What rpm they run at? I believe they won't wind out, the internal harmon ics will destroy it's self. Looks great for low rpm power and a lightweight unit. I do know great people built some great devices but had 1 default and gone. 56 327i , red Barron snowmobile,69 model wave runners ...
You'd use the rod pivot to pivot the block in the tooling and a boring head with a radiused tool exactly on the center of the pivot. But you do have to come up with some way to advance the block smoothly
@@danieldimitri6133 i can think of several ways to do just that, and having worked in places with machine shops dedicated to research and dev.. its shocking how easy some preatty complex jobs can be done when put in skilled hands.. i have seen air and fluid channels that changed direction going threw test blocks made from aluminum that were curved in multi directions and, i was informed if they went to production they coud have 30 machines at one facility pumping them out night and day with minimal human interaction.. it was just their job to find the best way to get any given job done, done... also why they more then once came looking for me and made me figure out WTF they couldnt... engineers are funny in that they often are so hyper focused on their niche that they have trouble looking at something and seeing for example, a valve is installed backwards.. LOL
The only advantage listed is piston friction which is minimal. The last engine I reconditioned had 220,000 km on it. The bore & piston wear was minimal but the rings were worn to half their original thickness. A new set of rings was all that was required. It may have some benefits but I am skeptical of claims of any improvement in efficiency.
Nascar engines have different ....eras....of design, supposedly the THIN piston ring was a new era, ... i THINK this may be a video that talks about it at some point, ruclips.net/video/E5Q06jx8HnA/видео.html
Yeah, there are a lot of claims in this video that don't quite make sense. The added bearings of the arm will wear, and will wear quite violently, the movement of the piston will distort the arm over time, the list goes on. This is fine in compression systems because you're not submitting it to a ridiculous amount of heat or violent explosions, but in an engine? Yeah, I question whether or not that would actually work in reality, so yeah. If Mercedes says the test was fraudulent, chances are the test was fraudulent.
@@TacComControl I don't see why the bearings would wear violently, very little non angular forces are acting on them,, because of the lever they have over the piston, even better if you have an active oiling system running some oil through them. The distortion over time might be an interesting thing to test out with long use. Again, the arm has very little forces working on it, since it only guides the piston in a certain direction, without being forced into a different one. Pressure on the piston head is normal to the surface of the piston head, which is on a tangent with the circle of rotation. Especially in the expansion stroke, since the rod is in line with the tangent. The main issue I see is at the compression stroke, especially when breaking with the engine, the force direction of the rod is not at all aligned with the tangent, and might bend some things, or make the piston run into the top surface of the curved cylinder. As to heat, as long as you cool the head and the chamber, heat shouldn't get too ridiculous, since the sliding friction in the cylinder walls is out of the equitation. The main source of heat is the fuel burning, which is not directly on the system below the piston.
Using needle bearings is a little strange in what is analogous to the wrist pin, I would think that a journal bearing with a lubricant groove would do better there. Separately, if there was a massive increase in performance sitting on the table, and it only took the changes noted in this video, it would be in cars today. The economic value of a “frictionless engine” is so incredibly high that at least one automaker would have it on the market. If not for fuel economy purposes, these could just as easily be used for higher power engines in more expensive vehicles, but they aren’t. There’s likely a good reason, and some of the best engineers in the world at engine design said it was fraudulent. There is unlikely to be a conspiracy here.
Very interesting idea, but I can see some shortcomings of it that might be why it didn't catch on. - The weight and bulk of the engine would be much higher with the pivot off to the side like that. - The arm and block have to match exactly to place the piston centered in the cylinder bore. Thermal expansion of various parts at different rates or amounts could cause problems with this, or require a looser fit in the bore that has to be closed up with rings. - While manufacturing the curved cylinders is possible, it is surely more difficult and expensive than straight bore cylinders, making it less feasible on a mass production scale. These drawbacks indicate why it wasn't adopted for engines, but is for specialty compressors - said compressors have greater need for it and can accept the greater manufacturing cost, usually are stationary applications where the extra bulk and weight aren't problematic, and don't run as hot so the different thermal expansion doesn't matter. The same benefits as this can be had with crosshead engines, which are used on some very large diesel engines, such as for ships. They solve the piston side-force issue, but still involve a sliding bearing (which is more problematic than a pivoting or rotating one) and require the engine be much taller, making it impractical for most uses.
I think you nailed it. Thermal expansion is going to be side to side and not even. The toroidal bore is expensive and slow to cut and hone. And while lightly addressed it does seem like there is more mass moving than a conventional piston. The skirts don’t weigh much. There is now also an additional bearing to machine at the end of the arc arm.
@@Thatdavemarsh The piston mass consideration is interesting to consider - despite the video claiming it was equal I doubt that. Likewise that curved arm looks like a failure point - being curved like that is structurally far less efficient than a straight rod, will be loaded in bending rather than pure tension/compression, likely to result in fatigue issues, necessitating it be even heavier to last a useful amount of time without breaking, or the engine would have to have a finite lifespan before those parts are replaced to prevent catastrophic failure. Normal engines suffer from mechanical wear on sliding surfaces, but I'm not aware of components on normal engines where fatigue is usually an issue, the wear surfaces (bearing shells, cylinder walls, pistons) can usually be re-machined or replaced quite easily and the main components of the engine have infinite lifespan, allowing the engine to be rebuilt pretty much indefinitely. But if these parts have to be replaced regularly that wouldn't work so well. A good question about this guy's prototypes is how long they were run for in testing - they worked and were quite efficient, but did he test them for 200,000+ miles that engines are usually expected to last? The extra bearing probably isn't a huge deal, looks like the same type and size as the wrist pin bearing, but still with some drawbacks. Particularly in that it's reciprocating rather than full rotations, I've heard that's harder to design and have last a long time. Particularly in that the bearing will be stationary twice per cycle, which prevents it from "floating" on oil and will result in metal-on-metal contact avoided by fully rotating bearings on the crankshaft. This is an issue with wrist pin bearings, which I've heard are some of the most highly loaded bearings in an engine, but they also have a smaller angle of movement.
Yeah. Just looks to me like a huge increase in manufacturing complexity, and to a lesser extent bulk, for a rather modest efficiency gain. Like a lot of alternative engine designs, I just don't see any net advantage.
@@thesollys9540 And what's with the lateral force from the con rod under combustion pressure? That for what the pivot arm mainly is for? It's not just to gently guide the piston so it doesn't fall over. 😂 Also all the centrifugal force from all the crap hanging on the end of the arm moving in a circular path rather then linear, plus the inertia from the con rod when the crank changes its direction. There is alot of force on that arm! Would it be straight and it's axis straight true the center of mass of the piston that would be less of a concern. But that's not possible, in engenering it's called a drawback. This engine is damned to run relatively low rpm's.
That is a really cool design. Both compression and exhaust cycles can be shorted by increasing force on the banana arm. A simple spring or torsion system could be used with a computer timing it to make the entire cycle just a little bit shorter, but massively increasing the ware life of the components.
Did you not see it done? We watched video of a man making it by hand... FFs lol. We can make a motor would of doritos inside an oval but a curved cylinder is too difficult.
@@Khaynizzle7 Which makes it insanely expensive. All prototypes are made by hand, but the benefits of the industrial revolution was carried on the back of automated production, not by a thousand blokes milling endlessly
This looked like an engine with some serious potential, too bad it wasn't developed further. AND I LOVE YOUR ANIMATED ILLUSTRATION!!!!!! We need more productions like this!
@@matthewpeterson3329 Especially the problem of resource consumption in today's world when we have a new impending oil crisis, especially in the EU countries, I think consuming less oil with higher performance at the same gasoline/diesel whilst having a lot less toxic gasses could be HIGHLY beneficial. That said the world is going from the "black gold" that is oil to the "Grey Gold" that is Lithium metal. 😑 Hopefully Formula 1 in 2026 can change things by building an engine like this, but... engine regulation constraints from the FIA probably won't allow it.
Especially considering a V engine where you can connect the pendulums across the banks - halving the connecting rods and making the engine even lighter and lower friction. You could also move the connecting rod's mounting point closer to the pivot, allowing for smaller conrods and crankshaft.
I've had a lot of theory work on an engine similar to this at mu uni and, in short, when devenoped further this design should cause fuel consumption to fall by around 53.4%(edit: in close-to-ideal conditions and with perfect machine manufacturing precision) , wich in my friend's words is "simply too cost-effective for oil companies".
The main issues are secondary balance and the cost of toroidal cylinders The engines are more expensive to produce and you can only run at high rpm if you have very small pistons. Thats not a big issue for medical compressors , but its critical for car engines.
@@glennchartrand5411 I am well aware of secondary balance. I used to build single cylinder racing engines which are nightmares in both primary and secondary balance. In fact I even made a post on this video about how the design as shown missed a golden opportunity to improve balance by putting a counterweight on the opposite end of the pendulum arm to balance out the arm, piston, rings, small end of conrod and wrist pins. There is no reason this engine can't use large pistons. In fact, since it will have a limited stroke length, it HAS to have relatively large pistons.
@@wingracer1614 The piston moves in two different directions.( up/down and side to side) So as the piston moves through its curved path you get the imbalance caused by the crank and push rod causing the piston to accelerate unevevenly ( regular secondary imbalance) and the centripetal force of the piston moving in an arc...if you counter balance that you wind up with a larger secondary imbalance. So you can either live with an imbalance caused by centripetal force , or you can have larger than normal seconday imbalance caused by the weight of extra components and counterweights.. So its a damned if you do and damned if you dont situation. The only solution is to either build tiny cylinders, or keep the engine rpm low Thats not an issue for medical compressors but its an insurmountable problem for car engines.
The conrod/crankshaft-initial-angle after ignition is (normally) always 0°, instead of the ideal 75°-80° (1/4th turn for ideal leverage) .... Here the initial angle is, very soon, much higher than in a normal engine, thus extracting more torque from each combustion.
There’s so many different designs of combustion engines. All very cleverly engineered. This one is very interesting. Total control of the piston. The fascinating part is DRILLING A CURVED HOLE In a solid block of steel. I always found machine tools as interesting as the parts they were making.
Piston and engine block are all aluminium nowaways... None has to bore a curved hole, one has just to bore a pre-moulded curved hole, since the block-mould generated blocks with the cylinders already there, and only the inner-cylinder-surfaces have to be re-bore again, so, just to finish the surfaces.
@@klausbrinck2137 That's a far-fetched statement.. But to clarify, the majority of engine blocks are cast from CAST IRON not Steel. Aluminium is quite a bit more expensive to use. To aid in the excessive costs and keep the traditional cast iron usage some engines, like Ford's twin turbo are cast using CGI(Compact Graphite Iron) or vermicular graphite iron. So it's silly to say that all pistons and engine blocks are aluminum nowadays cause that is pretty far from fact. Also the comment you were replying to was talking about the drilling of the engine block in the video, not the ones nowadays..
@@THOTHvii I´m not sure the comment was talking about the drilling in the video, and not more generally... And anyway, none would drill holes, the holes would be ready-there (out-of-the-mould), and would only have to become surface-finished, even if it´s cast-iron, and not soft aluminium. And for surface-finishing, one can even use contact-less ECM or EDM. The blades of turbojets also aren´t CNCed, they are ECMed.
The block itself can be built from half-pieces. The half-toroids are machined easily, then bolted together. Then, the actual sleeve can be made from a pipe. Curved pipe, that is press-inserted in the block curved channel. The pipe can be made out of special steel with high friction resistance and can be treated rolled and heat treated. Such sleeves can be changed if necessary.... I noticed, no one commented (or I did not see anyone) on the short piston with no skirts. such smaller lighter piston generates less inertial forces at top dead and bottom dead centers. Less inertial loads on connecting roads. This may increase the upper limit of the revolutions. Of course, the banana "tail" also participates in the weight, and you need to integrated each small section of the banana to get the total effective inertial weight. I am not exactly an engineer, just a curious enthusiast, please forgive me for using non-standard expressions, or even for talking nonsense.
I would like to see this concept paired with an opposed piston engine concept. One of the big problems with opposed piston engines is oil (from the piston rings) getting into the intake port and then the combustion chamber. If this actually does work that would help reduce that problem. Also I think this would make the engine more compact as the flat 3 opposed piston engine can be pretty wide since it has horizontal cylinders end to end and crankshafts on the end as well.
I'd go a step further and combine both concepts with spherical valves and place the valves at the center of the combustion chambers. This would allow an opposed piston engine to operate as a four stroke so you could drop the supercharger out of the equation and take back the power losses.
