ignitionn

Yes, but depending on the atmosphere it may well end up as a continuous arc as the plasma won't have time to dissipate...

Why would you to to fire it at that rate though?

John.

THANKS FOR YOUR COMMENT. Now you have to think outside the box. I'm not talking about a conventional piston engine. A rotor with 6 combustion per rev. will have 360 combustion per min. If it turns only 1000 RPM , 360 000 /2 = 180 000 per spurk plug. Am I correct?? continuous arc would be ideal, timing not important.

Certainly continuous ignition is possible. My home oil burner arc is continuous.

No, it's not!

Will a continuous arc work in a rotary engine combustion chamber with same fuel mixture and initial 140 PSI. No need to time arc like a piston engine.

2000 times a second? Why? The highest revving engine I ever heard of was just over 350 revs/second, so I don't think it's for an engine. (Unless you built one using unobtainium) So come on...give...

you are right . that is for a piston engine, but a rotary with six combustion per rev. If I have 350 revs/sec and 6 combustions per rev that equals 2100 combustions per /sec. or 126 000 per min. but a piston engine fires only every fourth revolution per piston. My question is : can a continuous arc ( like a taser gun) ignite a compressed fuel mixture .

Its an 8 stroke engine ??

A 4 stroke engine fires every 2nd revolution.........not every 4th......

A 2 stroke fires on every revolution......

By the way, most engines with high revs, many cylinders and relatively conventional ignition systems, usually have more than one ignition system, some have one per cylinder.....this way if one goes down, usually the engine will run still and each ignition system has time to "re-charge" (as a word to use for any system) itself between sparks....

120,000 sparks on a 4 stroke single cylinder implies a 60,000 RPM motor.....on a 6 cylinder, it will be about 10,000 RPM. Formula One 8 cylinder engines are getting close to 20,000 RPM today......how they organise it I do not know....

You are right about the piston engine. I am talking about a new concept of a rotary engine. 6 combustions in sequence are directly applyed to the output schaft.My understanding is, higher RPM = higher torque .

Hygher rpm usually equates to lower torque, but higher horsepower. Larger very high torque engines operate at less than 60 rpm.

50 lbft of torque at 1000 rpm is more horsepower than 100 lbft at 450 rpm. Horsepower is a lb-ft ( torgue X diameter) X rpm and as a product of torque, distance, and time measures the continuous power output,. Torque, on the other hand, is an instantaneous force measurement.

A 500 hp 2300 rpm diesel engine might move 40 tons of freight far faster than would a 500 hp 15,000 rpm race engine, and do it for thousands of miles, but it could never respond fast enough to push a one ton car around a track at 200 mph.

Your 6 chamber is something I toyed with 40 years ago, as a 4 chamber, but the sealing problems where well beyond me. In the reange I operated in, an initial spark from a plug started the cycle, and then the spark plug chamber acted as a flame resevoir to eliminate the need for any additional spark.

Desktop model, not the business I was in, so it died on the garage shelf, and still sits there. About 100 cc/rev. Hoglund engineering in Green Bay solved the sealing problems for the Wankle, maybe they can help ypu out, too.

RichH

Thanks for your input. I am equaiting my Ford Explorer 6 cylinder cubic inch per piston to one chamber of the rotary engine with a 3.5 inch radius , so combustion times 3.5 in would be the force on the shaft and that is 6 times per rev. No vane movement or excentric rotor . This makes me think of the high RPM and the arc ignition system .Could this work for a race car?

Sounds to me that you should consider altering some of the engine operating parameters possibly including the type of fuel and consider using a glow plug for ignition. 120 Khz at enough current to effect ignition can cause some havoc with the RF bands and require a lot of shielding and possible other means of RF attenuation. Sounds like an interesting project though.

Should be able to run on any existing fuel used in conventional piston engine. I investigated glow plugs they would last onlu 2 to 3000 miles if that long .

Have you considered how far the flame front might travel in 1/2,000 sec.

I think you're up against a hard limit there.

I have no idea. I think the effective force on a piston is about 60 deg of expansion of the crankshaft rotation. The rotor has also 60 deg of expansion. I know it will be difficult thats why I'm asking for some help.

If the plug fire continuously then the engine won't run. Even in a rotary engine the fire of the spark plug has to be close to the compression stoke. If it's firing as the rotor turns into it the engine will be forced to rotate the opposite direction. Timing is a must if you plan to make the engine efficient.

120,000 RPM is going to be hard on the bearings. May need to cool lubricant also drawing away front the efficiency

Without doing the math, I tend to feel that a source of ignition shortly after commencment of compression when flame front travel speed is considered in relation to the RPM (21,000 by my calculator) and in relation to combustion chamber volume, would probably get you a running engine. Then you go from there. Efficiency? Well, that's another thing.

