Did anyone ever build an engine with the rings

-
trapster

trapster

Well-Known Member
Joined
Feb 19, 2009
Messages
2,775
Reaction score
398
Location
Central Florida
Did anyone ever build an engine with the rings embedded in the cylinder instead of the piston?

It would have to be a pretty short stroke but I could see some advantages to doing this like the block never wearing out. pistons would need to be heavier and probably sleeved.


Just thinking

David
 
trapster said:
Did anyone ever build an engine with the rings embedded in the cylinder instead of the piston?

It would have to be a pretty short stroke but I could see some advantages to doing this like the block never wearing out. pistons would need to be heavier and probably sleeved.


Just thinking

David
Click to expand...

I doubt it. What would the advantage be besides not wearing out the block? The pistons would need to have a steel sleeve on the outside making them so heavy I think the internals would need to be beefed up. With all the extra rotating mass, I wouldn't expect any type of performance out of it, let alone if it will actually run. If it did run, it probably wouldn't be for long.
 
Not that I can think of. You'd need a piston with a sealing surface above the pin greater than the stroke, and the crank centerline to deck height needs to be about twice the stroke. This would be a big, heavy engine. It would be far more difficult to (internal) bore ring lands into a block than (external) cut them onto a piston. The rings would expand away from the piston. So you'd have maximum sealing (and resistance) on cold start which would decrease as the engine reached operating temperature and be least at full power.

You get big points for thinking outside the box! But the basic architecture of an IC engine hasn't changed substantially for over 100 years. Billions have been produced the way they have for a reason. It's the simplest and CHEAPEST way to get it done. Having said this, in the early years somebody probably went out of business trying to do what you describe.
 
Also keep in mind that the forces on the piston are NOT simply up and down. As the crank rotates, the piston is pulled from side to side. On the power stroke, it's basically being slammed against one wall. In your design, the point of friction moves up and down the length of the piston, which changes the angle that the force is being applied. This would seem to cause all sorts of strange wear issues on the inside of the fixed-position ring. When the ring moves with the piston, the force is always applied squarely to the ring sealing surface.

But really, it boils down to -- what is easier to do: rebore a cylinder, or rebore a cylinder PLUS recut 3 internal ring grooves to a precise depth? That alone would make it impractical.
 
Something of this nature has actually been done , there was a French airplane builder during world war 1 that built a radial airplane engine whare the crank and pistons stayed stationary and the cylinders and crank case spun and the prop was attached to that. It was the strangest thing i had ever seen. I was this engine on a plane at Reinbeck NY air museum .
 
mopar jimmie said:
Something of this nature has actually been done , there was a French airplane builder during world war 1 that built a radial airplane engine whare the crank and pistons stayed stationary and the cylinders and crank case spun and the prop was attached to that. It was the strangest thing i had ever seen. I was this engine on a plane at Reinbeck NY air museum .
Click to expand...

interesting. Now I want to see it in person. ROAD TRIP!!!
 
mopar jimmie said:
Something of this nature has actually been done , there was a French airplane builder during world war 1 that built a radial airplane engine whare the crank and pistons stayed stationary and the cylinders and crank case spun and the prop was attached to that. It was the strangest thing i had ever seen. I was this engine on a plane at Reinbeck NY air museum .
Click to expand...

The rings were still on the piston in those motors, it's just that the cylinder moved instead of the piston.
 
Rotary engines...NOT to be confused with a Wankel engine or radial engines.
They did some odd things back when people had "spare time"
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
-

Back
Top