher compression ratio have a worse surface/volume-ratio. The surface/volume-ratio of a Diesel engine is much worse than a gasoline engine, but Diesel engines are well known for a higher efficiency factor than gasoline engines. Thus, engines with equal power should be compared: a naturally aspirated 1.3 liter Wankel engine with a naturally aspirated 1.3 liter four stroke reciprocating piston engine with equal power. But such a four stroke engine is not possible and needs twice the displacement for the same power as a Wankel engine. The extra or "empty" stroke(s) should not be ignored, as a 4-stroke cylinder produces a power stroke only every other rotation of the crankshaft. In actuality, this doubles the real surface/volume-ratio for the four stroke reciprocating piston engine and the demand of displacement. Higher volumetrically efficiency, lower pumping loss through the absence of choking valves.

Because of the quasi-overlap of the power strokes that cause the smoothness of the engine, and the avoidance of the 4-stroke cycle in a reciprocating engine, the Wankel engine is very quick to react to throttle changes and is able to quickly deliver a surge of power when the demand arises, especially at higher rpms. This difference is more pronounced when compared to 4 cylinder reciprocating engines and less pronounced when compared to higher cylinder counts.

In addition to the removal of internal reciprocating stresses by virtue of the complete removal of its reciprocating internal parts typically found in a piston engine, the engine is constructed with an iron rotor within a housing made of aluminium, which has a greater coefficient of thermal expansion. This ensures that even a severely overheated Wankel engine cannot seize, as would likely occur in an overheated piston engine. This is a substantial safety benefit in aircraft use since no valves can burn out.

A further advantage of the Wankel engine for use in aircraft is the fact that a Wankel engine can have a smaller frontal area than a piston engine of equivalent power allowing a more aerodynamic nose to be designed around it. The simplicity of design and smaller size of the Wankel engine also allows for savings in construction costs, compared to piston engines of comparable power output.

Of perhaps the most importance is that Wankel engines that operate within their original design parameters are almost immune to catastrophic failure. A Wankel engine that loses compression, cooling or oil pressure will lose a large amount of power, and will die over a short period of time; however, it will usually continue to produce some power during that time. Piston engines under the same circumstances are prone to seizing or breaking parts that almost certainly results in major internal damage of the engine and an instant loss of power. For this reason, Wankel engines are very well suited to aircraft.

Due to a 50% longer stroke duration compared to a four cycle engine, there is more time to complete the combustion. This leads to greater suitability for Direct injection. A Wankel rotary engine has stronger flows of air-fuel mixture and a longer operating cycle than a reciprocating engine, so it realizes concomitantly thorough mixing of hydrogen and air. The result is a homogeneous mixture, which is crucial for hydrogen combustion.

Disadvantages

Although in two dimensions the seal system of a Wankel looks to be even simpler than that of a corresponding multi-cylinder piston engine, in three dimensions the opposite is true. As well as the rotor apex seals evident in the conceptual diagram, the rotor must also seal against the chamber ends.

Piston rings are not perfect seals; in fact, each has a gap to allow for expansion. Moreover, the sealing at the Wankel apexes is less critical, as leakage is between adjacent chambers on adjacent strokes of the cycle, rather than to the crankcase. However, the less effective sealing of the Wankel is one factor reducing its efficiency, confining its success mainly to applications such as racing engines and sports vehicles where neither efficiency nor long engine life are major considerations. Indeed, comparison tests have shown that the Mazda's rotary RX-8 uses more fuel than heavier V-8s with over four times the displacement.

Compared to four stroke piston engines, the time available for fuel to be port injected into a Wankel engine is significantly shorter, due to the way the three chambers rotate. The fuel-air mixture cannot be pre-stored as there is no intake valve. Also the Wankel engine, compared to a piston engine, has 50% longer stroke duration. The four Otto cycles last 1080° for a Wankel engine versus 720° for a four stroke reciprocating piston engine.