A crossoverport to use the previous chambers flame to ignite the next chamber would be a better option, presuming that your vanes pass over the ignition point before the leading one is exhaud=sted. Jet engines start with a spark plug, then use low-velocity liners to contain the flame to ignite the high-speed mix inside the can, Usually eight to twelve combustion chambers, with each having a cross-over port to ignite the other ccombustion chambers. A slow-velocity port would eliminate the need for a spark every chamber.

The Wankle uses two plugs per bank, one for low rpm, and an earlier plug for higher rpm.

RichH

A crossover port does not lend itself vor this concept. There are no vanes or othe reciprocating parts. The Wankle rotor rotates arround a gear. This rotor is part of the outputshaft.

The rotor is turning away like a piston after ignition it can't return. Would it hurt if the plug keeps on fireing after initial combustion takes place.

Why not use multiple ignition points? or even multiple(sequential) in the same chamber?

Hi,

laser ignition is possible, a lot of research work in the automotive companies is done now on this.

Fast firing sparks depend on very low inductance and capacitance.

High speed depends on rotor material and diameter.

We have run an experimental airbearing at 150 000 rev/min, this had an outer diameter of 56mm and operated near its yield limit.

So certainly this will be a small motor .

Mosquitos drive their wings at near 1KHz! May be a good idea to have motor that is only oscillating?

RHABE

RHABE, THANKS FOR THE INPUT. No it's not going to be a small motor to start with. One combustion chamber will be equivalent to a Ford Explorer 6 cylinder piston.

AHHHH A 'CONCEPT' YOU SAY.........IN A WORD ...NO. REVS HIGH, TERMINAL FLAME SPEED TOO LOW, YOUD HAVE TO FIRE THE MIX BEFORE IT ENTERED THE 'COMBUSTION CHAMBER'.YOU GOT SOME INTEREST ON THIS ONE BUT ITS A DEAD LOSER FROM THE START....PUT YOUR BRAIN TO WORK ON SOMETHING ACHIEVEABLE AMIGO.

To Guest "AMIGO" I do not sparr with words but if some people would't think outside the box the wheel would still be square. Now to the facts . Compresst air of 140 psi ( ajustable) is in the chamber seald , fuel ( ajustable ) is injected, and I hope it will ignite by the continuous arking of whatever the arking device is made of. Now you think of a new concept. A 12 Volt battery connected to a Tessla coil and some electronics to make a continuous arc on a spark plug and the proper shielding. Now put YOUR BRAIN to work.

Best Regards

It now sounds more like a cheap rocket or RAM motor......!!! Interesting.

Andy, don't let your imagination run away . It is just a symple system. Air is injected into a chamber, chamber is closed, fuel injected and the arcing will ignite the mixture.Combustion force turns the rotor , chamber is cleared of exhaust gas and the cycle sterts over again. Do some math about combustion time on one piston at various RPMs. let me know about your findings.

You imply that your engine has no vanes nor rotor. In order to produce torque, the expanding gases MUST push on something connected directly or indirectly to the shaft in a direction perpendicular to a radius of the shaft, AND in the opposite direction on something else that is either stationary, moving more slowly, or moving in the opposite direction. Torque is the product of a force and the distance of that force from the center of rotation. A force pushing toward the center of a shaft has zero torque, no matter how large that force may be, nor how frequently that force is applied.

I'd be VERY interested in a sketch showing what your combustion gases are pushing on...

Thank you for your interest. I have to solve the ignition problem first,then apply for a Patent. Somewhere you missed a poin. I did say the combustion force is applyed against the rotor ( but no vains ) I understand combustion times radius of rotor = torque and that depends how big ( diameter)you make the rotor or how big of an engine you want to make . Please read the other comments and tell me something about an ignition system I can use.

Thanks

"Do some math about combustion time on one piston at various RPMs. let me know about your findings." is from one of your previous posts. Your post #4 indicates 2100 ignitions per second. 1/2100= 0.00048 seconds per ignition. You say your engine is to be of a similar size to your Ford pistons. Let's say a foot in diameter to be conservative. 1/6 of a revolution on a 6" radius is about 6" of travel at the rotor tip. 6" travel in half a millisecond is 1000 ft/sec, or 680 miles an hour.

Your flame front (a chemical reaction) must travel that fast just to keep up with the rotor travel. It must travel MUCH faster if the expanding gases are to exert any significant force on the rotor.

Once again, I believe you need to worry about the physics to make the engine turn at all, before you worry about an ignition system fast enough (and a fuel that can burn fast enough) to make the thing run at this kind of speed.