Francisco, that's an amazing engine!! I've never heard of it before, and while wary when the video started, as I studied it throughout, I saw the genius of the design. I had one question... the roller bearings on the ends of the piston wearing and galling (i.e., the Hirth roller bearing crankshafts used in early Porsche pushrod and four cam engines), then realized... they have no thrust loads placed on them, they simply support the piston face. VERY interesting concept!!
i've just got a new variant of this engine in the suggested by a very young boy with zero subscrubers. it is like a toroidal boxer channel "interesting -Tech"
You could use the two way action of the pivot arm to generate electric power like the wave generators/alternators do to capture more energy by 3 or 4 percent.
30% less fuel is a big claim but doesn't benefit manufactures. You add complexity and extra production cost. This is most likely why it's only successful in very specific compressors. Because the extra cost and complexity has a greater benefit.
It would benefit manufactures though if they could say there engines use 30% less fuel. Everyone would want that engine to save money. But that's just another reason to not trust the 30% figure.
In reality the rings would need to be of the same spec for the same bore/stroke/compression as any other engine. Also the claim of this massive friction loss in the piston of a normal engine is nonsense. Any modern engine uses cross hatching to hold a film of oil between the piston and cylinder wall - which is why they can usually run 200k miles or more if looked after. If there was any meaningful friction in use they certainly wouldn't be lasting anywhere near that long - infact engines before that idea only used to last 20-40k miles before needing a rebuild. So its possibly an improvement if you're in the 1930's. Then you have to take into account all the added drag from the extra weight of the internals, the extra bearing surfaces, the extra oil it would have to pump to feed those bearings and so on - if this could even match a normal engine on an even playing field it would be amazing. Of course it can't which is why - even almost 30 years after the patents ran out - no maker has picked it up. With emissions regs the weay they are even if a maker could get 3% less friction this would be in production tomorrow. 30% is just a nonsense.
@@ABaumstumpf true :D nevertheless, that thing somehow had to be advertised... And IMO world was better without most of those idiotic safety regulations and protocols. Don't get me wrong, I do not advise to ride a gocart on highway :P
Would be great to see any comparison and researches that was done by auto makers regarding this engine back then and maybe we would have a chance to understand why they even did not try it as a POC, or if they made a test piece, which results they got.
At the end of the day, regular automakers aren't looking for the best engine, they are looking for the most profitable engine. This was especially true back when the developer of this engine was marketing it, which was before the super strict emission regulations of today. Automakers also don't want to make cars that last forever. They want the cars to last exactly long enough to not annoy the owners, but such a short time that people will need to buy a new car eventually. Selling official spare parts is also very good business. All changes in the production, tools/machines required, teaching employees, and R&D are also additional costs. But yeah, it would be interesting to know if any car manufacturer studied this at all beyond initial paperwork and engineer opinions. Supercars/sports cars would also be a totally different thing because in that category performance is the most important thing, along with reliability, price doesn't matter that much.
@3:07 "Friction is zero" False. The piston still has to seal against combustion gases. These are an unavoidable frictional loss in any piston engine and also are the bearing surfaces, not the piston skirt as shown earlier. Modern pistons don't even have skirts. Every extra part in a power train adds extra cost and loses efficiency.
Just some things that come to mind, at the kind of speeds we expect vehicle engines to operate: Any play in the pivot bearings would cause wear over time as well as the pistons could begin to rock, this would be a nightmare to resolve with a rebore due to the curved cylinders. There's extra complexity and weight involved with the arm which adds risk and reduces efficiency. The thinner pistons concern me regarding strength, especially if we are to apply boost pressure for economy engines. I have to question the engine balance when not in a V layout, seems like it would rock back and forth on each stroke.
Another problem: The curved “cylinders” aren’t cylindrical. They are cutouts of a toroid - think about the difference between an “I” and a “C”. While in a classic engine the whole surface of an o-ring travels the same distance, in the toroidal motor the surface of the o-ring facing the inside of the toroid / “C” travels a shorter distance than the part facing the outside. I’m not an engineer, but at least the wear on the o-rings isn’t even, if there aren’t other consequences as well. Considering expansion and shrinking due to a warm vs. cold engine, a cylinder expands evenly, while in a toroid motor the outside expands more than the inside. Again no engineer here, but this complicates matters as well. But the main problem I see: Efficient combustion with a minimum of emissions and running stable under all sorts of circumstances - humidity, air pressure, engine temperature, rpm, power demand, etc. - has been studied ad nauseam to comply with rising emission standards. In a toroid combustion engine you have to start all over, because the shape of the combustion volume follows also a curve. On the outside of the toroid the room for the combustion expands faster than on the inside. The pressure varies accordingly - so the combustion develops and behaves completely different from a standard engine. Not to mention that you have to put serious research into the compression as well, to get a desired mix of air and gas droplets.
All valid points of concern. However, one could argue that the differential shape/volume of the combustion chamber could be used to advantage to preferentially direct the incoming fresh charge VS the outgoing exhaust.
@Keit Hammleter When the piston is at TDC, the crank is past TDC. It's a mechanical advantage like an offset bore build, but even more accentuated. Then, as the piston comes down, it moves over towards that side of the crank, keeping this advantage. The rod stays more straight & this puts more of the power stroke into the crank for rotation.
@@Twiggieh when the PISTON is at tdc. The CONROD and CRANKSHAFT have a few degrees of rotation before the piston starts to come back down on a traditional engine. Look up a video of a cut open engine and put the video at 0.25x speed
I'm guessing the real reason these engines are not used in cars and only pumps is the only feasible way to get bigger displacement out of them is to increase bore size which would make them longer and heavier making it harder to fit inside the engine compartment.
A dual inline 4 cylinder Would not be as wide as a 90 degree V-8 OHC engine. What is happening today is build it as cheap as possible. Make it pass emissions and MPG standards. Then there is the tooling costs. Basically a engine in a Trax is not a economic engine when you need it rebuilt. Besides that it may last too long. Forney would not like a 1980 engine still polluting the highway even if it met 2020 standards with simple modifications. Just think about all those missed opportunities for those annual plate taxes based on the selling prices. Oh and don't forget the sales tax. It just boils down to one thing money.
I'm not a machinist or engineer but to me it looks good on paper. It also looks to me like it would have a lot of things that would have to be absolutely perfect in tolerance or it would be a mess. That swing - arm piston assembly looks like it would be fun to make exact. Maybe I'm wrong but I imagine it's not quite the same to put in real metal.
@@orangejjay In theory yes, in practice they are huge companies wtih a huge network of suppliers and they probably tend to suffer from some of the same issues as bureaucracies. Who and why would take upon himself the monumental task of enacting such a drastic change (only to have it copied soon if it proves to work, because there is no patent)
Wow I've never heard of this engine before, and I'm very glad I did! Thanks so much for making this video! The fact that he was able to take it into real world use makes me confused about how it isn't in use by something now. Seems like it would make a wonderful motorcycle engine. PS. The sound you used for combustion is hilarious!
Videos like this that propagandize concepts and make huge claims of 30% efficiency are fake guesses. If it really was so much better, every major company would use the design regardless of cost to license. The reason it's not common is because manufacturing costs and efficiency claims are worse than typical 4-stroke engines. Every time.
@@mact.26 I took the 30% thing with a grain of salt. Even if it's "on-par" I can see a one-off coming out with a motorcycle with it. The success of a real world trial sets it apart from other "experimental" designs of historical note, which is all I'm comparing it to.
"This is a machine with low thermal losses since there is very little friction". There. One sentence that is very telling that the author of this video does not know what he is talking about, friction and thermal losses are 2 very different things! I don't see *any* advantage with current normal engines, the bent combustion chamber increases the thermal losses and decreases the mechanical efficiency because of the angle of piston pressure vs. conrad angle, and there is one added joint, increasing friction, not decreasing. It's an alternative engine design that absolutely can work, but there is simply nothing better about it.
@@davidcolin6519 I guess that you don't trust in engineering? While it is certainly true that the percentage of engineers that can properly evaluate an engine design is very limited, there is one very good reason while we don't see any big changes to the established current engine design: The best design has survived. All competing designs, that were tried during the 20th century, simply weren't as good. Current engines evolution is a product of engineers, not inventors. If you lack proper education (like inventors typically do) you can come up with an alternative design that can be made to work, but lack the skills to properly judge it. That being said, there are also certainly examples of bad decisions made by engineers, leading to developments that took the wrong path. One such example is the Honda's oval piston engine. Here it was prestige standing in the way of proper engineering judgement.
It's interesting because of the reduction of piston side loads but a curved bore is not easy. The banana arm bearing is a better interface than the piston side. Crank offset is one way to beneficially effect the side load during the power stroke. Low stroke can be a disadvantage and I wonder if the dynamics work well at high rpm where a short stroke is more viable. I love the idea of chasing piston toroidal engines.
He took away one point of friction and introduced another. This is a more compact cross section, as it's essentially a taco. The thermodynamic chaos of that combustion chamber shape would put more pressure on one side of the piston than the other. This would cause uneven stress on the chamber walls. You would also be forced to use a small bore size, thereby having to increase the lever length and the moment of inertia. The balance shaft weight alone would more than erase any supposed efficiency gains. This design would be forced to use a more complex V or X pattern to cancel that inertia without excessive balance weight. Manufacturing such a shape without complex dies and pressure casting techniques would be absurdly expensive. It's a very neat design, but there are some very obvious reasons it hasn't been adopted for any high pressure internal combustion applications.
GM finally figured some of that out with their LS engine. In the LS, the cylinder bore was increased so the piston never gets close to the bottom of the bore. The piston skirt was also shortened, and an oil jet to lube the lower cylinder added. They also increased the cam bore size from .75 to 1.0 inch, increased oil capacity and circulation. Another big one was modifying the heads for optimal flow. Then they tightened it up using tongue in groove everywhere w/oil behind it. With the improved EFI and ignition system the beloved LS will last 300k+ miles with average maintenance. I got 500k from an LS2 6.0 w/frequent Mobil_1 changes (
Well it seems that the car companies want the motors to wear out sooner and sell you a new car as soon as possible. Maintenance and car parts is a big source of revenue for car companies too.
I believe this is all about cost cutting. Re tooling for making these engines would cost a lot of money that can be used to cater for the buyers lizard brains with seat heaters, navigation systems and new exterior designs. all of which are cheaper to implement than a new motor technology. meanwhile they are cutting costs in the engine compartment, making things out of plastic that used to be cast metal.
Cuting wouldnt be much more expensive we would just cast the general shape and use cnc to refine the rough cylinder which would reduce wear on tool and make it far faster to machine than cuting out a whole block and would allow mass production
@@yeet3071 They only use CNC milling for more expensive engine blocks, Your cheap car engine has had its rough block milled in a more simple setup where the cylinders are cut out on the same time in a single move.
Very interesting idea. I'm guessing that huge arm adds a lot of mass compared to a piston. Would put a lot of stress on the connecting rod when it changes direction at tdc and bdc
It would have to be calculated as a rotational inertial mass, since each mass unit along its length moves less as you go from piston to pivot. But I agree, I would have to see that actual calculation.
I think with the seemingly smaller size this would be suited to a motorcycle or an f1 engine. This was a very interesting video, thanks. Its sad that so many great ideas are wasted, there's no wonder we're in such a mess when we ignore genius.
In theory it works better than a conventional combustion engine. But the manufacturing is more involved because of the curved cylinder. It's still used, because it does work better than the conventional. But to be mass produced is where its' limitation is. It also creates more moving parts which can fail. I have no idea how they are made. But it also adds more complexity to the way it's put together. And needing the extra space for those arched rods makes it a physically larger and heavier engine for use in cars. Both of which are what car manufacturers have steered away from. It's better in theory but isn't practical on larger scales
@@divinehatred6021 I'm sure it was more efficient than a conventional engine. But there's more complexity to manufacture and produce a lot in a timely fashion. They might still use it in low-production stuff. But on a mass-production scale, I don't think it would be practical. Is why I said what I said. I wasn't dogging on the engine. Just saying that its' design works better but takes more effort to produce
@@richardwilliams9181 it wasnt produced because 1: margin profits wouild be lower 2: planned obsolescence wouldnt work on a engine like that because its way more durable and safe
Cutting friction is no joke so this engine still has potential, using gaseous fuels like hydrogen and ammonia 🤔 The fact it's used for high purity compressors just means the technology is matured. Thanks👍😃
I am pretty sure that it does not cut friction that much. An ICE is heating up mostly because of the heat of the burning fuel, not due to cylinder wall friction. If the friction on the cylinder walls were that huge then engines wouldn't last for 2-300000 km or more without any internal overhaul. But for comparison, piston air compressors use the same arrangement, yet they require many times less cooling power. The only difference is that they do not burn fuel.
