?About 60 members gathered at the Drouin Golf Club for our October monthly dinner meeting. Instead of the usual display car, we were given an insight by Peter King, into the intricacies, problems and frustrations of trying to develop a new form of rotary engine from a pure mathematical concept through the working prototype stage and into further development.
The concept of a 4-chamber rotary engine was conceived by Peter?s University and Air Force buddy Peter Szorenyi, who together with Peter King proved the theoretical concept and took out a U.S. Patent on it. They then developed a prototype which ran; but needed further development. Unfortunately Peter Szorenyi past away a couple of years ago leaving the other Peter with the task of continuing the engine?s development alone. A second prototype has been built, but without substantial financial backing, the project is at a standstill.
The single rotor engine is quite small and theoretically more efficient than the well known 3-chamber Wankel engine used up until recently by Mazda. It is the equivalent to a 2.5 litre V8 reciprocating engine in both smoothness and output. The intricate design of the hinged, 4-sided deformable rotor and the way it revolves inside an oval shaped chamber driving a central crankshaft was fascinating to nut out. The mathematics behind the design are terribly involved and well beyond your editor?s feeble understanding.
Peter believes that the engine would be ideally suited to light aircraft applications, perhaps even unmanned aircraft (drones) because of its light weight and ability in that situation to function without the added complications and weight of a gearbox.
We thank Peter for his informative presentation and hope that he can secure the funding to continue development on this amazing engine design concept.
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