Quote:
Originally Posted by Dimman
^ Isn't part of the problem that they can't do all the fancy valve-timing stuff for emissions, because their 'camshafts' are the ports that are carved and unmoveable in the housings?
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I've been thinking, what if they try to add valves :O They have less ports to work with than in a typical cylinder engine so it would be easier. Although right now, the losses due to not having a fancy valve timing system are much smaller than the losses due to the low compression ratio, crap combustion efficiency, etc. so it's not a priority now.
Down the road I imagine they'll have to do it sooner or later. The rotary engine's lower frictional loss is more than compensated with by the higher thermal loss, so to compete with cylinder engines with fancy valves they'll need to cut the pumping loss to a minimum.
There's also hope for a ceramic rotary engine since the shape is simpler than your typical cylinder engine, but that's probably a long way off. If they get it to work, it just might replace the piston engine :O With valves, it's possible to eliminate pumping loss, with ceramics, lowered thermal loss and no more apex seal issues...the only problem is you can't increase compression ratio easily.
Anyone know if there's a physical limit to the compression ratio of the rotary engine design? Right now the 16x is at like, 10:1 or something which still isn't very high...