@@gabiold I used to own a Toyota truck in the 90's and I changed all lubricants to full synthetic and the friction reduction was dramatic and so was the mileage. The friction reduction in this engine and its design and current use makes it a natural for a gaseous hydrogen engine 🤔
The piston fits, so a cutter the same shape but smaller in diameter with extended teeth will also fit. The blocks are cast so only the inner surface has to be milled and honed. Rotary tables are common in machine shops so the setup is also quite simple.
@@ColinWatters its a metal that doesnt have to heat up/cool down because it doesnt contact with the walls of the bore to begin with. To the point where it doesnt need much oil to work. Or doesnt need it at all
@@divinehatred6021 OK so I calculated the thermal expansion assuming a steel 0.2m wide arm and a 100C temperature range and its about 0.1 mm. Typical piston bore clearance in a conventional engine is about 5 thou or 0.15mm so it's ok/marginal. The main issue might be making those arms a consistently the correct width (to within 0.1mm) to prevent rubbing.
The statement of "zero friction" is bogus. The piston rings will always create some friction against the cylinder walls. Also, the 30% better fuel economy due to lower friction cannot be true because modern engines do not waste 30% of their power overcoming piston / cylinder friction. The use for compressors is understandable, since they can use self-lubricating nylon (or similar) piston rings because the only heat generated would be due to compression, and there is no need to run at high RPM.
This sounds great unless you go into the details of where the friction comes from and how much. The rings are by far and away the highest losses in the cylinder and in most modern designs the only part to actually contact the cylinder wall itself - the rest of the piston has an oil layer between it and the wall at all times. Then you look at the method to get the "gains" he claims which involves more moving parts, bearings which would need oiling in real production use and far more complex/time consuming machining to get the engine made in the first place - all for no real gains once fitted with everything a production engine needs to run for a long time in all conditions. I can make a normal 4 stroke engine use far less fuel and make more power so long as its for a short time and in certain conditions. Car makers can't take something with total loss electrics, half the oil pressure, much thinner oil and all the other tricks and simply put it into production. For all his nonsense about less friction thats all it is when you take everything into account - nonsense. If makers saw a way to reduce emissions even slightly these days they would jump at it in a heartbeat. The fact they haven't - even almost 30 years after the patents ran out - should say it all.
Well it's like two stroke, if the technology was constantly developed it could be great, but since it's easier to keep the same tech than reinvent the wheel why would they?
@@deckum23You heard the news after making Cyber truck Elon musk sent a manual to all car manufacturers of why to use a 48 Volt system over a 12V in cars so they can reduce the weight and cost of the car significantly? We still use a 12 V system which was made back in the 1930s, because they are just lazy to make a change. It's not as complicated as you might think. They just never tried. in this case, there may be some issue, but still if Russia considered his engine to be good in 2015. It should have something.
Nice design! But I don't believe the claims without duration testing a full size engine. A lot of wear can be caused by different thermal expansion of the block and the piston. And 30% improvement seems just wishful thinking. But you've made a great video!
"A lot of wear can be caused by different thermal expansion.." At first I thought "yeah, right, a problem conventional ICE don't have, or what?" But then I realized that the radius of the piston movement is going to change. And starting at let's say 30cm, that makes for quite a bit of expansion.
Yes, it works as a compressor due to the lack of heat from combustion. Modern inline 4 cylinders go 200K miles without a rebuild. I doubt this could make it 20K, otherwise we would have them in the market.
I don't find the mass machining of curved cylinders a compelling argument. Mass production demands would allow for the optimisation of that machining process, even bespoke boring machinery. Curved pistons probably distribute the forces unevenly resulting in numerous highly irregular points of failure. They'd use this design in F1 if it was more efficient. Though I suspect it's probably more durable because it has to be overengineered.
@@ArneChristianRosenfeldt That was Nissan and it was nothing like this design. That was a seperate guide which could alter the throw of the crank to vary compression. The bores and so on were normal.
If it runs too efficiently or it has a long lifespan it would not be a good money maker. Blows my mind how some people still don't believe that manufactures design failure points into their products, as to ensure there is always a constant demand for that exact product.
efficiency and reliability are two different things. Even automakers that don't want reliability still want efficiency. And it would be really, really easy to make one of these unreliable.
I find this video very interesting 🤔, as a Diesel engine fan I like all the different engine configurations. I have seen lever engines but not curve cylinders. I hope someone will take it and use it to its full potential. I still have a balance question on the running of this engine. 😇🙏🎣
Thanks for the video. I've worked on many engines but had never heard of this design. Shame it didn't get developed. With electric motors taking over from internal combustion it's unlikely now of course however I'm glad it was utilised for compressors.
Looks like a cool solution looking for a problem to solve. I don't think the benefits overcome the build complexity (two "crankshafts", harder mecanization...) Also, wide short bore pistons do exists, which are almost the same without the complications. And have never been a popular option for car manufacturers.
I wouldn't compare the second axle with a crankshaft. For one it can be a simple straight axle, no complex offsets. Secondly they bear very little force, so they don't need to have complex metallurgy care that a crankshaft need. and the bearings don't have to support that. You could even run a small straight oil line through the shaft, to provide each bearing with a little oil if you really wanted to reduce wear to basically nothing
@@DrTheRich Yeah, yeah... I called it "crankshaft" ... on quotes, because I didn't really knew how to call it. But whatever it is, makes the engine more complex...
@@framegrace1 a little bit yes, but complexity and efficiency go hand in hand. I drive a Ford Model A from 1929 that has a simple engine, but it eats fuel like a mother. Modern engines are many times more complex than mine, but are 4 to 5 times more efficient. complexity in itself is not a deal breaker, if it comes with a substantial enough benefit. Not to mention, complexity for a home made engine, is a different story than complexity for a mass produced factory engine. Modern complex computer calculated casting shapes are easy for factories to produce, but hard for a hand engine builder at home. All this engine needs over a normal similar one is a few extra holes in the casting, an extra axle and some bearings. easy peasy for a modern engine factory to make.
I can see a few drawbacks for this engine that have not been mentioned here: 1. The piston needs to be perfectly centered by the pendulum arm in order to reduce friction. Bearings may work fine, but wear over time will increase friction severely. Add to that the different rate of expansion for different materials and you need to engineer a fairly wide gap into this, otherwise the engine will wear itself out when starting cold. 2. Manufacturing this is going to be much more expensive than your average automotive engine today. 3. So why not use it in racing/high performance cars? The pendulum adds a lot of weight, reducing the max possible RPM by quite a bit. This is where all performance engines get their power from today (and have for at least half a century). To counter this you would have to increase cylinder size, but since the surface increases at a much faster rate than the volume, you end up with a lot of parasitic losses that eat up more than any advantage this design ever brought to the table in the first place. 4. Even if there was a niche where this engine could survive, maintenance logistics is likely going kill it. Setting up support for an unconventional, rare design is very expensive for any manufacturer. In the United States, this was a lesson learned from the introduction of the first Diesel engines in passenger cars back in the 80s. There was more to it, but the entire program was such a desaster that it ruined the Diesel for at least 3 decades
Mmmmmm ...... yep ., the world may need it ., but the market does not ... I think this is almost in the same vain as the Citroen DS ., there may be great advantages ., but the market could not cope with the additional costs .... to the point that how ever good the new mouse trap ., your door would not be disturbed by customers ...
Fascinating design...I wonder why those big auto makers were so disbelieving. Perhaps they just wanted to wait for the patent to expire..! I would love to see how the toroidal bores were machined, though. I was wondering if an opposed shared-toroid compression-ignition engine would work, then you showed the toroidal engine design which looks almost like that very idea. I'd love to know more about that one too.
Automotive manufacturer are always trying to adopt technology that gives them an edge over the competition. They most likely didn’t buy this idea because they didn’t see the value or utility in it. It has its own issues, and is not suited for their use case. If it was a good idea they would have implemented it and made tons of money.
It’s because this is much harder and more expensive to manufacture as well as takes longer and even more specialized tooling, it doesn’t make nearly enough power for the input energy, it’s high friction in the cylinder, it’s not going to last as long because of the lateral loading of the piston and it’s a pipe dream.
@@mikeznel6048 lol did you even watch the video? 😂 It has far less friction due to the shorter piston and the fixed anchor point for the conrod. The piston can only move along the one pathway and doesn’t rely on friction to hold it straight in the bore. The compressors that use the technology are used because of a lack of friction which means less lubricant required and cooler operation.
Engines won't wear out quick enough for car manufacturers and the oil companies don't like that it's 30% more efficient... that's why it's not being put in vehicles. You're welcome.
@@Prosecute-fauci also gotta remember new technology scares automakers , and i can tell you why it didn't catch on in the US ,,in 1974 the US was just implimenting smog control on cars and the big 3 were stuck on V8 engines and inline 6 cylinder engines ,,that's what american people were used to ,,i can see the possibilities of this engine from a mechanical standpoint , a very large one would be vibration reduction ,,and another aspect of a engine with less friction would be the engine needing less oil and less frequent oil changes ,,this would also result in longer engine life
Thanks for the video. I didn't know that. Someone would have to durability test it to see what the ultimate life expectancy would be. It's pretty hard to beat plain cylinders
@@steverushforth7009 Probably from running massive tolerances, very thin oil, total loss electrics, electric water pump, etc. Its easy to make something look really efficient if you're really just palming some of the load off onto another system - which is pretty much what the car makers said if you read between the lines. Pistons don't run against cylinder walls and haven't for a very long time - thats why cross hatching and oil films are a thing. Rings touch but even they generally have a very thin layer of oil on them too. Simply pumping oil to the arm's bearings on this design would more than negate any gain - if there were any in the first place because I can't see much there at all. Then there are the extra losses from moving the extra internal weight, the extra pumping losses from it moving through oil/air, the extra bearing surfaces which need to be lubricated and the extra oil pump load that would require. Lets be honest here - most modern engines will run 200k miles so long as they are looked after. Thats a lot of times for a piston to go up and down a bore so if there were any meaningful friction it wouldn't last long at all. 30% is nonsense. I would be amazed if this could even match a normal engine once its on a level playing field. Thats probably why none of the makers have jumped on it even almost 30 years after the patents ran out.
@@siraff4461 material sciences have changed a lot since the 60s and early 1970s ,,gotta remember something , in 1974 american automakers were not interested in new technology and argentina is a long ways from the rest of anywhere, ,at the same time this was being developed US makers were fucking with the WANKEL engine which if you wanna talk about a piece of crap , thats what it is ,, this particular engine design actually could be produced and despite the curved cylinders with the fixed piston arms is just another conventional engine and could be made to pass emissions , unlike a 2 stroke engine or the rotary which is what eventually killed the MAZDA rotary engine , it couldn't meet EPA standards you missed something too ,, they said he was putting it in his cars so that means it was operating ,not under laboratory conditions and they showed pictures of it running in a car too and it looked just like any other engine complete with fanbelts and other devices
@@wildcoyote34 maybe someone should show this engine design to snowmobile manufacturers, they have historically seemed more open to crazy ideas. Arctic Cat even made some Wankel powered designs.
@@wildcoyote34 Obvious differences being the rotary was mass produced and put in cars for decades until it couldn't meet emissions. The claims for this engine being better on emissions mean any maker would snap it up it that were true. The makers sighted his testing as unfair and based on what I read about it they are correct. He was running one piston ring, very thin oil, hardly any oil pressure and total loss electrics - with it lasting very short spans between rebuilds thanks to excessive ring wear - no surprise there then. Thats quite a long way from it being a production ready engine or even testing it to production standards. Infact there are usually more stringent tests for the engines used in remote controlled toys. Anyone can make an engine that runs for a short video and make silly claims but this simply doesn't stand up to even basic engineering scrutiny. Even without doing full tests its obvious to anyone with even a basic engineering degree that his claims can't be anywhere near accurate - infact its much more likely to use more fuel than a normal engine on an even playing field and thats if we give him the benefit of the doubt on being able to machine the rings into a shape to match the curvature of the bore - something he didn't do which is likely the largest reason the engines never lasted.
