A better internal combustion engine?

I've been digging through the big dumpster bin of bulletin board stocks for the past several hours or so and I found this little gem (or not):

"Rotoblock"

Stock info

It's described on the website as an "oscillating piston engine" and it looks very similar to the MYT engine allegedly invented by Raphael Morgado, however, Rotoblock claims that they purchased rights to the patents of this suspiciously similar technology from Monti Farrell in 2003. The patents they claim to hold are applicable to helicopters, pumps, charging systems, fans, and, of course, planes, trains and automobiles.

Here is a video of the MYT engine's trademark action:

Looks a lot like the videos on the Rotoblock website, right?

There has been a lot of mystery about this new engine technology and many people believe it to be some kind of hoax. If it's the real deal, then I can't wait for this technology to become available. Not to mention the fact that you could make a lot of money if you invested in this company when it's only trading at $1.01 a share.

Unfortunately this whole debacle seems unnecessarily secretive if not highly suspicious. Only time will tell, I suppose.





[edit on 21-4-2010 by walking_virus]

reply to post by walking_virus

I'm not sure if I fully get the animation, but if I do, it looks like a variant of the concept behind the Wankel engine, which Mazda built for the RX-7 as a rotary engine, except the rotary engine had less moving parts. But it worked.

As long as the automobile industry is in bed with the oil companies we will keep cars that have more horsepower/fuel consumption than we really need.

We have Eco races every year where people build vehicles to have a low as possible fuel consumption, but have we seen a car based on one of the Eco racers yet?

Here's another two engines that are viable

www.keelynet.com...

virgin-engine.com...

Originally posted by walking_virus
There has been a lot of mystery about this new engine technology and many people believe it to be some kind of hoax. If it's the real deal, then I can't wait for this technology to become available. Not to mention the fact that you could make a lot of money if you invested in this company when it's only trading at $1.01 a share.

Unfortunately this whole debacle seems unnecessarily secretive if not highly suspicious. Only time will tell, I suppose.

By the way, I'm an engineer and I think I could design and build an engine based on this concept, and it would work, however, it looks like it might have problems with uneven wear and maintenance issues. And I'm not sure if they can be easily overcome, so I personally wouldn't invest in the company.

I wouldn't rule out that someone could come up with innovative solutions to the problems I see, but it wouldn't surprise me if you only got 10% of the mileage between rebuilds with this engine compared to a conventional piston engine.

I the late 60's, the rotary engine (Wankel design) was tipped to be the engine of the future. In fact, some estimated that by the late seventies, most passenger vehicles would be powered by a rotary engine. Every major car manufacturer invested considerable time and money into developing the rotary engine because blind Freddie could see it was a much better idea.

The Wankel rotary has/had two inheritant flaws. 1, Thermal Efficiency - due to the combustion chamber having a greater surface area than conventional piston engines, this meant more heat/energy is lost to the block/rotors etc.
2, Apex Seals. The apex seals are a little (only a little) like piston rings. Due to centrifugal forces, the seals on the tip (apex) of the rotor are subject to extreme conditions. This was the downfall of the rotary. In fact, Mazda was the only car manufacturer to come up with a solution "good enough". It wasn't really, at least not in the early 70's.

Having owned several Mazda rotaries, I can tell you that, with modern materials and engine management systems, the apex seal issue is all but fixed but it earned them a poor reliability reputation that persists to this day. I can also tell you that the addition of a Garrett turbo and a decent E.M.S. makes these engines insanely powerful. More durable than a comparable piston engine too.

I think Arbitrageur is on the money. In a lot of ways, the reciprocating piston engine is a very crude concept and car manufacturers have taken a bad idea that works and polished it but it works. Any car manufacturer would give their first born (+ a billion dollars) for an engine design that would put them ahead of the competition.