There are various methods of calculating the engine displacement of a Wankel; the Japanese regulations calculating displacements for engine ratings on the basis of the volume displacement of one rotor face only. This is widely accepted as the standard method of calculating the displacement of a rotary, however comparing a piston engine to a Wankel rotary using this displacement convention is flawed and results in large imbalances in specific output in favor of the Wankel motor. Many believe this is for marketing purposes on Mazda's part.

For comparison purposes between a Wankel Rotary engine and a piston engine, displacement (and thus power output) can more accurately be compared on a displacement per revolution (of the eccentric shaft) basis. This dictates that a two rotor Wankel displacing 654 cc per face will have a displacement of 1.3 liters per every rotation of the eccentric shaft(only two total faces, one face per rotor going through a full power stroke) and 2.6 liters after two revolutions (four total faces, two faces per rotor going through a full power stroke). This is directly comparable to a 2.6-liter piston engine with an even number of cylinders in a conventional firing order which will also displace 1.3 liters through its power stroke after one revolution of the crankshaft, and 2.6 liters through its power strokes after two revolutions of the crankshaft. However, a Wankel Rotary engine is still a 4-stroke engine and pumping losses from non-power strokes still apply. But the absence of throttling valves and a 50% longer stroke duration result in a significantly lower pumping loss compared against a four stroke reciprocating piston engine. Measuring a Wankel rotary engine in this way more accurately explains its specific output numbers, as the volume of its air fuel mixture put through a complete power stroke per revolution is directly responsible for torque and thus horsepower produced.

The trailing side of the rotary engine's combustion chamber develops a squeeze stream which pushes back the flamefront. With the conventional two-spark-plug or one-spark-plug system and homogenous mixture, this squeeze stream prevents the flame from propagating to the combustion chamber's trailing side in the mid and high engine speed ranges. This is why there can be more carbon monoxide and unburnt hydrocarbons in a Wankel's exhaust stream. A side port exhaust, as is used in the Renesis avoids this because the unburned mixture cannot escape. The Mazda 26B avoided this issue through a 3-spark plug ignition system. (As a result, at the Le Mans 24 hour endurance race in 1991, the 26B had significantly lower fuel consumption than the competing reciprocating piston engines. All competitors had only the same amount of fuel available, because of the Le Mans 24h limited fuel quantity rule.) A peripheral intake port gives the highest MEP, however, side intake porting produces a more steady idle. (Kenichi Yamamoto, Rotary engine, fig 4.26 & 4.27 pag 46, Mazda, 1981)

All Mazda-made Wankel rotaries, including the new Renesis found in the RX8, burn a small quantity of oil by design; it is metered into the combustion chamber to preserve the apex seals . Owners must periodically add small amounts of oil, marginally increasing running costs—though it is still reasonable and comparable in some instances when compared to many reciprocating piston engines.

Applications

Automobile racing

In the racing world, Mazda has had substantial success with two-rotor, three-rotor, and four-rotor cars. Private racers have also had considerable success with stock and modified Mazda Wankel-engine cars.

The Sigma MC74 powered by a Mazda 12A engine was the first engine and team from outside Western Europe or the United States to finish the entire 24 hours of the 24 Hours of Le Mans race, in 1974. Mazda is the only team from outside Western Europe or the United States to have won Le Mans outright and the only non-piston engine ever to win Le Mans, which the company accomplished in 1991 with their four-rotor 787B ( —actual displacement, rated by FIA formula at ). The following year, a planned rule change at Le Mans made the Mazda 787B ineligible to race anymore due to weight advantages. Mazda is also the most reliable finisher at Le Mans (with the exception of Honda, who has entered only three cars in only one year), with 67% of entries finishing.

The Mazda RX-7 has won more IMSA races in its class than any other model of automobile, with its one hundredth victory on September 2, 1990. Following that, the RX-7 won its class in the IMSA 24 Hours of Daytona race ten years in a row, starting in 1982. The RX7 won the IMSA Grand Touring Under Two Liter (GTU) championship each year from 1980 through 1987, inclusive.