But would likely cost more. Also oil is used to cool the underside of the piston, that is why a large amount is thrown up into the cyl. The arrangement would cause a very interesting propagation of the flame front as one side of the piston moves away from the combustion chamber faster than the other. I am not sure how even combustion might be ?
@@tjm3900 It would only cost more because current straight bore tooling/manufacturing is so prevalent in the market. Curved boring/breaching would cost as much as those curved intake/exhaust valve manifolds.
Worked for G.T.E wesgo Corp in the 90s. We worked on a prototype ceramic 4cyl engine. Extremely impressive #'s, super lightweight, on cmm machine was No wear....engine would theoretically last forever(well, owners lifetime) it was cast into a block of cement and dumped at sea. No $ in a engine that won't wear out.
@@ddjohnson9717 just no $in an engine that would out last several cars.... Couldn't pay for production of engine, after initial acceptance, the need would drop below the dollar amount needed to pay for everything. Was a ceramic engine primarily, the elements were plentiful, but the Processes and skill levels needed don't come cheap.
@@briansharp4388 well the device you use to post comments have billions of transistors stacked on a nano level. the Processes and skill levels needed to make the CPU and screens and circuit boards also don't come cheap. But look at the market, we can buy them for 20-30 bucks a chip and couple hundred collars gets you a full on device. scaling is the key and with a "no wear" engine, one manufacture can claim that and people will buy no stop. where did the "let market chose" mentality?? crooks all around,,
@@Dont_Gnaw_on_the_Kitty_1 He made running engines and some compressors are made with the design so it's definitely possible. But no where near as cheap and easy to manufacture and refinish as a straight bore which is one of the reasons it isn't widely used.
@@orangestoneface Do you mean the curved cylinder is made using the same principle as a spiral ground onto the outside of a drill bit? Sorry but I can't see how this would work, the cylinder is inside a block of aluminium?
He stated in the video, that the piston doesn't touch the sides, beacuse all the stress and friction is transferred into the banana Conrod and it's associated mounting support bearing design. Also the power force directed straight down onto the crankshaft.
@@stanmeyer9770 If the piston doesn't touch the sides, you get no compression. The rings at least contact it. Otherwise it'd have no rings. Also, the uploader hearted that guy's comment.
@@stanmeyer9770 Thats the snake oil claim by the maker. In reality the rings would need to be of the same spec for the same bore/stroke/compression as any other engine. Also the claim of this massive friction loss in the piston of a normal engine is nonsense. Any modern engine uses cross hatching to hold a film of oil between the piston and cylinder wall - which is why they can usually run 200k miles or more if looked after. If there was any meaningful friction in use they certainly wouldn't be lasting anywhere near that long - infact engines before that idea only used to last 20-40k miles before needing a rebuild. So its possibly an improvement if you're in the 1930's. Then you have to take into account all the added drag from the extra weight of the internals, the extra bearing surfaces, the extra oil it would have to pump to feed those bearings and so on - if this could even match a normal engine on an even playing field it would be amazing. Of course it can't which is why - even almost 30 years after the patents ran out - no maker has picked it up. With emissions regs the weay they are even if a maker could get 3% less friction this would be in production tomorrow. 30% is just a nonsense.
There are several engine makers on utube that recreate engines at different scales. If anyone can build these today, I hope to see them on another channel as a build soon. I made a small search and haven't found one yet.
This does lower piston mass and does make peak friction loading less by distributing the load. The curved bore is a little hard to hone, but probably it's easy to breach machine using matching geometry. Piston ring issues could be overcome with light riffling or just choosing softer rings (since the rings don't need to withstand such high heats/friction). If you want a more cursed engine, there is a opposed piston version of this rotary/pendulum engine.
It's piston may be lighter but it's also got the banana arm moving up and down with the piston, i wouldn't be surprised if that makes it's reciprocating mass heavier than a regular piston
I imagine the bore could be honed easily with a "dingle-ball" style hone rather than traditional stones, and I imagine the crosshatch pattern would be less important in a design like this. My main concern is wear at the pivot point potentially causing the piston to slap around, though with modern metallurgy this probably wouldn't be as much of an issue as I think it would be.
@@moconnell663 i think the desired tolerances are easier to achieve on the pivot point and arms with bearings (since those are mass manufacture to near perfect tolerances) when compared with the piston bore/head diameter. And again if you have lower peak friction you have less thermal expansion/contraction and those tolerances should hold for longer due to less wear
Main efficiency problems for combustion engines comes from thermodynamic laws and are related to temperature. This kind of engine does not act different than standard engine regarding this.
I'm a retired Machinist no real big problem it would just take a special jig or mill. But then when you make conventional engines you do so with special jigs and Mills.
I like your vid!!!!..... and the design of the engine is very interesting;I never heard of this design before..... And I truly admire Mr. Taurozzi for his tenacy while constructing this engine!!!! I also think that his idea can result in less wear of piston,pistonrings and cylindrewall!!! But I’m afraid it comes down to a very complicated solution of a very smal problem..... The claim that in the ordinary engine’s so much efficiency is lost due to friction between piston/piston rings and cylindrewall simply isn’t true.... it would all be destroyed within minutes from starting the engine if those parts were to gather that much heat!!!! Most efficiency is lost where combustion takes place,if you touch the exhaust manifold of a running engine you INSTANTLY realise where a lot of energy is going.... By the way...... if you look at the efficiency of the complete proces from taking the oil from the earth to what it takes to transport 1,2 person (the average content of a passenger car when driving) you come to around 1%!!!! When global heating bites us in the butt our generation has a lot to answer for..... Greetings,Henk,the Netherlands.
@@ddjohnson9717 Thanks for replying!! The basics are simple..... somewhere they mention 30% loss of energy andv relate that to the friction between piston+rings versus cylindrewall.... if that were true it is comparable to pointing a blow tourch at every single piston;they would be destroyed within minutes.... It is true that in the early 70’s engines were wearing faster than nowadays;after around 200.000/300.000 miles most engines would start consuming oil and suffer from crankcase pressure.... too much compression passing between pistons and cylindres.... time to swap or overhaul the engine.... It could be that the Taurozzi-design avoids or delays this problem.... but does that outweigh the extra costs???..... and what about the efect of extra parts oscillating as the engine is running??.... Nowadays the perfection in machining pistons,rings and cylindres allow engines to run up to 1.5 million miles or more without an overhaul.... But having said all this.... I never the less truly admire Mr. Taurozzi for designing and constructing this engine!!!.... and it could well be a better option for maybe compressors;they run at continuous rev’s making it easier to balance out the vibes caused by the extra oscillating mass;I assume his design allows for less lubrication of pistons and rings which could be an advantage in some cases as mentioned in the vid.
Do the sealing surfaces of the piston rings need to match the curvature of the cylinder? I assume they would. Possibly the pin holding the piston ring in place in straight walled pistons could be omitted since the ring would want to stay in its correct place? Could curved cylinder sleeves be manufactured and pressed into a curved block, or do you need to mill the entire block from one piece?
Nice video! Thanks for sharing this, I hope it will trigger a new wave of ideas from inventors and designers around the world that find new ways to make this engine even more efficient.
Never heard of this before, what a cool engine (pun not intended) with an elegant solution to friction problems! The first thing that came to mind for manufacturers not taking it into production is that while it is possible, would it be cost effective? I'd imagine this engine requiring quite a bit of precision in manufacturing, and the required machinery just being more expensive in general. Also, while there would be less wear, how sensitive would it be to it? I do not rightly know, but to me it seems like even slight deformation of the pendulums or their mounts could result in many kinds of problems.
Hold on, is that abrupt movement NOT a problem at the wrist pin? I feel like maybe a compressor using this design would last, since it won't vary in RPM other than on startup or shutdown; in vehicular applications this will speed up and slow down with operator input and I believe that the abrupt movement in that animation would be where the biggest fault lies, longevity / durability-wise. Anyone have an answer for that?
I would love to see the machinery takes to bore a curved cylinder!
guess its just same system as in the engine making same movement of drill
That machine cost 20 billion dollars and take a day to do one block...😂😂😂
Nothing modern CNC machining can't accomplish. Obviously the compressor manufacturers have it all figured out.
@@magnusatheos7301
Maybe so, I still want to see it!
@@upsidedowndog1256 LOL so do I
Thought it was a video about a toilet at first!
For some reason toilet came to mind too when I seen it
Same 😂
#metoo, the potty engine...
Me too.
😂😂😂😂 me too
I actually own two Taurozzi breathing air compressors. They’re pretty neat.
What rpm they run at? I believe they won't wind out, the internal harmon ics will destroy it's self. Looks great for low rpm power and a lightweight unit. I do know great people built some great devices but had 1 default and gone. 56 327i , red Barron snowmobile,69 model wave runners ...
@@congerthomas1812 they run at same rpm as standard. there are many models of compresors. i ve seen up to 70hp to feed a train braking system.
@@repairman22 did he create a Diesel version of his engine ?
@@craigalston2208 no
Do they run very fast?
As a machinist making curved cylinders would not be very hard to do, once you make the tooling, you are good to go. Great job on the video.
the only practical way to achieve decent tolerance I can think of is through edm, but thats not going to be mass production friendly
@@toshinakae6397 I doubt that
You'd use the rod pivot to pivot the block in the tooling and a boring head with a radiused tool exactly on the center of the pivot. But you do have to come up with some way to advance the block smoothly
@@danieldimitri6133 i can think of several ways to do just that, and having worked in places with machine shops dedicated to research and dev.. its shocking how easy some preatty complex jobs can be done when put in skilled hands.. i have seen air and fluid channels that changed direction going threw test blocks made from aluminum that were curved in multi directions and, i was informed if they went to production they coud have 30 machines at one facility pumping them out night and day with minimal human interaction.. it was just their job to find the best way to get any given job done, done... also why they more then once came looking for me and made me figure out WTF they couldnt... engineers are funny in that they often are so hyper focused on their niche that they have trouble looking at something and seeing for example, a valve is installed backwards.. LOL
@@danieldimitri6133 Nothing CNC couldn't accomplish.
I’ve seen a lot of engines from radial to rotary never have I seen something like this 👍
Go look at variable compression ratio engines
@@goosenotmaverick1156 I remember seeing these but they called them something else. Have you seen how vtec works?
The only advantage listed is piston friction which is minimal.
The last engine I reconditioned had 220,000 km on it. The bore & piston wear was minimal but the rings were worn to half their original thickness.
A new set of rings was all that was required.
It may have some benefits but I am skeptical of claims of any improvement in efficiency.
Nascar engines have different ....eras....of design, supposedly the THIN piston ring was a new era, ... i THINK this may be a video that talks about it at some point, ruclips.net/video/E5Q06jx8HnA/видео.html
Yeah, there are a lot of claims in this video that don't quite make sense. The added bearings of the arm will wear, and will wear quite violently, the movement of the piston will distort the arm over time, the list goes on.
This is fine in compression systems because you're not submitting it to a ridiculous amount of heat or violent explosions, but in an engine? Yeah, I question whether or not that would actually work in reality, so yeah. If Mercedes says the test was fraudulent, chances are the test was fraudulent.
@@TacComControl I don't see why the bearings would wear violently, very little non angular forces are acting on them,, because of the lever they have over the piston, even better if you have an active oiling system running some oil through them.
The distortion over time might be an interesting thing to test out with long use. Again, the arm has very little forces working on it, since it only guides the piston in a certain direction, without being forced into a different one.
Pressure on the piston head is normal to the surface of the piston head, which is on a tangent with the circle of rotation. Especially in the expansion stroke, since the rod is in line with the tangent.
The main issue I see is at the compression stroke, especially when breaking with the engine, the force direction of the rod is not at all aligned with the tangent, and might bend some things, or make the piston run into the top surface of the curved cylinder.
As to heat, as long as you cool the head and the chamber, heat shouldn't get too ridiculous, since the sliding friction in the cylinder walls is out of the equitation. The main source of heat is the fuel burning, which is not directly on the system below the piston.
where can someone find one of these engines today?
Using needle bearings is a little strange in what is analogous to the wrist pin, I would think that a journal bearing with a lubricant groove would do better there.
Separately, if there was a massive increase in performance sitting on the table, and it only took the changes noted in this video, it would be in cars today. The economic value of a “frictionless engine” is so incredibly high that at least one automaker would have it on the market.
If not for fuel economy purposes, these could just as easily be used for higher power engines in more expensive vehicles, but they aren’t. There’s likely a good reason, and some of the best engineers in the world at engine design said it was fraudulent.