I want to clarify, the cubic in of air of one piston in my ford 6 cylinder motor is equal to one chamber of the rotor. The burning time of a piston engine is about 60 deg of the crankshaft rotation ( is that correct?) . The rotor travels 60 deg befor exhaust port is reached . Will hydrogen burn fast enough.

I feel there has to be some rotating shaft attached to your concept engine. If I may be so bold as to presume there could be a rotating disc attached to the rotating shaft, Then you could attach a single rotating magnet to the disc. Then attached to the engine housing you can place magnetic pickups spaced in relation to the desired firing points of each cylinder, or chamber. This setup is similar to the current MSD "flying magnet" design. The difference is that the MSD design knows the number of cylinders of the engine, and will fire the correct coil for the appropriate cylinder, or it fires through a distributer to select the correct cylinder. In your prototype design stages, you will probably do well to use six separate pickups, six coils all separate. You could then adjust each firing event as you need to match each combustion chamber's needs. Once the sequence is finalized, a single control unit could be timed to fire at each chamber's spark plug from six separate coils. Current US automotive designs are going this direction. The six separate coils would then only need to fire once per revolution. Hows that sound? Good luck.

Bob it's not that simpe. One plug has to fire every 120 deg of the shaft ( rotor) revolution ,the othe plug fires the same amount per revolution .

If you position one set of pickups 120* apart on the housing, this will work one plug. Now position another set of pickups 1 inch further along the shaft, position 120* apart and synchronized to work with the other spark plug.

Why not use a glow-plug and Diesel? Detonation can be acheived by controling the valve opening and intake air temperature. You will only require a spark to start the process or even an electrical motor to wind up the engine and a heater element to begin the thermal process and a compression control valve to allow the initial rotation. A primary engine can be used to start the main engine, like a turbine GE aircraft engine uses a smaller turbine run on electric power for pre-ignition rotation of the main turbine. Stepped startup sequence is costly to design and maintain. Use multiple alternating ignition deveices, so each unit is actuated in alternating sequence. Therefor you detonation and spark are never happening from the same electrical source each compression. Variable compression may be dificult to accurately control, as air temperature and humidity can vary and effect combustion timing and fuel air ratios. Your ignition sounds more expensive than the engine.

I see your vision Bob. The system can even rotate backwards, to reach the ignition point faster.

Contact MSD Racing Ignitions. At a vintage race, one of the teams was having trouble and needed to check the ignition box. Someone showed up with an MSD test box. They hooked it up to the suspect box and pulled one plug wire and connected a spark plug and grounded it to the engine. When it was turned on it sounded like a hive of hornets, a very very loud hive of hornets. I could hear it on the other side of the transporter. The frequency of spark events (relative to RPM) could be varied, and knowing MSD, I'm sure the test fixture could replicate actual field conditions. Considering that this was a Porsche and it turns at least 6,000 to 7,000 RPM's, this sounds like what you are looking for. Really, this thing wasn't just putting out many sort of single large sparks, it was producing multiple balls of spark very rapidly. I haven't seen that kind of energy since my days in the Pratt and Whitney Aircraft ignition lab. I was impressed. (try that on your wasps Del)

The problem was found to be the ignition box was grounded to the chassis instead of directly to a purposley provided grounding lug on the distributor body. With the power it is putting out, normal ground paths are insufficient.

I think the last wasp major was built, late 50's? I know we rebuilt them until the 70's. Besides, that was 4 mag/s per for 14 cylinders each, 2 plugs per cylinder.

RichH

Have you gotten any further with your engine project?

bob, Patent officer advise me to make a mode first. I submitted the idea to a major automaker in Europa . the reply was : we will consider any idea if it is patent and useful in our production. ( negotiate the monetary aspect of it) If there is no patent filed , we will use any or part of it as we see fit but no compensation.

People have a problem understanding that you could have 6 combustions per revolution and transmitting the force direct to a shaft, not a conventional crankshaft.

Any idea how to go from here.

Anyway thanks for the inquiry.

Would you have the ability to construct a non functional scale model from wood, plastic or some easily workable material. Even if you were to do some accurate drawings, you should be able to submit the idea to the patent office. That would cement the idea as yours. Then any further developments by people working on your idea would still provide benefits to you. You might even be able to sell the unfinished idea to another person or company to finish development of the remaining details. (ignition and sealing).

If you could create the spinning "crankshaft", and the stationary "cylinder block" the idea would be easier to present to other people. If a major engine manufacturer wanted to purchase the model and future development rights to it, would you object on principal or is it just a question of weather they would pay the correct figure?

I don't mean to sound as bad as I do. I just wondered if you felt you had an idea that was so beneficial to mankind that you want to be sure the world profits from it, as say a cure for cancer. Or is the idea an improvement to the world that would be better but not as dramatic, like a bandage that sticks better.