mortymower

http://www.wisemanengine.com/home.htm

My father works for MTA (Mississippi Technologies Alliance), where he gives government funding to people with good ideas in hopes that they will succeed. He sent me this link to a company that has developed a new type of internal combustion crankcase, that allows the piston rod to just go straigh up and down, not side to side at all. This cuts down on most of the friction and has many other benefits as well.

They modifed a homelite weedeater engine with this crankcase and it ran twice as long as the stock motor on 100:1 mix!

My dad is probably going to fund them but he sent me the link because he knew I would think it was pretty cool.

Go to the pictures link on the home page to get a better idea of how this thing works, its pretty neat.

333pg333

I agree, that is pretty cool. Surprised no other comments on this? C'mon you Masterchefs, what do you all think?

gcb951

That is pretty clever. So the connecting rod still rids on the crank shaft but the main bearing also rotates? Pretty niffty.

gcb951

Huh...reading on. Its much more than the above. Neat.

Duke

But "decreased it's fuel consumption more than 100%"
Huh?? Maybe they should learn to word themselves better before making claims

333pg333

Maybe they mean when only in diagram form. lol

RKD in OKC

There have been a LOT of improvements in chain saw and model airplane engines that while they work well in small motors don't translate well to larger sizes. Remember these small model airplane engines are ringless, all but bearingless, the fuel is the lubrication, and can run 65% nitro 10% oil and alcohol mix at over 20,000 rpm with glo-plug ignition.

Several years ago there was a model airplane engine that had a sliding combustion chamber valve thing that used the complete expansion of the combustion to rotate the crank. The volume of the combustion stroke area was much greater than the compression stroke area. The exhaust was only a little above ambient air temperature. Worked great at model airplane engine sizes, but never quite made it to lawn mower engine size or bigger that I know of. Google Erickson MCC engine.

Those gears are a little suspect in my mind.

333pg333

That's a lot of movement of the crank too although it's only circular. Wonder how you'd work in the oiling? Have to dry sump you'd think?

tommo951

On a sinle cylinder engine I am sure it works well but once you start adding the reciprocal mass of a multi cylinder engine I think it is going to be a ver heavy large crank!
Great thinking though, and if it works well power to the elbow guys!!

Laust Pedersen

I also think (and have thought for 10+ years) that this surely is a great idea.

Reference 1
Reference 2a
Reference 2b

Btw, for combustion pressures and torque delivery of some significance, there has to be a planetary gear on the other side of their orbital crank shaft as well. Otherwise there will be a twisting moment on it that will jam the mechanism.

Laust

PS Their (US) patent number is 6,510,831

Thom

The Kinematic chain reminds me of the Wankel engine.
Nice !

inactiveuser92616

Something is not quite right about it. Their principles are sound, but the ring gear will probably be a source of problems, especially with increased scale. Large power production and marine diesels utilize a two-link connecting rod to eliminate side loading on the piston, which enable most of the benefit they are showing, without resorting to the gear setup. Supercharging in the area between piston and crankcase is a cool idea.

At the very least it will probably be noisy.

ittia

Nice! Good job dude. Heard of any any further developments on their engine?

mortymower

They built a 16 HP V twin engine and invited them to view it running, and they are working on a diesel as well. It will be interesting to see if anything happens with it.

333pg333

Trammel looks like the old aviation motors.