There is unlikely to be a conspiracy here.
Very interesting idea, but I can see some shortcomings of it that might be why it didn't catch on.
- The weight and bulk of the engine would be much higher with the pivot off to the side like that.
- The arm and block have to match exactly to place the piston centered in the cylinder bore. Thermal expansion of various parts at different rates or amounts could cause problems with this, or require a looser fit in the bore that has to be closed up with rings.
- While manufacturing the curved cylinders is possible, it is surely more difficult and expensive than straight bore cylinders, making it less feasible on a mass production scale.
These drawbacks indicate why it wasn't adopted for engines, but is for specialty compressors - said compressors have greater need for it and can accept the greater manufacturing cost, usually are stationary applications where the extra bulk and weight aren't problematic, and don't run as hot so the different thermal expansion doesn't matter. The same benefits as this can be had with crosshead engines, which are used on some very large diesel engines, such as for ships. They solve the piston side-force issue, but still involve a sliding bearing (which is more problematic than a pivoting or rotating one) and require the engine be much taller, making it impractical for most uses.
I think you nailed it. Thermal expansion is going to be side to side and not even. The toroidal bore is expensive and slow to cut and hone. And while lightly addressed it does seem like there is more mass moving than a conventional piston. The skirts don’t weigh much. There is now also an additional bearing to machine at the end of the arc arm.
@@Thatdavemarsh The piston mass consideration is interesting to consider - despite the video claiming it was equal I doubt that. Likewise that curved arm looks like a failure point - being curved like that is structurally far less efficient than a straight rod, will be loaded in bending rather than pure tension/compression, likely to result in fatigue issues, necessitating it be even heavier to last a useful amount of time without breaking, or the engine would have to have a finite lifespan before those parts are replaced to prevent catastrophic failure. Normal engines suffer from mechanical wear on sliding surfaces, but I'm not aware of components on normal engines where fatigue is usually an issue, the wear surfaces (bearing shells, cylinder walls, pistons) can usually be re-machined or replaced quite easily and the main components of the engine have infinite lifespan, allowing the engine to be rebuilt pretty much indefinitely. But if these parts have to be replaced regularly that wouldn't work so well. A good question about this guy's prototypes is how long they were run for in testing - they worked and were quite efficient, but did he test them for 200,000+ miles that engines are usually expected to last?
The extra bearing probably isn't a huge deal, looks like the same type and size as the wrist pin bearing, but still with some drawbacks. Particularly in that it's reciprocating rather than full rotations, I've heard that's harder to design and have last a long time. Particularly in that the bearing will be stationary twice per cycle, which prevents it from "floating" on oil and will result in metal-on-metal contact avoided by fully rotating bearings on the crankshaft. This is an issue with wrist pin bearings, which I've heard are some of the most highly loaded bearings in an engine, but they also have a smaller angle of movement.
Yeah. Just looks to me like a huge increase in manufacturing complexity, and to a lesser extent bulk, for a rather modest efficiency gain. Like a lot of alternative engine designs, I just don't see any net advantage.
@@quillmaurer6563 The force of the combustion chamber is driven down onto the crank and the arm attached to it, the pivot arm bears no force
@@thesollys9540
And what's with the lateral force from the con rod under combustion pressure? That for what the pivot arm mainly is for?
It's not just to gently guide the piston so it doesn't fall over. 😂
Also all the centrifugal force from all the crap hanging on the end of the arm moving in a circular path rather then linear, plus the inertia from the con rod when the crank changes its direction.
There is alot of force on that arm!
Would it be straight and it's axis straight true the center of mass of the piston that would be less of a concern. But that's not possible, in engenering it's called a drawback.
This engine is damned to run relatively low rpm's.
That is a really cool design. Both compression and exhaust cycles can be shorted by increasing force on the banana arm. A simple spring or torsion system could be used with a computer timing it to make the entire cycle just a little bit shorter, but massively increasing the ware life of the components.
Magnets... truly friction-less engine
5000th jubileums rerun of the classic "Some guy invents internal combustion engine with silly piston system which never gets adopted".
"Curved block which is relatively easy to do"
Press X to doubt
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Did you not see it done? We watched video of a man making it by hand... FFs lol. We can make a motor would of doritos inside an oval but a curved cylinder is too difficult.
@@Khaynizzle7 Which makes it insanely expensive. All prototypes are made by hand, but the benefits of the industrial revolution was carried on the back of automated production, not by a thousand blokes milling endlessly
This looked like an engine with some serious potential, too bad it wasn't developed further. AND I LOVE YOUR ANIMATED ILLUSTRATION!!!!!! We need more productions like this!
While others had negative comments, my first thought was using it as a small diesel power plant. I think there is real merit to the design.
@@matthewpeterson3329 Especially the problem of resource consumption in today's world when we have a new impending oil crisis, especially in the EU countries, I think consuming less oil with higher performance at the same gasoline/diesel whilst having a lot less toxic gasses could be HIGHLY beneficial.
That said the world is going from the "black gold" that is oil to the "Grey Gold" that is Lithium metal. 😑 Hopefully Formula 1 in 2026 can change things by building an engine like this, but... engine regulation constraints from the FIA probably won't allow it.
I think a Honda bike use it one time to run in a race to test it
Especially considering a V engine where you can connect the pendulums across the banks - halving the connecting rods and making the engine even lighter and lower friction. You could also move the connecting rod's mounting point closer to the pivot, allowing for smaller conrods and crankshaft.
I've had a lot of theory work on an engine similar to this at mu uni and, in short, when devenoped further this design should cause fuel consumption to fall by around 53.4%(edit: in close-to-ideal conditions and with perfect machine manufacturing precision) , wich in my friend's words is "simply too cost-effective for oil companies".
The main issues are secondary balance and the cost of toroidal cylinders
The engines are more expensive to produce and you can only run at high rpm if you have very small pistons.
Thats not a big issue for medical compressors , but its critical for car engines.
Who said anything about very small pistons?
@@wingracer1614 Just look up "secondary balance".
Once you know what that term means you'll realize why this engine was never put into production.
@@glennchartrand5411 I am well aware of secondary balance. I used to build single cylinder racing engines which are nightmares in both primary and secondary balance. In fact I even made a post on this video about how the design as shown missed a golden opportunity to improve balance by putting a counterweight on the opposite end of the pendulum arm to balance out the arm, piston, rings, small end of conrod and wrist pins. There is no reason this engine can't use large pistons. In fact, since it will have a limited stroke length, it HAS to have relatively large pistons.
@@wingracer1614 The piston moves in two different directions.( up/down and side to side)
So as the piston moves through its curved path you get the imbalance caused by the crank and push rod causing the piston to accelerate unevevenly ( regular secondary imbalance) and the centripetal force of the piston moving in an arc...if you counter balance that you wind up with a larger secondary imbalance.
So you can either live with an imbalance caused by centripetal force , or you can have larger than normal seconday imbalance caused by the weight of extra components and counterweights..
So its a damned if you do and damned if you dont situation.
The only solution is to either build tiny cylinders, or keep the engine rpm low
Thats not an issue for medical compressors but its an insurmountable problem for car engines.
@@glennchartrand5411 What side to side? It moves in an arc which can easily be balanced. Far more easily than straight line reciprocal can be.
I love it! Makes perfect sense from piston to crankshaft efficiency.
The conrod/crankshaft-initial-angle after ignition is (normally) always 0°, instead of the ideal 75°-80° (1/4th turn for ideal leverage) .... Here the initial angle is, very soon, much higher than in a normal engine, thus extracting more torque from each combustion.
There’s so many different designs of combustion engines. All very cleverly engineered. This one is very interesting. Total control of the piston. The fascinating part is DRILLING A CURVED HOLE In a solid block of steel. I always found machine tools as interesting as the parts they were making.
Piston and engine block are all aluminium nowaways... None has to bore a curved hole, one has just to bore a pre-moulded curved hole, since the block-mould generated blocks with the cylinders already there, and only the inner-cylinder-surfaces have to be re-bore again, so, just to finish the surfaces.
@@klausbrinck2137 That's a far-fetched statement.. But to clarify, the majority of engine blocks are cast from CAST IRON not Steel. Aluminium is quite a bit more expensive to use. To aid in the excessive costs and keep the traditional cast iron usage some engines, like Ford's twin turbo are cast using CGI(Compact Graphite Iron) or vermicular graphite iron.
So it's silly to say that all pistons and engine blocks are aluminum nowadays cause that is pretty far from fact.
Also the comment you were replying to was talking about the drilling of the engine block in the video, not the ones nowadays..
@@THOTHvii I´m not sure the comment was talking about the drilling in the video, and not more generally... And anyway, none would drill holes, the holes would be ready-there (out-of-the-mould), and would only have to become surface-finished, even if it´s cast-iron, and not soft aluminium. And for surface-finishing, one can even use contact-less ECM or EDM. The blades of turbojets also aren´t CNCed, they are ECMed.
Boring machine on a big cam would've done it, or fixed boring machine and the work-piece on a cam.
The block itself can be built from half-pieces. The half-toroids are machined easily, then bolted together. Then, the actual sleeve can be made from a pipe. Curved pipe, that is press-inserted in the block curved channel. The pipe can be made out of special steel with high friction resistance and can be treated rolled and heat treated. Such sleeves can be changed if necessary.... I noticed, no one commented (or I did not see anyone) on the short piston with no skirts. such smaller lighter piston generates less inertial forces at top dead and bottom dead centers. Less inertial loads on connecting roads. This may increase the upper limit of the revolutions. Of course, the banana "tail" also participates in the weight, and you need to integrated each small section of the banana to get the total effective inertial weight. I am not exactly an engineer, just a curious enthusiast, please forgive me for using non-standard expressions, or even for talking nonsense.
I really liked learning about this new engine, thank you. Your style of creativity is really good, don't stop 😀
I would like to see this concept paired with an opposed piston engine concept. One of the big problems with opposed piston engines is oil (from the piston rings) getting into the intake port and then the combustion chamber. If this actually does work that would help reduce that problem. Also I think this would make the engine more compact as the flat 3 opposed piston engine can be pretty wide since it has horizontal cylinders end to end and crankshafts on the end as well.
Have you ever seen a Commer TS3 engine?
@@erroneousbosh I have not but I shall look.
I'd go a step further and combine both concepts with spherical valves and place the valves at the center of the combustion chambers. This would allow an opposed piston engine to operate as a four stroke so you could drop the supercharger out of the equation and take back the power losses.
The piston rings still need oil.
The guy who made this video isn't terribly well informed...
The piston rings still need oil.
The guy who made this video isn't terribly well informed...
Francisco, that's an amazing engine!! I've never heard of it before, and while wary when the video started, as I studied it throughout, I saw the genius of the design. I had one question... the roller bearings on the ends of the piston wearing and galling (i.e., the Hirth roller bearing crankshafts used in early Porsche pushrod and four cam engines), then realized... they have no thrust loads placed on them, they simply support the piston face. VERY interesting concept!!
i've just got a new variant of this engine in the suggested by a very young boy with zero subscrubers.
it is like a toroidal boxer
channel "interesting -Tech"
@@sillysad3198 I'll have to check that out, thanks for the heads up.
@@sillysad3198 can you give the video title name? I can’t find the channel
@@Panin2001oca "A new type of Engine"
I'll bet the engine might be designed without pushrods
You could use the two way action of the pivot arm to generate electric power like the wave generators/alternators do to capture more energy by 3 or 4 percent.
You sound like a super nice guy.
I'm going to subscribe because this channel is interesting.
Have a great day!
30% less fuel is a big claim but doesn't benefit manufactures. You add complexity and extra production cost. This is most likely why it's only successful in very specific compressors. Because the extra cost and complexity has a greater benefit.
I'm highly doubting the 30% claim.
It would benefit manufactures though if they could say there engines use 30% less fuel. Everyone would want that engine to save money. But that's just another reason to not trust the 30% figure.
In reality the rings would need to be of the same spec for the same bore/stroke/compression as any other engine.
Also the claim of this massive friction loss in the piston of a normal engine is nonsense. Any modern engine uses cross hatching to hold a film of oil between the piston and cylinder wall - which is why they can usually run 200k miles or more if looked after. If there was any meaningful friction in use they certainly wouldn't be lasting anywhere near that long - infact engines before that idea only used to last 20-40k miles before needing a rebuild. So its possibly an improvement if you're in the 1930's.
