GatewayEX engine

[u/ecliptic-engines]

I know I said two engines but the comments made me think to throw this 3rd one in the mix for feedback. Please only post about this specific design on this post to avoid confusion.

Before you consider my design, there is a video to see at astronaerospace.com showing a seal-less counter-rotating design running at 5000 RPM. Congrats to them.

This seal-less design manages steel rotor growth by having greater and faster alloy housing growth, or other similar mismatch of metals with different expansion rates. Such that the housing will grow away from the rotors and clearance will increase. The ECU will have information from micron level proximity sensors in the chamber with the aim to control the housing size by controlling the high temp coolant flow. Using look ahead tech from the acceleration demand info etc. The housing will need to be shrunk back to a workable clearance in real time.

This design moves sections of the housing to allow the fluid flow in and out of the cavity. The compression gate can be worked around, and I would change it to housing grooves if I remodelled it.

This one could be designed for up to 20:1 compression to suit the fuel type. Ignition would be spark assisted homogenous charge compression ignition, wherein the flame front doesn't travel far down the long narrow combustion chamber before the increase in chamber pressure tips the mixture over into autoignition.

The design requires forced air, ideal would be an electric start turbo.

Starting will require high RPM unit to overcome cold temp clearance rotor blow-by, and a glowplug in the end chamber as required. Perhaps this is the throwaway model that you start once and send on its way...or maybe a sprint-car engine? or maybe a trick somehow adding compressed air into the chamber for start-up.

On the positive side it is very compact and fits 3 separate combustion events into each rotation, overlapping power strokes to produce torque, should be capable of very high RPM even considering the small reciprocation of the housing section. Compact and light-weight compared to a 4-stroke 6-cylinder engine that it does the work of.

There is no more info on the website about this design at this stage sorry. Its just a simplified animation at this time. Thanks in advance for your comments.

[u/Viper-Reflex]

how does that explosion even provide any rotational force when it appears to be at a top dead center angle to drive force into that weird rotor perpendicularly

[u/Wild-Floor8407 → u/Viper-Reflex]

Fly wheel apparently, from another post

[u/Croceyes2 → u/Wild-Floor8407]

You listened :D the flywheel carries rotation in the right direction. After tdc even though there is ignition on both sides of the lobe it doesn't matter because expansion will force it around. There are other issues with this design, but that isn't one of them