Formula Mazda Racing features open-wheel race cars with Mazda Wankel engines, adaptable to both oval tracks and road courses, on several levels of competition. Since 1991, the professionally organized Star Mazda Series has been the most popular format for sponsors, spectators, and upward bound drivers. The engines are all built by one engine builder, certified to produce the prescribed power, and sealed to discourage tampering. They are in a relatively mild state of racing tune, so that they are extremely reliable and can go years between motor rebuilds.

The Malibu Grand Prix chain, similar in concept to commercial recreational kart racing tracks, operates several venues in the United States where a customer can purchase several laps around a track in a vehicle very similar to open wheel racing vehicles, but powered by a small Curtiss-Wright rotary engine.

In engines having more than two rotors, or two rotor race engines intended for high-rpm use, a multi-piece eccentric shaft may be used, allowing additional bearings between rotors. While this approach does increase the complexity of the eccentric shaft design, it has been used successfully in the Mazda's production three-rotor 20B-REW engine, as well as many low volume production race engines. (The C-111-2 4 Rotor Mercedes-Benz eccentric shaft for the KE Serie 70, Typ DB M950 KE409 is made in one piece! Mercedes-Benz used split bearings.)

Motorcycle engines

From 1974 to 1977 Hercules produced a limited number of motorcycles powered by Wankel engines. The motor tooling and blank apex seals were later used by Norton to produce the Norton Commander model in the early 1980s.

The Suzuki RE5 was a Wankel-powered motorcycle produced in 1975 and 1976. Touted as the future of motorcycling, the small displacement engine produced impressive power. However, other problems and a lack of parts interchangeability meant low sales.

Dutch motorcycle importer and manufacturer van Veen produced small quantities of their dual rotor Wankel-engined OCR-1000 between 1978 and 1980, using surplus Comotor engines.

However, from the 1980s onwards, rotary engines saw no success in powering motorcycles. They have not been used in motorcycle racing, which is entirely dominated by multi-cylinder piston engines. Nor have they been produced for sale to the general public for road use. So far, modern motorcycle rotary engines have been confined to prototypes and proof-of-concept demonstrations.

Aircraft engines

The first Wankel rotary-engine aircraft was the experimental Lockheed Q-Star civilian version of the United States Army's reconnaissance QT-2, basically a powered Schweizer sailplane, in 1968 or 1969. It was powered by a 185 hp (138 kW) Curtiss-Wright RC2-60 Wankel rotary engine.

Aircraft Wankels have made something of a comeback in recent years. None of their advantages have been lost in comparison to other engines. They are increasingly being found in roles where their compact size and quiet operation is important, notably in drones, or UAV. Many companies and hobbyists adapt Mazda rotary engines (taken from automobiles) to aircraft use; others, including Wankel GmbH itself, manufacture Wankel rotary engines dedicated for the purpose. One such use are the "Rotapower" engines in the Moller Skycar M400.

Wankel engines are also becoming increasingly popular in homebuilt experimental aircraft, due to a number of factors. Most are Mazda 12A and 13B automobile engines, converted to aviation use. This is a very cost-effective alternative to certified aircraft engines, providing engines ranging from 100 to at a fraction of the cost of traditional engines. These conversions first took place in the early 1970s. With a number of these engines mounted on aircraft, as of 10 December 2006 the National Transportation Safety Board has only seven reports of incidents involving aircraft with Mazda engines, and none of these is of a failure due to design or manufacturing flaws. During the same period they have issued several thousand reports of broken crankshafts and connecting rods, failed pistons and incidents caused by other components which are not found in the Wankel engines. Rotary engine enthusiasts derisively refer to piston aircraft engines as "reciprosaurs", and point out that their designs have remained essentially unchanged since the 1930s, with only minor differences in manufacturing processes and variation in engine displacement.