Then you have to take into account all the added drag from the extra weight of the internals, the extra bearing surfaces, the extra oil it would have to pump to feed those bearings and so on - if this could even match a normal engine on an even playing field it would be amazing.
Of course it can't which is why - even almost 30 years after the patents ran out - no maker has picked it up.
With emissions regs the weay they are even if a maker could get 3% less friction this would be in production tomorrow. 30% is just a nonsense.
I am impressed that inventor did not died in some "suicide" or "accident" episode, as it is not uncommon among such creative persons
Yeah - dying from accident is simply the natural result of lunatics that drive a gocart on a highway....
@@ABaumstumpf true :D nevertheless, that thing somehow had to be advertised... And IMO world was better without most of those idiotic safety regulations and protocols. Don't get me wrong, I do not advise to ride a gocart on highway :P
Would be great to see any comparison and researches that was done by auto makers regarding this engine back then and maybe we would have a chance to understand why they even did not try it as a POC, or if they made a test piece, which results they got.
At the end of the day, regular automakers aren't looking for the best engine, they are looking for the most profitable engine. This was especially true back when the developer of this engine was marketing it, which was before the super strict emission regulations of today. Automakers also don't want to make cars that last forever. They want the cars to last exactly long enough to not annoy the owners, but such a short time that people will need to buy a new car eventually. Selling official spare parts is also very good business. All changes in the production, tools/machines required, teaching employees, and R&D are also additional costs.
But yeah, it would be interesting to know if any car manufacturer studied this at all beyond initial paperwork and engineer opinions. Supercars/sports cars would also be a totally different thing because in that category performance is the most important thing, along with reliability, price doesn't matter that much.
@3:07 "Friction is zero"
False. The piston still has to seal against combustion gases. These are an unavoidable frictional loss in any piston engine and also are the bearing surfaces, not the piston skirt as shown earlier. Modern pistons don't even have skirts.
Every extra part in a power train adds extra cost and loses efficiency.
Agree, less friction = less seal = less compression = less lower
Just some things that come to mind, at the kind of speeds we expect vehicle engines to operate:
Any play in the pivot bearings would cause wear over time as well as the pistons could begin to rock, this would be a nightmare to resolve with a rebore due to the curved cylinders.
There's extra complexity and weight involved with the arm which adds risk and reduces efficiency.
The thinner pistons concern me regarding strength, especially if we are to apply boost pressure for economy engines.
I have to question the engine balance when not in a V layout, seems like it would rock back and forth on each stroke.
Another problem: The curved “cylinders” aren’t cylindrical. They are cutouts of a toroid - think about the difference between an “I” and a “C”.
While in a classic engine the whole surface of an o-ring travels the same distance, in the toroidal motor the surface of the o-ring facing the inside of the toroid / “C” travels a shorter distance than the part facing the outside. I’m not an engineer, but at least the wear on the o-rings isn’t even, if there aren’t other consequences as well.
Considering expansion and shrinking due to a warm vs. cold engine, a cylinder expands evenly, while in a toroid motor the outside expands more than the inside. Again no engineer here, but this complicates matters as well.
But the main problem I see: Efficient combustion with a minimum of emissions and running stable under all sorts of circumstances - humidity, air pressure, engine temperature, rpm, power demand, etc. - has been studied ad nauseam to comply with rising emission standards. In a toroid combustion engine you have to start all over, because the shape of the combustion volume follows also a curve. On the outside of the toroid the room for the combustion expands faster than on the inside. The pressure varies accordingly - so the combustion develops and behaves completely different from a standard engine. Not to mention that you have to put serious research into the compression as well, to get a desired mix of air and gas droplets.
All valid points of concern. However, one could argue that the differential shape/volume of the combustion chamber could be used to advantage to preferentially direct the incoming fresh charge VS the outgoing exhaust.
There is always something new to be discovered! Impressive work.🌞
The crank angle near top dead center is a massive advantage in this design. I've never seen this engine before. Very cool.
It is the same as a normal engine.
@Keit Hammleter
When the piston is at TDC, the crank is past TDC. It's a mechanical advantage like an offset bore build, but even more accentuated. Then, as the piston comes down, it moves over towards that side of the crank, keeping this advantage. The rod stays more straight & this puts more of the power stroke into the crank for rotation.
@@keithpeterson6108 zing
I'm confused aswell TDC is always going to be TDC, wich is always determined by the crank
@@Twiggieh when the PISTON is at tdc. The CONROD and CRANKSHAFT have a few degrees of rotation before the piston starts to come back down on a traditional engine. Look up a video of a cut open engine and put the video at 0.25x speed
I'm guessing the real reason these engines are not used in cars and only pumps is the only feasible way to get bigger displacement out of them is to increase bore size which would make them longer and heavier making it harder to fit inside the engine compartment.
A dual inline 4 cylinder Would not be as wide as a 90 degree V-8 OHC engine.
What is happening today is build it as cheap as possible. Make it pass emissions and MPG standards. Then there is the tooling costs. Basically a engine in a Trax is not a economic engine when you need it rebuilt. Besides that it may last too long.
Forney would not like a 1980 engine still polluting the highway even if it met 2020 standards with simple modifications. Just think about all those missed opportunities for those annual plate taxes based on the selling prices. Oh and don't forget the sales tax.
It just boils down to one thing money.
and they would need to increase the displacement a lot due to the vibration harmonics hampering high speed operation
This channel will get to a million subscribers real soon . Great content
I'm not a machinist or engineer but to me it looks good on paper. It also looks to me like it would have a lot of things that would have to be absolutely perfect in tolerance or it would be a mess.
That swing - arm piston assembly looks like it would be fun to make exact.
Maybe I'm wrong but I imagine it's not quite the same to put in real metal.
Nah. You're right. Car companies love to turn a profit and if this engine was something they could've turned a profit with, they would've done it.
@@orangejjay In theory yes, in practice they are huge companies wtih a huge network of suppliers and they probably tend to suffer from some of the same issues as bureaucracies. Who and why would take upon himself the monumental task of enacting such a drastic change (only to have it copied soon if it proves to work, because there is no patent)
Wow I've never heard of this engine before, and I'm very glad I did! Thanks so much for making this video! The fact that he was able to take it into real world use makes me confused about how it isn't in use by something now. Seems like it would make a wonderful motorcycle engine.
PS. The sound you used for combustion is hilarious!
Videos like this that propagandize concepts and make huge claims of 30% efficiency are fake guesses. If it really was so much better, every major company would use the design regardless of cost to license. The reason it's not common is because manufacturing costs and efficiency claims are worse than typical 4-stroke engines. Every time.
@@mact.26 I took the 30% thing with a grain of salt. Even if it's "on-par" I can see a one-off coming out with a motorcycle with it. The success of a real world trial sets it apart from other "experimental" designs of historical note, which is all I'm comparing it to.
@@mact.26 I doubt that it is that simple. And you ignore the enormous influence of conservatism in engineering
"This is a machine with low thermal losses since there is very little friction". There. One sentence that is very telling that the author of this video does not know what he is talking about, friction and thermal losses are 2 very different things! I don't see *any* advantage with current normal engines, the bent combustion chamber increases the thermal losses and decreases the mechanical efficiency because of the angle of piston pressure vs. conrad angle, and there is one added joint, increasing friction, not decreasing. It's an alternative engine design that absolutely can work, but there is simply nothing better about it.
@@davidcolin6519 I guess that you don't trust in engineering? While it is certainly true that the percentage of engineers that can properly evaluate an engine design is very limited, there is one very good reason while we don't see any big changes to the established current engine design: The best design has survived. All competing designs, that were tried during the 20th century, simply weren't as good. Current engines evolution is a product of engineers, not inventors. If you lack proper education (like inventors typically do) you can come up with an alternative design that can be made to work, but lack the skills to properly judge it. That being said, there are also certainly examples of bad decisions made by engineers, leading to developments that took the wrong path. One such example is the Honda's oval piston engine. Here it was prestige standing in the way of proper engineering judgement.
It's interesting because of the reduction of piston side loads but a curved bore is not easy. The banana arm bearing is a better interface than the piston side. Crank offset is one way to beneficially effect the side load during the power stroke. Low stroke can be a disadvantage and I wonder if the dynamics work well at high rpm where a short stroke is more viable.
I love the idea of chasing piston toroidal engines.
He took away one point of friction and introduced another. This is a more compact cross section, as it's essentially a taco. The thermodynamic chaos of that combustion chamber shape would put more pressure on one side of the piston than the other. This would cause uneven stress on the chamber walls. You would also be forced to use a small bore size, thereby having to increase the lever length and the moment of inertia. The balance shaft weight alone would more than erase any supposed efficiency gains. This design would be forced to use a more complex V or X pattern to cancel that inertia without excessive balance weight. Manufacturing such a shape without complex dies and pressure casting techniques would be absurdly expensive. It's a very neat design, but there are some very obvious reasons it hasn't been adopted for any high pressure internal combustion applications.
The 80’s and early 90’s were like the spring break of history. The engine is both nuts and awesome.
GM finally figured some of that out with their LS engine. In the LS, the cylinder bore was increased so the piston never gets close to the bottom of the bore. The piston skirt was also shortened, and an oil jet to lube the lower cylinder added. They also increased the cam bore size from .75 to 1.0 inch, increased oil capacity and circulation. Another big one was modifying the heads for optimal flow. Then they tightened it up using tongue in groove everywhere w/oil behind it. With the improved EFI and ignition system the beloved LS will last 300k+ miles with average maintenance. I got 500k from an LS2 6.0 w/frequent Mobil_1 changes (
Well it seems that the car companies want the motors to wear out sooner and sell you a new car as soon as possible. Maintenance and car parts is a big source of revenue for car companies too.
I believe this is all about cost cutting. Re tooling for making these engines would cost a lot of money that can be used to cater for the buyers lizard brains with seat heaters, navigation systems and new exterior designs. all of which are cheaper to implement than a new motor technology. meanwhile they are cutting costs in the engine compartment, making things out of plastic that used to be cast metal.
Cuting wouldnt be much more expensive we would just cast the general shape and use cnc to refine the rough cylinder which would reduce wear on tool and make it far faster to machine than cuting out a whole block and would allow mass production
@@yeet3071 They only use CNC milling for more expensive engine blocks, Your cheap car engine has had its rough block milled in a more simple setup where the cylinders are cut out on the same time in a single move.
Very interesting idea. I'm guessing that huge arm adds a lot of mass compared to a piston. Would put a lot of stress on the connecting rod when it changes direction at tdc and bdc
It would have to be calculated as a rotational inertial mass, since each mass unit along its length moves less as you go from piston to pivot. But I agree, I would have to see that actual calculation.
The reduced height would make up for a significant portion push as mentioned above, it on an arc to the closer the the pivot, the less inertia
An increased mass of an arm is duly compensated by a decreased mass of a piston though
Its actually less mass and less friction, your imagination is poor
You weren't paying attention. In the video it is said that the weight is the same.
Solid video 🔥🔥
Thanks for introducing me to this engine. Makes a lot of mechanical sense.
I think with the seemingly smaller size this would be suited to a motorcycle or an f1 engine. This was a very interesting video, thanks. Its sad that so many great ideas are wasted, there's no wonder we're in such a mess when we ignore genius.
In theory it works better than a conventional combustion engine. But the manufacturing is more involved because of the curved cylinder. It's still used, because it does work better than the conventional. But to be mass produced is where its' limitation is. It also creates more moving parts which can fail. I have no idea how they are made. But it also adds more complexity to the way it's put together. And needing the extra space for those arched rods makes it a physically larger and heavier engine for use in cars. Both of which are what car manufacturers have steered away from. It's better in theory but isn't practical on larger scales
You have such a poor imagination, though. Every of your statement is wrong, or perhaps a lie
This engine is less mass and less friction than a "normal". It also wont wear down. Thats why it wasnt adopted.
@@divinehatred6021 I'm sure it was more efficient than a conventional engine. But there's more complexity to manufacture and produce a lot in a timely fashion. They might still use it in low-production stuff. But on a mass-production scale, I don't think it would be practical. Is why I said what I said. I wasn't dogging on the engine. Just saying that its' design works better but takes more effort to produce
@@richardwilliams9181 it wasnt produced because 1: margin profits wouild be lower 2: planned obsolescence wouldnt work on a engine like that because its way more durable and safe
@@divinehatred6021 True true
Cutting friction is no joke so this engine still has potential, using gaseous fuels like hydrogen and ammonia 🤔
The fact it's used for high purity compressors just means the technology is matured.
