Talk:Rotary piston engine

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[edit] wankel contamination

this page is also heavily contaminated with wankel engine/rotary combustion engine stuff which needs to be purged. Gzuckier 22:46, 2 Mar 2005 (UTC)


[edit] Merging this engine with radial engine?

Cbraga wrote on the page itself instead of here: The phrase "rotary engine" actually refers to the Wankel engine. and proposed to merge it with Radial engine.

IMHO this page should not be merged with radial engine, because there are too many difference to a normal radial engine and also the radial engine article is already quite big and this one isn't small either. --XTaran | Talk 02:14, 31 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Another reason against merging is, that as in the page's history can be seen, the wankel engine and this engine were formerly both on this page and at that time, it was decided to move the wankel engine out, and not the currently described type of engine. BTW: This page is more than 1 year elder than the radial engine page, seems to be one of the very early ones... --XTaran | Talk 02:38, 31 Mar 2004 (UTC)

And a further argument against merging is, that the rotary engine has this name (anyone knows any other name?) since more than a hundred years and Mr. Felix Wankel was even born (1902) after the rotary engine has been invented. So if someone calls the Wankel engine a rotary engine, this is probably wrong and only because the wankel engine today is much more popular than the rotary engine, although still not very popular. ;-) --XTaran | Talk 02:58, 31 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Well, after reading your arguments, IMHO the best course of action would be to merge the rotary engine and radial engine pages, since they do talk about the same thing, and let the rotary engine page be a simple stub with links to both pages. Cbraga

Rotary engine were not only build as radial engines. For example there also existed rotary boxer engines (Barry engine, Wales, 1904) or rotary one cylinder engines (Cyril Pullin, about 1940, having engine, clutch, and break all inside the wheel). They are both no radial engine.

There should be some Wikipedia page somewhere to discuss the various kinds of rotary engines near the bottom of this page. That is, the non-wankel, non-gnome types. Mackerm 09:30, 1 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Full Ack. And thanks for that link. I knew that site, but not that page. --XTaran | Talk 10:36, 1 Apr 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Older discussions

"... full right rudder to turn left, and full right rudder to turn right ..."

So what (if anything) was the right rudder for?

Wasn't Lindberg's "Spirit of St. Louis" a rotary engine airplane? If not, what are those cylinders sticking out from the fuslage just in back of the propeller?

The Spirit of St. Louis had a radial engine, not a rotary.

The Wikipedia Lawrence Hargrave article mentions he was the inventor of the rotary engine, yet this is not mentioned in this article.

Hmmm, I now at least three people who were claimed to be the inventor of rotary engines: Some Mr. Seguin (German Wikipedia and on div. motorcycle pages) from France, some Mr. Balzer from the USA (this article) and now som Mr Hargrave... Oh, and please use signatures (~~~~) --XTaran | Talk 02:14, 31 Mar 2004 (UTC)
Although, no, Mr. Balzer is not marked as inventor but as the one who build the first usable rotary engine. So, yes, Mr. Hargrave should be added and it should be doublechecked, when Mr. Seguin had his idea or built his rotary engine for the first time... --XTaran | Talk 02:46, 31 Mar 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Is a rotary engine a wankel engine?

Due to not being an native english speaker, I can not determine if the term rotary engine only refers to the wankel engine, only to this engine or to both. In German there exist (more than) two different words which do not mention the inventor, but exactly describe each of these engine types: This engine is called Umlaufmotor while the wankel engine is called Kreiskolbenmotor as well as Rotationskolbenmotor.

So can anybody tell me, how this engine is called correctly?