Peter Garrison, Contributing Editor for Flying magazine, has said that "the most promising engine for aviation use is the Mazda rotary." Mazdas have indeed worked well when converted for use in homebuilt aircraft. However, the real challenge in aviation is producing FAA-certified alternatives to the standard reciprocating engines that power most small general aviation aircraft. Mistral Engines, based in Switzerland, is busy certifying its purpose-built rotaries for factory and retro-fit installations on certified production aircraft. With the G-190 and G-230-TS rotary engines already flying in the experimental market, Mistral Engines hopes for FAA and JAA certification in 2007 or early 2008. Mistral claims to have overcome the challenges of fuel consumption inherent in the rotary, at least to the extent that the engines are demonstrating specific fuel consumption within a few points of reciprocating engines of similar displacement. While fuel burn is still marginally higher than traditional engines, it is outweighed by other beneficial factors.

Since Wankel engines operate at a relatively high rotational speed with relatively low torque, propeller aircraft must use a Propeller Speed Reduction Unit to keep conventional propellers within the proper speed range. There are many experimental aircraft flying with this arrangement.

Other uses

Small Wankel engines are being found increasingly in other roles, such as go-karts, personal water craft and auxiliary power units for aircraft. The Graupner/O.S. 49-PI is a 1.27 hp (947 W) 5 cc Wankel engine for model airplane use which has been in production essentially unchanged since 1970; even with a large muffler, the entire package weighs only 380 grams (13.4 ounces).

The simplicity of the Wankel makes it well-suited for mini, micro, and micro-mini engine designs. The Microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) Rotary Engine Lab at the University of California, Berkeley has been developing Wankel engines of down to 1 mm in diameter with displacements less than 0.1 cc. Materials include silicon and motive power includes compressed air. The goal is to eventually develop an internal combustion engine that will deliver 100 milliwatts of electrical power; the engine itself will serve as the rotor of the generator, with magnets built into the engine rotor itself.

The largest Wankel engine was built by Ingersoll-Rand; available in 550 hp (410 kW) one rotor and 1100 hp (820 kW) two rotor versions, displacing 41 liters per rotor with a rotor approximately one meter in diameter, it was available between 1975 and 1985. It was derived from a previous, unsuccessful Curtiss-Wright design, which failed because of a well-known problem with all internal combustion engines: the fixed speed at which the flame front travels limits the distance combustion can travel from the point of ignition in a given time, and thereby limiting the maximum size of the cylinder or rotor chamber which can be used. This problem was solved by limiting the engine speed to only 1200 rpm and the use of natural gas as fuel; this was particularly well chosen, as one of the major uses of the engine was to drive compressors on natural gas pipelines.Yanmar Diesel of Japan, produced some small, charge cooled rotor rotary engines for uses such as chainsaws and outboard engines, some of their contributions are that the LDR (rotor recess in the leading edge of combustion chamber) engines had better exhaust emissions profiles, and that reed-valve controlled intake ports improve part-load and low r.p.m performance. (Kojiro Yamaoka & Hiroshi Tado, SAE paper 720466, 1972)

Non-internal combustion

Aside from being used for internal combustion engines, the basic Wankel design has also been utilized for gas compressors, and superchargers for internal combustion engines, but in these cases, although the design still offers advantages in reliability, the basic advantages of the Wankel in size and weight over the four-stroke internal combustion engine are irrelevant. In a design using a Wankel supercharger on a Wankel engine, the supercharger is twice the size of the engine.

Perhaps the most exotic use of the Wankel design is in the seat belt pre-tensioner system of some Mercedes-Benz and Volkswagen cars. In these cars, when deceleration sensors sense a potential crash, small explosive cartridges are triggered electrically and the resulting pressurized gas feeds into tiny Wankel engines which rotate to take up the slack in the seat belt systems, anchoring the driver and passengers firmly in the seat before a collision.

See also

• Mazda Wankel engine
• Pistonless rotary engine
• Jonova engine
• RKM engine
• Gunderson Do-All Machine
• Mazda RX-8 Hydrogen RE

Notes

References

• Arnold E. Biermann & Hermann H. Ellerbrock Jr.: "The design of fins for air cooled cylinders", NACA Report Nº 726, 1939 (can be downloaded from NASA website)

External links

• How Wankel Engines Work
• Animated Engines: Wankel Engine
• How and why an engine must rev smoothly