Thanks👍😃
imagine this engine with hydrogen, it would be so nice
I am pretty sure that it does not cut friction that much. An ICE is heating up mostly because of the heat of the burning fuel, not due to cylinder wall friction. If the friction on the cylinder walls were that huge then engines wouldn't last for 2-300000 km or more without any internal overhaul.
But for comparison, piston air compressors use the same arrangement, yet they require many times less cooling power. The only difference is that they do not burn fuel.
@@gabiold I used to own a Toyota truck in the 90's and I changed all lubricants to full synthetic and the friction reduction was dramatic and so was the mileage.
The friction reduction in this engine and its design and current use makes it a natural for a gaseous hydrogen engine 🤔
“Easy to machine a curved cylinder.” 😂
The piston fits, so a cutter the same shape but smaller in diameter with extended teeth will also fit. The blocks are cast so only the inner surface has to be milled and honed. Rotary tables are common in machine shops so the setup is also quite simple.
From the water engine to the steam engine , they stop them all from production, the oil company puts there foot down on these new invention guys !
Car companies are in bed with the oil companies, having an engine that doesn't require much oil if any is bad for business.
Very cool design! I love the V8 sound at the beginning. Let's build a hot rod Taurozzi!!
How does it deal with thermal expansion and contraction in the pendulum arm? This would tend to push the piston against the sides of the bore?
It wouldnt let for that to happen at all. Didnt you watch the video?
@@divinehatred6021 I certainly watched the video. What stops the pendulum arm expanding and contracting? It's metal isn't it?
@@ColinWatters its a metal that doesnt have to heat up/cool down because it doesnt contact with the walls of the bore to begin with. To the point where it doesnt need much oil to work. Or doesnt need it at all
@@ColinWatters basically, the piston is on the rails.
@@divinehatred6021 OK so I calculated the thermal expansion assuming a steel 0.2m wide arm and a 100C temperature range and its about 0.1 mm. Typical piston bore clearance in a conventional engine is about 5 thou or 0.15mm so it's ok/marginal. The main issue might be making those arms a consistently the correct width (to within 0.1mm) to prevent rubbing.
Wow I would love to have one of those engines.
The statement of "zero friction" is bogus. The piston rings will always create some friction against the cylinder walls. Also, the 30% better fuel economy due to lower friction cannot be true because modern engines do not waste 30% of their power overcoming piston / cylinder friction. The use for compressors is understandable, since they can use self-lubricating nylon (or similar) piston rings because the only heat generated would be due to compression, and there is no need to run at high RPM.
1:24 Can we just take a moment to appreciate how much more beautiful an engine cycle is when you add audible explosions?
This sounds great unless you go into the details of where the friction comes from and how much.
The rings are by far and away the highest losses in the cylinder and in most modern designs the only part to actually contact the cylinder wall itself - the rest of the piston has an oil layer between it and the wall at all times.
Then you look at the method to get the "gains" he claims which involves more moving parts, bearings which would need oiling in real production use and far more complex/time consuming machining to get the engine made in the first place - all for no real gains once fitted with everything a production engine needs to run for a long time in all conditions.
I can make a normal 4 stroke engine use far less fuel and make more power so long as its for a short time and in certain conditions. Car makers can't take something with total loss electrics, half the oil pressure, much thinner oil and all the other tricks and simply put it into production.
For all his nonsense about less friction thats all it is when you take everything into account - nonsense.
If makers saw a way to reduce emissions even slightly these days they would jump at it in a heartbeat. The fact they haven't - even almost 30 years after the patents ran out - should say it all.
In this engine the force on the rings is instead put on the moving arm bearing.
This. If there was that much upside to it, someone (likely everyone) would be doing it.
This was made in the 90's, the thing is if it was as good as they say it is it would be in use today
Nope. They lie about everything. They take anything good, and ruin or hide it
Well it's like two stroke, if the technology was constantly developed it could be great, but since it's easier to keep the same tech than reinvent the wheel why would they?
@Mark345 who is they? If it was any good someone would be making them even if it's not mainstream.
@@deckum23You heard the news after making Cyber truck Elon musk sent a manual to all car manufacturers of why to use a 48 Volt system over a 12V in cars so they can reduce the weight and cost of the car significantly? We still use a 12 V system which was made back in the 1930s, because they are just lazy to make a change. It's not as complicated as you might think. They just never tried. in this case, there may be some issue, but still if Russia considered his engine to be good in 2015. It should have something.
Nice design! But I don't believe the claims without duration testing a full size engine. A lot of wear can be caused by different thermal expansion of the block and the piston. And 30% improvement seems just wishful thinking. But you've made a great video!
"A lot of wear can be caused by different thermal expansion.."
At first I thought "yeah, right, a problem conventional ICE don't have, or what?" But then I realized that the radius of the piston movement is going to change. And starting at let's say 30cm, that makes for quite a bit of expansion.
@@gstutje exactly!
30% is nonsense.
Yes, it works as a compressor due to the lack of heat from combustion. Modern inline 4 cylinders go 200K miles without a rebuild. I doubt this could make it 20K, otherwise we would have them in the market.
yeah, i wanna know how they came up with the 30% number, and 30% compared to what?
I don't find the mass machining of curved cylinders a compelling argument. Mass production demands would allow for the optimisation of that machining process, even bespoke boring machinery. Curved pistons probably distribute the forces unevenly resulting in numerous highly irregular points of failure. They'd use this design in F1 if it was more efficient. Though I suspect it's probably more durable because it has to be overengineered.
The same people that own the oil companies own the car companies.
This needs to be mass produced 100%
Why?
I think Toyota produced a series of this 3 years ago. Or Nissan? With variable compression.
@@ArneChristianRosenfeldt That was Nissan and it was nothing like this design. That was a seperate guide which could alter the throw of the crank to vary compression. The bores and so on were normal.
@@siraff4461 normal bore and cantilever from the side to relief the lateral force. Best of both worlds.
i give it a year before a youtuber releases a video "I built this Taurozzi engine and you won't believe how it works! "
If it runs too efficiently or it has a long lifespan it would not be a good money maker.
Blows my mind how some people still don't believe that manufactures design failure points into their products, as to ensure there is always a constant demand for that exact product.
efficiency and reliability are two different things. Even automakers that don't want reliability still want efficiency. And it would be really, really easy to make one of these unreliable.
I find this video very interesting 🤔, as a Diesel engine fan I like all the different engine configurations. I have seen lever engines but not curve cylinders. I hope someone will take it and use it to its full potential. I still have a balance question on the running of this engine. 😇🙏🎣
Thanks for the video. I've worked on many engines but had never heard of this design. Shame it didn't get developed. With electric motors taking over from internal combustion it's unlikely now of course however I'm glad it was utilised for compressors.
Looks like a cool solution looking for a problem to solve. I don't think the benefits overcome the build complexity (two "crankshafts", harder mecanization...)
Also, wide short bore pistons do exists, which are almost the same without the complications. And have never been a popular option for car manufacturers.
I wouldn't compare the second axle with a crankshaft. For one it can be a simple straight axle, no complex offsets. Secondly they bear very little force, so they don't need to have complex metallurgy care that a crankshaft need. and the bearings don't have to support that.
You could even run a small straight oil line through the shaft, to provide each bearing with a little oil if you really wanted to reduce wear to basically nothing
@@DrTheRich Yeah, yeah... I called it "crankshaft" ... on quotes, because I didn't really knew how to call it. But whatever it is, makes the engine more complex...
@@framegrace1 a little bit yes, but complexity and efficiency go hand in hand. I drive a Ford Model A from 1929 that has a simple engine, but it eats fuel like a mother.
Modern engines are many times more complex than mine, but are 4 to 5 times more efficient.
complexity in itself is not a deal breaker, if it comes with a substantial enough benefit.
Not to mention, complexity for a home made engine, is a different story than complexity for a mass produced factory engine.
Modern complex computer calculated casting shapes are easy for factories to produce, but hard for a hand engine builder at home.
All this engine needs over a normal similar one is a few extra holes in the casting, an extra axle and some bearings. easy peasy for a modern engine factory to make.
Beautiful engine to see in action! So harmonious compared to traditional engines. Nice to know it's being used in compressors.
Thumbnail looks like a toilet...
Cool video. I love these hidden gems of history.
Am working on a cylinder for steam locomotive application. Loved the video.
i wonder what the power levels really are vs a typical inline engine. i've never heard of this before but the idea is super solid and now i want one!
I'd bet the torque is limited.
@@brantgaspard9748 possibly but it could be better that most engines at lower rpm due to each power stroke being slightly after tdc
I can see a few drawbacks for this engine that have not been mentioned here:
1. The piston needs to be perfectly centered by the pendulum arm in order to reduce friction. Bearings may work fine, but wear over time will increase friction severely. Add to that the different rate of expansion for different materials and you need to engineer a fairly wide gap into this, otherwise the engine will wear itself out when starting cold.
2. Manufacturing this is going to be much more expensive than your average automotive engine today.
3. So why not use it in racing/high performance cars? The pendulum adds a lot of weight, reducing the max possible RPM by quite a bit. This is where all performance engines get their power from today (and have for at least half a century). To counter this you would have to increase cylinder size, but since the surface increases at a much faster rate than the volume, you end up with a lot of parasitic losses that eat up more than any advantage this design ever brought to the table in the first place.
4. Even if there was a niche where this engine could survive, maintenance logistics is likely going kill it. Setting up support for an unconventional, rare design is very expensive for any manufacturer. In the United States, this was a lesson learned from the introduction of the first Diesel engines in passenger cars back in the 80s. There was more to it, but the entire program was such a desaster that it ruined the Diesel for at least 3 decades
Mmmmmm ...... yep ., the world may need it ., but the market does not ... I think this is almost in the same vain as the Citroen DS ., there may be great advantages ., but the market could not cope with the additional costs .... to the point that how ever good the new mouse trap ., your door would not be disturbed by customers ...
Cheers to Taurozzi and a great video!
Keep making these vids man! Good work
Fascinating design...I wonder why those big auto makers were so disbelieving. Perhaps they just wanted to wait for the patent to expire..! I would love to see how the toroidal bores were machined, though. I was wondering if an opposed shared-toroid compression-ignition engine would work, then you showed the toroidal engine design which looks almost like that very idea. I'd love to know more about that one too.
Automotive manufacturer are always trying to adopt technology that gives them an edge over the competition. They most likely didn’t buy this idea because they didn’t see the value or utility in it. It has its own issues, and is not suited for their use case.
If it was a good idea they would have implemented it and made tons of money.
It’s because this is much harder and more expensive to manufacture as well as takes longer and even more specialized tooling, it doesn’t make nearly enough power for the input energy, it’s high friction in the cylinder, it’s not going to last as long because of the lateral loading of the piston and it’s a pipe dream.
@@mikeznel6048 lol did you even watch the video? 😂
It has far less friction due to the shorter piston and the fixed anchor point for the conrod. The piston can only move along the one pathway and doesn’t rely on friction to hold it straight in the bore. The compressors that use the technology are used because of a lack of friction which means less lubricant required and cooler operation.
Engines won't wear out quick enough for car manufacturers and the oil companies don't like that it's 30% more efficient... that's why it's not being put in vehicles. You're welcome.
@@Prosecute-fauci also gotta remember new technology scares automakers , and i can tell you why it didn't catch on in the US ,,in 1974 the US was just implimenting smog control on cars and the big 3 were stuck on V8 engines and inline 6 cylinder engines ,,that's what american people were used to ,,i can see the possibilities of this engine from a mechanical standpoint , a very large one would be vibration reduction ,,and another aspect of a engine with less friction would be the engine needing less oil and less frequent oil changes ,,this would also result in longer engine life
Thanks for the video. I didn't know that. Someone would have to durability test it to see what the ultimate life expectancy would be. It's pretty hard to beat plain cylinders
That was its Achilles heel, the rings only lasted a few thousand miles, and where on earth does the 30% come from?
@@steverushforth7009 Probably from running massive tolerances, very thin oil, total loss electrics, electric water pump, etc.
Its easy to make something look really efficient if you're really just palming some of the load off onto another system - which is pretty much what the car makers said if you read between the lines.
Pistons don't run against cylinder walls and haven't for a very long time - thats why cross hatching and oil films are a thing. Rings touch but even they generally have a very thin layer of oil on them too.