IMHO you can't call it radial engine, because except being a internal-combustion engine and having the same cylinder layout, everything is different compared with a normal radial engine. Calling it only a radial engine looks to me worse than calling an 180° V engine a boxer engine. --XTaran | Talk 02:27, 31 Mar 2004 (UTC)

The forums at dict.leo.org helped to find another term: According to http://webcoordinator.de/englisch/du4.htm the engine type described on this page is a rotary piston engine and according to piston the rotor inside a wankel engine is not a piston. On the wankel engine page it's named "cylinder" (but with apostrophies).
Unfortunately on http://www.citroen.mb.ca/citroenet/html/w/wankel.html (posted somewhere else on this page) the rotor of a wankel engine is called rotary piston, which just depends on how set the imaginary parens: This engine is the rotary ( piston engine ) while the wankel is a ( rotary piston ) engine (plenking is wanted!). So we are back at the beginning.
In general I would like to make rotary engine (probably with redirect from rotary piston engine) a disambigation page and create two pages, one for the rotary engines descibed here at the moment and one for the wankel alike engines described on http://www.citroen.mb.ca/citroenet/html/w/wankel.html. One solution could be to make two pages rotary engine (rotating piston) (for the wankel alikes) and rotary engine (rotating engine) (for this one)... Any comments? --XTaran | Talk 12:08, 2 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I'm not sure, XTaran. One the one hand, rotary engine in the modern context almost always means Wankel rotary. But then rotary engine in an avaition context almost always means the sort of thing you bolt on front of a Sopwith Camel. On the other ... er .. on the third hand, bracked disambiguation is always a thing to avoid unless it is impossible to come up with a sensible alternative. What gets linked to most often? What term is most natural for editors to use?

I think that there is no "common" interpretation on this. This is what IIRC brought the whole discussion up. Interesting is, that the current page rotary engine lives under this name since 2001, so it seems a pretty common term. On the other hand, you are right: Nowadays most people think of a wankel engine when hearing rotary engine. This is what I called a historically grown error, because the other type of engine seems to have the elder right to the name.

If you do go with a move and a disambiguation page, then can I suggest that you avoid the ugly brackets in (e.g.) rotary engine (piston engine) by calling the pages reciprocating rotary engine and Wankel rotary engine?

The first one sounds fine, it is unambiguous. The second one makes me a little bit beely aching, because the wankel engine is only the most popular type of that engine family, but wankel neither was the first one building such engines nor is his invention a very generic example. (See http://www.citroen.mb.ca/citroenet/html/w/wankel.html for an impressive number of different implementation of zthis idea.) And the wankel engine page already exists and is fine. What about something like wankel like rotary engine or wankel type rotary engine?

But there is no hurry.

Full ack. (As long as no one tries to merge this page with radial engine. Although I start to believe that the guy who proposed this is nothing but a troll and I was so dumb and fed him. ;-)
"Maybe we can see what some of the other engine and aircraft people think about this. Tannin 12:30, 2 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Yeah, I really would like to hear some more ideas and opinions! I just post mine to get feedback. ;-) (Maybe I won't be very responsive the next few days, will be away for holidays in Austria. :-) --XTaran | Talk 13:04, 2 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I think the disambiguation page is a good idea. You could have links to the aviation engine, the Wankel angine, and a page for the "freak" engines. The hard question is what to rename the current rotary engine page? I think "reciprocating rotary engine" sounds funny, though that might be the best anyone can do. Mackerm 21:05, 2 Apr 2004 (UTC)

OK, so I'm thinking of buying Management one of those little Mazda RX8 beauties she has been talking about, you know, the one with the rotary engine. So I want to know something about the rotary engine. So I go to Wikipedia and type in rotary engine which for decades now has been the common usage for the, um, rotary engine in the Mazdas sold right around the world (and used in other makes too). But what do I get? A page telling me about an aircraft engine from the 1920s. Illogical. Rotary engine should take me direct to the Wankel engine, and links from there should go to the outdated dinosaur thingy from the 1920s. Moriori 21:39, Apr 2, 2004 (UTC)
On the other hand. the fact that you are ignorant of aircraft engines does not make the usage invalid. (And yes, I once owned a Mazda rotary. '73 RX-4. Did 130,000 miles on it. Horrible fuel consumption for such a small car, but an absolutely wonderful engine.) Tannin
That's an interesting response, considering a few lines above you said Maybe we can see what some of the other engine and aircraft people think about this. Having done six years air force time, and as aviation is my main interest, I am far from ignorant re aircraft engines. But I do know that generally, if people mention "rotary engine" they mean the engine in the Mazdas et al, not the aircraft engine which was overtaken by technology in the 1920s. If there isn't to be a disamb page, then a wiki search for rotary engine should logically go straight to the common usage which happens to be the Wankel. Moriori 22:54, Apr 2, 2004 (UTC)

