Word: pistons
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...like the Wankel, works on the rotary principle; that is, the energy from its burning fuel is converted directly into rotary motion.* Yet unlike other rotaries, it retains many of the acknowledged advantages of conventional internal-combustion engines. In standard auto engines, for example, the reciprocating actions of cylindrical pistons successively suck in a mixture of gasoline and air, compress it, turn a crankshaft after an electric spark touches off the explosive vapors, then expel the burned fuel residues. In rotary engines like the Wankel, the same effect is achieved not by reciprocating pistons but by a turning rotor...
Although the design looks like a machine-tooled Chinese puzzle, the engine works with remarkable simplicity. Unlike the pistons in ordinary engines, those in Karol's engine are double-ended and have entirely separate functions (see diagram). It is the job of one piston to draw in air. The other provides the power; all the explosions in the engine occur within its cylinder. Thus it is the movement of this second piston that actually turns the crankshaft (which passes through both pistons) and the rotor...
...cycle begins when one end of the air-pumping piston passes a vent in the engine casing and sucks air into its cylinder (1). At exactly the same moment, the other end of the piston is pushing the air that it has already captured and compressed into a passage at the opposite side of the engine casing. As the rotor turns, the air is forced through a transfer port into the cylinder of the power piston (2). Continuing its rotation, the power piston compresses the air even more (3). As the piston's cylinder moves past the fuel injector...
...thing to ban the private car in big cities. Cars are killing the city and strangling small towns and villages. Car manufacturers should work with government authorities to find transportation facilities that can take over for the car. And car manufacturers should concentrate on cleaning up the piston engine...
Even so, David Cole and other researchers are convinced that they are on the way toward ironing out the remaining problems with the Wankel. Rotary engines now available, including the Mazda, says Cole, are "equivalent to a 1930s' piston engine in development. The comparison between that and what we will see in a couple of years will be quite impressive." The Wankel seems finally to be doing what automen long thought impossible: ending Detroit's long love affair with the standard engine, or at least making an interesting triangle...