Simply pumping oil to the arm's bearings on this design would more than negate any gain - if there were any in the first place because I can't see much there at all. Then there are the extra losses from moving the extra internal weight, the extra pumping losses from it moving through oil/air, the extra bearing surfaces which need to be lubricated and the extra oil pump load that would require.
Lets be honest here - most modern engines will run 200k miles so long as they are looked after. Thats a lot of times for a piston to go up and down a bore so if there were any meaningful friction it wouldn't last long at all. 30% is nonsense.
I would be amazed if this could even match a normal engine once its on a level playing field.
Thats probably why none of the makers have jumped on it even almost 30 years after the patents ran out.
@@siraff4461 material sciences have changed a lot since the 60s and early 1970s ,,gotta remember something , in 1974 american automakers were not interested in new technology and argentina is a long ways from the rest of anywhere, ,at the same time this was being developed US makers were fucking with the WANKEL engine which if you wanna talk about a piece of crap , thats what it is ,, this particular engine design actually could be produced and despite the curved cylinders with the fixed piston arms is just another conventional engine and could be made to pass emissions , unlike a 2 stroke engine or the rotary which is what eventually killed the MAZDA rotary engine , it couldn't meet EPA standards
you missed something too ,, they said he was putting it in his cars so that means it was operating ,not under laboratory conditions and they showed pictures of it running in a car too and it looked just like any other engine complete with fanbelts and other devices
@@wildcoyote34 maybe someone should show this engine design to snowmobile manufacturers, they have historically seemed more open to crazy ideas. Arctic Cat even made some Wankel powered designs.
@@wildcoyote34 Obvious differences being the rotary was mass produced and put in cars for decades until it couldn't meet emissions.
The claims for this engine being better on emissions mean any maker would snap it up it that were true.
The makers sighted his testing as unfair and based on what I read about it they are correct. He was running one piston ring, very thin oil, hardly any oil pressure and total loss electrics - with it lasting very short spans between rebuilds thanks to excessive ring wear - no surprise there then.
Thats quite a long way from it being a production ready engine or even testing it to production standards. Infact there are usually more stringent tests for the engines used in remote controlled toys.
Anyone can make an engine that runs for a short video and make silly claims but this simply doesn't stand up to even basic engineering scrutiny.
Even without doing full tests its obvious to anyone with even a basic engineering degree that his claims can't be anywhere near accurate - infact its much more likely to use more fuel than a normal engine on an even playing field and thats if we give him the benefit of the doubt on being able to machine the rings into a shape to match the curvature of the bore - something he didn't do which is likely the largest reason the engines never lasted.
Interesting consept,should be No problem making curved sylinder with the right tool.😎
But would likely cost more. Also oil is used to cool the underside of the piston, that is why a large amount is thrown up into the cyl. The arrangement would cause a very interesting propagation of the flame front as one side of the piston moves away from the combustion chamber faster than the other. I am not sure how even combustion might be ?
@@tjm3900 It would only cost more because current straight bore tooling/manufacturing is so prevalent in the market.
Curved boring/breaching would cost as much as those curved intake/exhaust valve manifolds.
Yes it can be done. Takes way more effort to keep tolerance. Very problematic for mass production
Interesting topic and great digital animation to help explain it's design and cycle.
I love making machines more complicated and less reliable for no obvious reason...
Worked for G.T.E wesgo Corp in the 90s.
We worked on a prototype ceramic 4cyl engine. Extremely impressive #'s, super lightweight, on cmm machine was No wear....engine would theoretically last forever(well, owners lifetime) it was cast into a block of cement and dumped at sea. No $ in a engine that won't wear out.
this is why we need whistle blowers! big corp getting too greedy to suck the public dry... death to consumerism!
@@ddjohnson9717 just no $in an engine that would out last several cars....
Couldn't pay for production of engine, after initial acceptance, the need would drop below the dollar amount needed to pay for everything. Was a ceramic engine primarily, the elements were plentiful, but the Processes and skill levels needed don't come cheap.
@@briansharp4388 well the device you use to post comments have billions of transistors stacked on a nano level. the Processes and skill levels needed to make the CPU and screens and circuit boards also don't come cheap. But look at the market, we can buy them for 20-30 bucks a chip and couple hundred collars gets you a full on device.
scaling is the key and with a "no wear" engine, one manufacture can claim that and people will buy no stop. where did the "let market chose" mentality?? crooks all around,,
This engine would be almost impossible to manufacture. A curved cylinder has what benefit?
The main benefit I see is better angles on the connecting rod and crankshaft during the power stroke.
@@Mrshotshell But how would you machine a curved cylinder?
@@Dont_Gnaw_on_the_Kitty_1 He made running engines and some compressors are made with the design so it's definitely possible. But no where near as cheap and easy to manufacture and refinish as a straight bore which is one of the reasons it isn't widely used.
@@Dont_Gnaw_on_the_Kitty_1 same system as in engine but with drill instead of piston
@@orangestoneface Do you mean the curved cylinder is made using the same principle as a spiral ground onto the outside of a drill bit? Sorry but I can't see how this would work, the cylinder is inside a block of aluminium?
There's cylinder ring friction, but granted less
He stated in the video, that the piston doesn't touch the sides, beacuse all the stress and friction is transferred into the banana Conrod and it's associated mounting support bearing design. Also the power force directed straight down onto the crankshaft.
@@stanmeyer9770 If the piston doesn't touch the sides, you get no compression. The rings at least contact it.
Otherwise it'd have no rings.
Also, the uploader hearted that guy's comment.
Why less? The rings need the same pressure to seat under the same load so for the same bore/stroke/compression they would need to be the same.
@@stanmeyer9770 Thats the snake oil claim by the maker. In reality the rings would need to be of the same spec for the same bore/stroke/compression as any other engine.
Also the claim of this massive friction loss in the piston of a normal engine is nonsense. Any modern engine uses cross hatching to hold a film of oil between the piston and cylinder wall - which is why they can usually run 200k miles or more if looked after. If there was any meaningful friction in use they certainly wouldn't be lasting anywhere near that long - infact engines before that idea only used to last 20-40k miles before needing a rebuild. So its possibly an improvement if you're in the 1930's.
Then you have to take into account all the added drag from the extra weight of the internals, the extra bearing surfaces, the extra oil it would have to pump to feed those bearings and so on - if this could even match a normal engine on an even playing field it would be amazing.
Of course it can't which is why - even almost 30 years after the patents ran out - no maker has picked it up.
With emissions regs the weay they are even if a maker could get 3% less friction this would be in production tomorrow. 30% is just a nonsense.
@@siraff4461 piston rings need to be able to compensate for the Piston moving around in the bore, in this case that wouldn't be a problem.
There are several engine makers on utube that recreate engines at different scales. If anyone can build these today, I hope to see them on another channel as a build soon. I made a small search and haven't found one yet.
Ok, so I can see how it would reduce friction, however I feel like with that big banana arm it would have to add more weight
This does lower piston mass and does make peak friction loading less by distributing the load. The curved bore is a little hard to hone, but probably it's easy to breach machine using matching geometry. Piston ring issues could be overcome with light riffling or just choosing softer rings (since the rings don't need to withstand such high heats/friction).
If you want a more cursed engine, there is a opposed piston version of this rotary/pendulum engine.
It's piston may be lighter but it's also got the banana arm moving up and down with the piston, i wouldn't be surprised if that makes it's reciprocating mass heavier than a regular piston
I imagine the bore could be honed easily with a "dingle-ball" style hone rather than traditional stones, and I imagine the crosshatch pattern would be less important in a design like this. My main concern is wear at the pivot point potentially causing the piston to slap around, though with modern metallurgy this probably wouldn't be as much of an issue as I think it would be.
@@moconnell663 i think the desired tolerances are easier to achieve on the pivot point and arms with bearings (since those are mass manufacture to near perfect tolerances) when compared with the piston bore/head diameter. And again if you have lower peak friction you have less thermal expansion/contraction and those tolerances should hold for longer due to less wear
@@icefly_ Anyone comparing this to a rotary engine randomly spews garbage from their mouth 🤦🏻♂️
nice concept, makes sense why OEM would never try implementing this
Darn, I misplaced my semi-toroidal boring bar and hone...
You don't need them. You use a standard boring bar and rotate the block along the axis of the pendulum shaft
Main efficiency problems for combustion engines comes from thermodynamic laws and are related to temperature. This kind of engine does not act different than standard engine regarding this.
As a mechanic this is a great concept and I would love one of these engines
Converting a compressor might be a possibility
Machining those "cylinders"... Tough job I would guess.
I'm a retired Machinist no real big problem it would just take a special jig or mill. But then when you make conventional engines you do so with special jigs and Mills.
I like your vid!!!!..... and the design of the engine is very interesting;I never heard of this design before.....
And I truly admire Mr. Taurozzi for his tenacy while constructing this engine!!!!
I also think that his idea can result in less wear of piston,pistonrings and cylindrewall!!!
But I’m afraid it comes down to a very complicated solution of a very smal problem.....
The claim that in the ordinary engine’s so much efficiency is lost due to friction between piston/piston rings and cylindrewall simply isn’t true.... it would all be destroyed within minutes from starting the engine if those parts were to gather that much heat!!!!
Most efficiency is lost where combustion takes place,if you touch the exhaust manifold of a running engine you INSTANTLY realise where a lot of energy is going....
By the way...... if you look at the efficiency of the complete proces from taking the oil from the earth to what it takes to transport 1,2 person (the average content of a passenger car when driving) you come to around 1%!!!!
When global heating bites us in the butt our generation has a lot to answer for.....
Greetings,Henk,the Netherlands.
True, Henk. It looks like you are the few who sees through the engines design and realize the real problem.
@@ddjohnson9717 Thanks for replying!!
The basics are simple..... somewhere they mention 30% loss of energy andv relate that to the friction between piston+rings versus cylindrewall.... if that were true it is comparable to pointing a blow tourch at every single piston;they would be destroyed within minutes....
It is true that in the early 70’s engines were wearing faster than nowadays;after around 200.000/300.000 miles most engines would start consuming oil and suffer from crankcase pressure.... too much compression passing between pistons and cylindres.... time to swap or overhaul the engine....
It could be that the Taurozzi-design avoids or delays this problem.... but does that outweigh the extra costs???..... and what about the efect of extra parts oscillating as the engine is running??....
Nowadays the perfection in machining pistons,rings and cylindres allow engines to run up to 1.5 million miles or more without an overhaul....
But having said all this.... I never the less truly admire Mr. Taurozzi for designing and constructing this engine!!!.... and it could well be a better option for maybe compressors;they run at continuous rev’s making it easier to balance out the vibes caused by the extra oscillating mass;I assume his design allows for less lubrication of pistons and rings which could be an advantage in some cases as mentioned in the vid.
Do the sealing surfaces of the piston rings need to match the curvature of the cylinder? I assume they would. Possibly the pin holding the piston ring in place in straight walled pistons could be omitted since the ring would want to stay in its correct place? Could curved cylinder sleeves be manufactured and pressed into a curved block, or do you need to mill the entire block from one piece?
There is still pressure against those walls ... maybe less pressure but its still there
Nice video! Thanks for sharing this, I hope it will trigger a new wave of ideas from inventors and designers around the world that find new ways to make this engine even more efficient.
Awesome idea. Keep up the great work
Piston isn’t curved. Just had a curved chunk for no reason. Extra weight and friction for no reason
Never heard of this before, what a cool engine (pun not intended) with an elegant solution to friction problems!
The first thing that came to mind for manufacturers not taking it into production is that while it is possible, would it be cost effective? I'd imagine this engine requiring quite a bit of precision in manufacturing, and the required machinery just being more expensive in general.
Also, while there would be less wear, how sensitive would it be to it? I do not rightly know, but to me it seems like even slight deformation of the pendulums or their mounts could result in many kinds of problems.
Thanks.
Really open my eyes, just genius everywhere!
I’ve never seen one of these before. Very interesting design.
First time I've ever seen this kind of engine very cool 👍
Hold on, is that abrupt movement NOT a problem at the wrist pin?
I feel like maybe a compressor using this design would last, since it won't vary in RPM other than on startup or shutdown; in vehicular applications this will speed up and slow down with operator input and I believe that the abrupt movement in that animation would be where the biggest fault lies, longevity / durability-wise.
Anyone have an answer for that?
Excellent piece of history!
Those old Commer "knocker" diesels might coulda benefitted from that, since their pistons had rockers on them anyway
I dont see why this engine can be better than a conventional combustion engine in any way 🤔
grande repman, suerte en el nuevo proyecto!!