Powerplant of the future?

[Tomtall]

Remember the Wankel engine? Well imagine a Wankle on steroids. The following in called the "Legacy" powerplant. This patented powerplant is still being developed at the University of Tennessee by Co-developer Barton W. Watkins. More than 1 Million dollars in private funding has been invested in the project since 2003. Their primary focus is to run it on JP8 kerosene for powering Military UAV's,ground vehicles and mobile power generation. However, once developed could this be the engine of the future? This internal cumbustion motor produces 9 firings cycles per revolution to produce power at a rate of 1.3 h.p. per pound of engine weight, with the potential of increasing to 1.6 hp/lb. If cost could be reduced to manufactor it for general usage the sky could be the limit. The future outboard could verywell be run by one of these if it can be sucessfully developed. Many issues still remain in making the powerplant durable however.

The link below show how it works. Kinda cool. Information provided from an article from Aviation week magazine Feb. 2007

www.aviationweek.com/media/flash/legacyanimation.mov

US 7,044,102 B2
Planetary rotary internal combustion engine
Ernest R. Watkins, deceased, late of Harriman, Tenn. (US), by Bobbie Watkins, legal representative, ; Lawrence A. Hendrix, Knoxville, Tenn. (US); and Barton W. Watkins, Knoxville, Tenn. (US)
Assigned to Power Source Technologies, Inc., Knoxville, Tenn. (US)
Filed on Jun. 28, 2005, as Appl. No. 11/168,912.
Application 11/168912 is a continuation of application No. 10/934001, filed on Sep. 03, 2004, granted, now 6,932,047.
Claims priority of provisional application 60/510204, filed on Oct. 09, 2003.
Claims priority of provisional application 60/500117, filed on Sep. 04, 2003.
Prior Publication US 2005/0235947 A1, Oct. 27, 2005
Int. Cl. F02B 53/00 (2006.01); F01C 1/00 (2006.01)
U.S. Cl. 123—241 9 Claims

[Mark75H]

Holy Apex Seals, Batman! :eek:

[Skoontz]

As with the Wankle, this thing looks fasciating from the aspect of power/design, but, will compound the issues of being a w#&*%s nightmare to machine, and much more, service down the road. And that, still is the Wankles biggest challenge. Rather than rreplacing parts and/or pistons and boring with a piston engine, you throw away parts.

It does show an incredible amount of promoise though.

[Mark75H]

I think the biggest challenge to the Wankle type motor is EPA emissions

As to the machining issues involved in making a Watkins rotor motor, all production machine work is now done by CNC. Complicated squiggles and spirals that could not be done economically in the past are now routine. All the shapes in these are regular or very close to regular and would be a piece of cake to design and produce by the CNC process.

Skoontz may be correct, this may be a "if it doesn't run, trash it" motor when it is worn out. That would have to be factored in to the cost of operation/use

[Michael J Gwaltney]

As with the Wankle, this thing looks fasciating from the aspect of power/design, but, will compound the issues of being a w#&*%s nightmare to machine, and much more, service down the road. And that, still is the Wankles biggest challenge. Rather than rreplacing parts and/or pistons and boring with a piston engine, you throw away parts.

It does show an incredible amount of promoise though.

As you are aware OMC built air cooled, single rotor engines for several years in Snowmobiles. Tooling costs were sky high for production volume. When GM cancelled the Wankle development project the light at the end of the tunnel went out. There were almost fifty snowmobile brand names at that time and OMC saw the market dropping to about a dozen. Most of the rotory costs were rolled into cancelling snowmobile production.

[Roy Hodges]

Was first injected into the intake side of a turbo charger, or just a mechanically driven centrifugal supercharger , by belts or gears or monkey motion. you get the drift. The supercharger breaks up , vaporizes, and atomises the fuel air mixture . The auto companies all know this , they just don't do anything that costs till they are forced to . The engineers would do marvelous things , but- the bean counters control everything , even advertising budgets , i bet .

[Skoontz]

As you are aware OMC built air cooled, single rotor engines for several years in Snowmobiles. Tooling costs were sky high for production volume. When GM cancelled the Wankle development project the light at the end of the tunnel went out. There were almost fifty snowmobile brand names at that time and OMC saw the market dropping to about a dozen. Most of the rotory costs were rolled into cancelling snowmobile production.


Michael:

Another factor litte discussed...The illustrious JX serioes, first introduced in promo by 1964 Olympic ski champion, Billy Kidd.

When first introduced, the JX650 was faster than any production sled ever built. It also was the sled with the most engine troubles, even more so than the Rupp 440 which blew head gaskets like bubble gum in a 3 YEAR OLDS MOUTH.

The 650 had scoring issues, head gasket problems, and starting problems. Under many cicumstances, the 650s would catch fire when the head loosened up, and the unburned gas would spew across the engine and burst into flames.... I had to dive into a snow bank once when I got shot full of flaming gas running about 80 down the Fox River...As soon as I slowed enough to dive off, I did...The sled burned to the frame.

They were incredible machines, with all the charachteristics of the FICHT motors...I was sorry to see OMC drop their snow mobile lines...Nothing ever ran like the 437 Rampage with the 125HP V-4 duece in place of the single barrel....The wankel, or what we called the Hog, was a great machine too. Rode like Bo Didleys Cadidliac....

Hey while I got you here....Can you tell me the grade of stainless a 15HP driveshaft was made of? Ed Runne wants me to send him a used shaft so he can cut it down for a hotrod gear foot...Seems there has to eb a better way to do that other than trashing a good fishing motor shaft, or am I all wet here?????