Oh, I'm not disagreeing with you, Moriori. Your point is valid - note that I made it myself a few posts above, saying rotary engine in the modern context almost always means Wankel rotary. But I'm pointing out that there is an equally valid point in opposition to that. Hence my uncertainty. Yes, a Wankel is a rotary, but it's not the only sort of rotary, not even if we exclude the aircraft engine type. It is the most common sort at present, and for the forseeable future. Tannin

I had a nice big article written up about the Monosauppe engine and just before I created the initial entry, I found that much of the material was covered under this page - Rotary engine. Silly me, I thought a rotary was a Wankel engine (see all the above discussion for what caused my confusion). Anyway, I took the more rotary-generic bits out of the Monosauppe article and added them to the rotary article. Then I created the Monosauppe article with what was left over and probably more specific to that particular engine. Caveat: although I'm interested in all sorts of engines, I'm not an aircraft enthusiast, so I'd appreciate it if someone took a look at what I added, as well as the Monosauppe article, to make sure that it's all A-okay. TimothyPilgrim 17:12, Jun 11, 2004 (UTC)

In my own infinite wisdom, and because I'm a self-admitted bumbling idiot, I mispelled the engine and created an article named as such. It is in fact the Monosoupape engine, and I've moved the particle text to that page and created a redirect, although the old page should be deleted. TimothyPilgrim 17:56, Jun 11, 2004 (UTC)

I believe the formally correct name for the Wankel et al is the rotary combustion engine, rather than the rotary engine. Logically, since it's the combustion that's rotating around the center of the engine; the engine is not rotating, and in the piston engine the combustion is not rotating. Certainly seems to be a popular usage. <http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&safe=off&q=%22rotary+combustion+engine%22> There are other RCEs as well. I've just edited the Wankel page some. I think the remnants of the Mazda cars references ought to be taken off here except for disambiguation purposes; that reference to RX7 and RX8 at the bottom of the page is just confusing. Gzuckier 19:34, 20 Jul 2004 (UTC)

You get even more hits with rotary steam engine! Mackerm 00:27, 23 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I don't know, what is understood in English by "rotary engine", but Wankel engine sure has nothing in common with rotary engine described in the article. It must be re-edited. Pibwl 18:20, 31 Jul 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Recent additions

There have been two recent additions that are both essentially incorrect.

One often repeated claim is that the gyroscopic forces gave rotaries an edge in combat. In fact it did so only in the most limited terms, and was increadibly dangerous to use. To less experienced pilots it was the cause of many crashes and deaths. Practically everyone hated this "feature", and it became so overpowering that it was very difficult to make larger engines. Although a few 160hp were tried, they were generally ignored in favour of inlines.

Furthermore there's a big discussions on how the non-recip nature of the pistons saves energy. Actually the rotary recipts just as much as an inline -- slowing the pistons to a stop at TDC takes the same amount of power whether you do it quickly or slowly. Morover the discussion ignores the fact that the rotary has to spin up the entire engine, to speed up or slow down.

I am removing both.

Maury 13:21, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Merging / Engine Types

A radial engine is simply a type of reciprocating engine.

A rotary engine is, more or less, constructed like a turbine, and has no 'pistons' at all.]

A 'piston engine', which is properly called a 'reciprocating engine', is your normal car engine.

