Alternative Engine Designs
 

I remember back in High School my Physics teacher showed us a video with an engine that claimed to have a significantly higher efficiency than the otto cycle. I can't find anything about it though as I don't remember what it was called.

The basic layout was the cylinders were arranged similar to those in a revolver pistol. The revolving cylinder was then connected to the load. It did not have a crank shaft, rather a "cam" at one end that the pistons road on. It also did not have valves or a conventional camshaft, instead it had fixed ports at the end opposite of the piston "cam".

Does anyone know the name of this engine?

I was JUST thinking about that engine. It's called a barrel or swashplate engine.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swashplate_engine

Dont know that it's automatically more efficient, but I'm sure there's a way to give it variable compression by moving the disc closer to the cylinders...

That is similar but not the one I saw. This one did not have a swashplate. And the barrel itself spun (like someone would spin a revolver) and the "cam" that the pistons rode on was stationary.

Here it is:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolving_cylinder_engine

Formerly known as the dyna-cam engine:
https://www.axialvectorengine.com/tech_engine.html#

This is a similar design.

Name the engines that have a piston moving in a cylinder creating displacement but are not reciprocating engines. Commonly called rotary engines, and I don't mean a wankel, because it doesnt have a piston.

The piston in cylinder is the best method for sealing a combustion chamber, just like a round basically cylindrical shaped bullet is the best projectile for a rifle. Expansion due to heat is equally distributed with close tolerances maintained.

Google "animated engines gnome" for a moving illustration of the WW1 rotary aircraft engine, which produced horsepower to weight comparable to a modern small auto engine at 1300 rpm with compression of 5 to1 on fuel that your car wouldn't even idle on if you tried to use it. I know it was not good on fuel efficiency or oil consumption, but in 1913 no engine was.

If you take the time to look at the animation>>>>>imagine if you could move the offset journal (where the con rod big ends meet) to the same axes as the rotating engine block. Then the pistons movement in the cylinders would stop and the engine becomes a free spinning flywheel.

No reciprocation and an engine that like the movie "transformer" changes its basic operational state from internal combustion to flywheel. Add a cvt and you can pulse the engine to a speed and let it power the vehicle as a flywheel while the cvt adjusts the "gear ratio' to compensate for the gradual reduction in flywheel speed as its energy storage is depleted gradually.
Kind of like the old flywheel toy cars us old guys might remember.

Store 1000 horsepower seconds of energy in the flywheel (with combustion) then bleed it in 20 hp increments to the vehicle WITH THE ENGINE CONSUMING NO FUEL BECAUSE IT HAS CHANGED INTO A FLYWHEEL.

Thats pulse and glide without changing the vehicles speed, and I believe that is the engine of the future.

regards
gary

We mustn't forget the Rotary engine:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wankel_rotary_engine

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...le_anim_en.gif

(Oops, sorry R.I.D.E. did mention it...)

Is that what is needed? A 2000 lb rotating engine block / flywheel mass added to a 2000 lb vehicle? The engine now has to not only accelerate the car's mass, but it has to accelerate its own. Yes the energy once put into the spinning mass can be withdrawn and used, but it has to be put in and replenished to prevent depletion.
The use of a 3500 lb vehicle with a 500 lb motor has just as much mass in motion and just as much kinetic energy as my example above.