[JohnsonM50]

Michael:

Another factor litte discussed...The illustrious JX serioes, first introduced in promo by 1964 Olympic ski champion, Billy Kidd.

When first introduced, the JX650 was faster than any production sled ever built. It also was the sled with the most engine troubles, even more so than the Rupp 440 which blew head gaskets like bubble gum in a 3 YEAR OLDS MOUTH.

The 650 had scoring issues, head gasket problems, and starting problems. Under many cicumstances, the 650s would catch fire when the head loosened up, and the unburned gas would spew across the engine and burst into flames.... I had to dive into a snow bank once when I got shot full of flaming gas running about 80 down the Fox River...As soon as I slowed enough to dive off, I did...The sled burned to the frame.

They were incredible machines, with all the charachteristics of the FICHT motors...I was sorry to see OMC drop their snow mobile lines...Nothing ever ran like the 437 Rampage with the 125HP V-4 duece in place of the single barrel....The wankel, or what we called the Hog, was a great machine too. Rode like Bo Didleys Cadidliac....

Hey while I got you here....Can you tell me the grade of stainless a 15HP driveshaft was made of? Ed Runne wants me to send him a used shaft so he can cut it down for a hotrod gear foot...Seems there has to eb a better way to do that other than trashing a good fishing motor shaft, or am I all wet here?????
I would bet that if a request was posted alot of used up OMC motor shafts would be available, I saw boxes of them in a local outboard used parts yard. All OMCs Ive seen are stainless, probably all the same.

[Michael J Gwaltney]

Michael:

Another factor litte discussed...The illustrious JX serioes, first introduced in promo by 1964 Olympic ski champion, Billy Kidd.

When first introduced, the JX650 was faster than any production sled ever built. It also was the sled with the most engine troubles, even more so than the Rupp 440 which blew head gaskets like bubble gum in a 3 YEAR OLDS MOUTH.

The 650 had scoring issues, head gasket problems, and starting problems. Under many cicumstances, the 650s would catch fire when the head loosened up, and the unburned gas would spew across the engine and burst into flames.... I had to dive into a snow bank once when I got shot full of flaming gas running about 80 down the Fox River...As soon as I slowed enough to dive off, I did...The sled burned to the frame.

They were incredible machines, with all the charachteristics of the FICHT motors...I was sorry to see OMC drop their snow mobile lines...Nothing ever ran like the 437 Rampage with the 125HP V-4 duece in place of the single barrel....The wankel, or what we called the Hog, was a great machine too. Rode like Bo Didleys Cadidliac....

Hey while I got you here....Can you tell me the grade of stainless a 15HP driveshaft was made of? Ed Runne wants me to send him a used shaft so he can cut it down for a hotrod gear foot...Seems there has to eb a better way to do that other than trashing a good fishing motor shaft, or am I all wet here?????

I wish I could help you on stainless grade of driveshafts. I'm sure Jim Nerstrom could give you an answer. Might want to send him a message or post it as a seperate question. I think "fishing motor" driveshafts were probably the same.

The JX650 was quick but, did have engine problems. I had nothing to do with snowmobiles but, they had "fixes" that were not built due to discontinuation of snowmobile production. They also built a couple of "mules" with Rotory engine in JX chassis. They were way-fast for the chassis and decided it would be a serious safety issue to build it.

[racnbns]

If anybody is interested I have a Johnson snowmobile with a rotary/wankle engine. I wouldn't mind trading/selling it. The sled is kind of raty but the engine is in nice shape.
Bruce

[corin_huke]

There was a guy here in the UK, Jim Noone, who raced a rotary engine in our HR1000 inboard class that we run in Europe. The engine came from a Triumph Road Racing bike - those of you who know your bikes will recall that Triumph ran these engines, with a lot of success, in the superbike class in the 1990s

Jim was very successful with it, but the biggest headache was getting people to agree upon the approach to measuring the engine's swept volume - one race it was legal, the next it wasn't. Over time Jim had enough of this uncertainty and eventually swapped to a more convntional engine - a real shame, as I can remember it running and on a long straight away, it really used to wind up and go...

[Skoontz]

How much are you looking to get Bruce?

That engine would make a very fun single seat buggy motor for a Honda Pilot....

Jim was very successful with it, but the biggest headache was getting people to agree upon the approach to measuring the engine's swept volume - one race it was legal, the next it wasn't. Over time Jim had enough of this uncertainty and eventually swapped to a more convntional engine - a real shame, as I can remember it running and on a long straight away, it really used to wind up and go...

If memory serves me right, that was the same cry Mercury laid on when the OMC Rotories were killing anything they ran against, providing they held together.....

[jeff55vDSH]

I would bet the turbine not rotary engine is gonna be the engine of the future. But then again, the global warming nonsense folks may force us to resort to canoes. But that's another issue now isn't it? Anyhow, I read somthing about turbine outboards a couple years ago. I don't know if it's gonna go forward, or get pushed to the wayside for one reason or another.

http://www.texs.com/magazine/tsg_13.htm

[pops67g]

I think the death of the rotary engine is more due to people just being afraid of what they don't understand. If something doesn't sell immediately and in large numbers it disappears real quick. One thing though - don't tell Mazda that the rotary is dead because they just keep making them and the current 232 horsepower version seems to do pretty well in a really small, light package.

[Roy Hodges]

After much thought, my GUESS is that ONLY mazda has the brains and guts to maybe try making turbines for the masses . A turbine has to be done right, or not at all. $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$....! Even small (relatively) aircraft do NOT have turbines untill they get very expensive .Money talks , B S walks.