[edit on 22-4-2010 by OZtracized]

reply to post by OZtracized

Thanks OZ, I think I was on the right track. I found the wiki article for the MYT engine, which I hadn't seen until just now and it says something similar to my comment:

en.wikipedia.org...

A swing-piston engine is a type of internal combustion engine in which the pistons move in a circular motion inside a ring-shaped "cylinder", moving closer and further from each other to provide compression and expansion.

The basic concept is very similar to the Wankel engine, the "traditional" rotary, but predates it by some time.

More recently, starting in the 1990s, a number of inventors have re-introduced the concept as if it were new. Examples include Angel Labs' "Massive Yet Tiny" engine, the Rotoblock, the Roundengine, the Trochilic Engine and designs by Tschudi and Hoose.

The initial test engines had some minor problems, notably with sealing, but these were worked through and the engines were under test during 1944.

I read that last sentence as, they got the seals to work for testing, but the longevity of the seals was never proven. It's not clear from that article why this type of engine developed in 1944 never went into production.

I was also thinking about those seals in the rotary engine, as well as the seals in the MYT engine in the OP. The seals in a reciprocating piston engine are pretty simple as is the back and forth motion, and uniform pressure distribution and wear of the seals. The other rotary designs are all more demanding on seals and wear would tend to be non-uniform.


I think the reciprocating piston engine is about 25% efficient, and I think that aiming to double that wouldn't be an unreasonable goal:

Thermal efficiency

Due to inefficiencies such as friction, heat loss, and other factors, thermal engines' efficiencies are typically much less than 100%. For example, a typical gasoline automobile engine operates at around 25% efficiency, and a large coal-fueled electrical generating plant peaks at about 46%. The largest diesel engine in the world peaks at 51.7%.

And while there are some interesting engine designs for doing this, the engine has to last more than 10,000 miles without needing a rebuild!

Interestingly, advances in electronics may allow us to implement a more efficient engine technology that was discovered in 1979 but the electronics of the time couldn't handle:

www.popularmechanics.com...

Originally known as active thermo-atmosphere combustion, HCCI was first discovered in 1979 by engineers at the Nippon Clean Engine Research Institute in Japan trying to perfect a cleaner, more efficient two-stroke engine. But at the time HCCI couldn't be controlled well enough to work in a four-stroke engine. Advances in microprocessors, sensors and control systems have somewhat rectified that problem, sending nearly every top-tier carmaker ... into overdrive as they scramble to perfect an engine that employs HCCI.

This technology should give us a 30% boost in efficiency and combined with other advances we should get more, but I don't know how soon we'll reach 50% efficiency. The rotary engine has tended to be less efficient for a number of reasons but those efficiency issues too might be overcome with some smart, innovative thinking and design improvements.

I think you guys should read about the Crowler Six Stroke Engine.

www.autoweek.com...

en.wikipedia.org...

reply to post by walking_virus


Looks to me like a combination of the Wankel, and a rotary engine, like the ones war planes had in WW2, and a planetary gear set, like is found in automatic transmissions. Interesting concept, from an engineering standpoint.

Wankel engine

Wright Cyclone Rotary Engine

Planetary Gears

reply to post by garritynet

The concept of not sending all that waste heat to the radiator, but instead converting it to energy somehow, is a great concept, and someone should be able to think of a workable solution for doing this. Crowley's system as presented appears to have a few too many issues with its technical implementation, but I love the idea of not sending all that waste heat to the radiator.

Maybe instead of a 6 stroke engine, what's needed is a small steam turbine power plant to use the waste energy, which would eliminate the problems of cylinder stress and distortion.

But that would still have the problem of not operating in environments which get below freezing which includes most of the USA and many western countries.

Perhaps an even better solution would be to use some fluid other than water in a closed loop system and boil and condense that. It might need to be an engineered fluid with the right boiling point, but it could avoid the need for a radiator and work in conjunction with a modified 4-stroke engine, without the need for a 6 stroke engine. I think the 6 stroke has a lot of problems to overcome.