The idea of refering to a reciprocating engine by using another common engine type name to describe it further is a bad idea. Perhaps 'rotating reciprocating engine' is better. Really, though, to have to use another such term at all is a bit silly. In a normal reciprocating engine, the crankshaft is constantly turning, but we don't make any reference of it. In the application of the Monosaupape engine in aircraft, while the implementation and supporting systems is vastly different, the basic power-creating concepts are just the same.

Such engine subtypes should have articles containing basic design/application differences and engine histories while pointing back to their hierarchal heads (Wankel-> Rotary; Monosaupape-> Reciprocatying) for basic structure and concept material. The articles for the hierarchal heads should explain the basic design and concept and have links to the more subtype articles for more specific applications. -Telesque, 1:11 PM, Apr 26, 2005

For a long time this article was entitled "rotary engine" because apparently this engine was called a rotary engine back when it was invented. From what I see, this page is obsolete since somebody wrote an article for Monosoupape engine Mackerm 17:33, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)
This article was renamed rotary piston engine form rotary engine in order to prevent confusing it with Wankel engine. If anyone is looking for wankel engines unde rotary piston engine, they really need this encyclopedia. Luckily, they will be pointed from this article to the correct articles, rotary combustion engine, wankel engine, etc.. As for Monosaupape, it's my impression that that's a much less frequent name, and certainly less descriptive of the operation of the engine. It ought to be merged into this article. Maybe someday...Gzuckier 19:41, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Unfortunately, the term rotary piston seems (according to Google) to be used quite often to mean the rotor of a Wankel engine, so rotary piston engine, apart from being historically inaccurate, is misleading in the modern context as well. Andrewa 02:37, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Monosaupape should simply be removed

The Monosaupape design was a little-used solution to what should have been a non-problem, used by only one company (Gnome) for only a small number of their designs. The concept could be easily covered in the main body of the Gnome et Rhône article, or in an article about the particular engines which used it (I think the N-series only, I'm looking into this now). So I think the article should simply "go away", not expanded or merged into this one.

Maury 13:23, 14 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Photos

Both photos seems to correspond to radial engines (Continental Wasp ?) IMO. Ericd 05:44, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

Yup, moved. --SFoskett 14:03, May 16, 2005 (UTC)
I've now added one that's a genuine (and legendary) rotary engine. Andrewa 15:38, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Proposed name changes

I have never heard the term rotary piston engine used to describe the engines this article is about, such as the Gnome, they have always been simply rotary engines (except lately at Wikipedia and on pages that mirror or use our content). However, Google shows ample evidence that the term rotary piston engine is often used to mean a Wankel engine, that is, an engine with a rotary piston.

My suggestion is:

  • Move the disambiguation page from rotary engine to rotary engine (disambiguation).
  • Move this page on the rotating radial-pattern engines such as the Gnome to rotary engine, as these engines have no other name.
  • Redirect rotary piston engine to rotary engine (disambiguation).
I'm no longer sure this is sufficient. While cleaning up rotary combustion engine, I've started to wonder whether this title may well be a neologism, in which case we need to move this article too, perhaps to rotary piston, which seems unambiguous and widely used as a generic term for rotors similar in concept to the Wankel engine rotor. Andrewa 20:47, 26 October 2005 (UTC)
I ended up with pistonless rotary engine, it was a line call between that and rotary engine (pistonless), and in hindsight I think I'd go the other way now, and move the article on the original engine to rotary engine (reciprocating), to allow the disambiguation page to be simply rotary engine. Mazda are winning, so both usages are now common IMO, and the disambig should therefore be the head page. So I may well move it once more! Further comments welcome. Andrewa 21:38, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Comments? Andrewa 14:42, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

That seems like a reasonable proposal. Thanks for figuring all of this out. Cheers, -Willmcw 21:26, 26 October 2005 (UTC)
Sounds good. --Duk 20:17, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
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