absolute nonsense. Just the most obvious things - it has no way to cool, and there isn't a material on earth that will hold up to combustion at anything like 70:1 compression. I'd be very surprised if they could get 1 hp/lb without melting it.
All new engine concepts have problems to be resolved, and I do not mena just a few little ones either. That is part of the reason that we do not see many new engine concepts... I would love to see this one work, but lots of others have failed to make it through all of the initial development process. Just looking at the engine, it looks like the piston is cantilevered from the hub, and the hub serves as the combustion chamber wall on the inner side of the torus... Correct me if I am wrong. To stand the the pressures of a diesel compression/firing, it is going to have to be one beefy connection between piston and hub. Then there is the mechanism that gives the stop/go motion, which I can not even critique yet... Yeah, I expect some interesting design development once they start running it. Billski
Interesting concept indeed. I get what they are trying to do but I too reckon they will have some interesting results from their initial testing.
Have to give em credit for being creative. Rather ingenious con rod setup to get one set of pistons to hesitate while the other is on a power or compression stroke. If I had to place a bet, I would bet there will be "issues" with the seals between the two sets of rotating cantilevered pistons. As for 70:1 compression and the amount of power they say can be made... Horse Hockey. They will do well IF they can achieve the same power density as a rotary engine and have similar SFC as a well tuned EFI otto cycle engine.
Absolutley. Heck, I'd be thrilled to find a 50 hp engine with the power density and fuel effeciency of a Lycoming 360.