Rotary engine (Wankel engine) / How does it work? (3D animation) 

Except he got the name wrong. The intire engine rotates on a rotary.

@mr.donut2.085 there are many types of engine which are correctly described as "rotary". The antique reciprocating piston engine type with radially arranged cylinders rotating about a fixed crankshaft - the one to which you are referring - is a "rotary", because the cylinders rotate. Wankel's design with a three-sided piston orbiting inside an epitrochoidal housing is "rotary" because the piston rotates (instead of reciprocating). There are various other engines in which the housing or the pistons rotate, and so they are also "rotary". By far the most successful manufacturer of Wankel-type engines in history, worldwide, is Mazda. They prefer not to use the "Wankel" name (Felix Wankel was not part of Mazda, and not even Japanese), so they call them... Mazda rotary engines. That's perfectly valid. He even put "(Wankel engine)" in the title to make it perfectly clear which of the many rotary engines is being described in the video.

The Wankel KKM57 is NOT a Rotary type engine. Mazda never manufactured the DKM54 or any other Rotary type engine.

@WilhelmKarsten The block does not rotate, but it is a rotary piston engine, meaning that the piston rotates rather than reciprocating.

@@brianb-p6586 It's not valid, and clearly an example where street slang and patois is absolutely false and deceiving. Mazda became a Wankel-NSU licensee in 1961, paying _NSU Motorenwerkes GmbH._ to use the Wankel name, logo and pay a 40% royalty for ever Wankel KKM57 engine sold. Mazda used the Wankel name and it appeared cast into every engine for the duration of the licensing agreement. When the agreement ended, Mazda conjured up a new registered trademark "Mazda Rotary®" to avoid paying for the NSU (now Audi) trademark. And questions son?

owning four? what a dream

Thanks for appreciating!) I just started my way in the English-speaking segment, I hope the subscribers will slowly go up, I will be very glad to everyone :) P.S. In their native language, in about 4 years, 400k subscribers signed up.

I agree that Wankel's Drehkolbenmotor (DKM, "rotary piston engine") was not viable, and that the Kreiskolbenmotor (KKM, "circuitous piston engine") designed by Hanns-Dieter Paschke is the design used in all successful applications. While naming these engines "Wankel-Paschke" would make sense to me, credit for the fundamental concept of a three-sided rotor orbiting in an epitrochoidal housing as an engine belongs to Wankel; Paschke never would have designed the KKM if not for Wankel's work and the issues with his DKM design.

A German engineer Felix Wankel first came up with the idea as a compressor in the 1920s. It was then turned into supercharger for motorcycles in the motorcyclist in the early 1950s. By the mid 1950s he was convinced he could turn it into an engine. By the late 1950s thru had their first prototype. So before it was an actual engine, it was first a compressor, then a supercharger, then an engine.

@@franklugo6928 最初はコンプレッサーだったんですね！知りませんでした！ありがとうございました！

Is it a good thing ?

it's good to have accurate information in an information video. I believe more frequent combustion is good. @@bigdaddyyute6472

There is one power stroke per rotor for each full turn of the eccentric shaft, so that's every 180 degrees for a two-rotor (that full rotation of the eccentric shaft is 120° of rotor rotation, as shown @3:24). Any 4-stroke reciprocating piston engine does take two crankshaft turns (720°) for a full cycle; a Wankel rotary takes three eccentric shaft turns (1080°) for a full cycle (to get all three faces of the rotor through a cycle). That means: V8: 720° / 8 cylinders = 90° per power stroke 2-rotor Wankel: 1080° / 6 chambers = 180° per power stroke

@@bigdaddyyute6472 the only significance is that more frequent power pulses mean smoother power delivery (so more cylinders is always smoother), and that in any 4-stroke the power pulse is less than 1/4 of the cycle so more than 4 cylinders (or rotary chambers) are needed for continuous power. A two-rotor Wankel is equivalent to a 6-cylinder reciprocating piston 4-stroke engine in power pulse smoothness.

"This is informative but I was searching for how half bridged rotary engines work and what is the difference between a half bridged rotary and a normal rotary engine" A rotary engine has 3 "plates" (sometimes called irons), and 2 "housings". The housings, as the name implies, house the rotors- And these are sandwiched between the 3 plates (So its: Plate, housing, plate, housing, plate). The older 13bs have 4 intake ports. These ports are built into the plates. The center plate has 2, smaller ports, known as the primary ports. And the end plates have larger ports, known as secondary ports. As such, each housing has 1 large, and 1 small port feeding air into it. The idea behind "porting" a rotary, is opening these ports up- so more air can flow into the engine. When a motor is "bridge" ported, a small "eyebrow" shaped port will be added next to where the standard port allows air to enter the housing. There is a small bit of metal left between these ports, forming a "bridge", thus the name. The bridge is necessary because rotors have a particular seal on the side (known as a side seal, unsurprisingly). The "bridge" has to be there, or else the side seal would simply fall out into the port. Now to answer your real question: A "Half bridge" is when only 1 of the ports into the housing is "bridge ported", instead of both ports. Typically, this is done by only bridge porting the secondary (again, larger) ports. The smaller primary ports are still often ported in these cases, (though not always), just not given a bridge.

@@SidewaysGts thanks for taking your time to give this explanation to me. I get it now. Appreciate it bro.

Yes, the rotors have seals along each curved edge (three on each side of each rotor) which slide against the end and intermediate housings (as well as the tip seals that slide against the rotor housing). The rotor itself does not touch any of housings.

Fwiw: Its not really "equivalent" to any kind of piston engine in such a sense. But on this matter, it has 4 spark plugs, but it has 2 spark plugs per rotor- Which would be more like a piston engine with 2 spark plugs per cylinder.

3:09 mentions this, they only showed one during the explanation.

No. The higher (compared to a typical 4-stroke reciprocating piston engine) main shaft speed is not a problem for efficiency, and neither is the gearing. The main problem with Wankel engine efficiency is the shape of the combustion chamber.

​@@brianb-p6586It's a very serious problem and is the reason why the Wankel engine has such low mechanical efficiency

@WilhelmKarsten no, but I suppose if you're ignoring physical reality and working without data you can believe what you want.

@@brianb-p6586 No, it's basic geometry and mechanical engineering. The piston of a reciprocating engine acts upon the crankshaft with a mechanical advantage (leverage) while the piston of the Wankel KKM57 engine operates with a mechanical disadvantage. Any questions?

@@WilhelmKarsten I'm sorry you have difficulty understanding the geometry, but it still doesn't change physical reality.

Mazda rx7 & rx8

Here are some actual productiuon cars: NSU Spyder and Ro 80, Mazda Cosmos Sports Car, Mazda R100 Coupe, Mazda 'RX' series - RX2-3-4-5-7 and 8, and... the Citroën GS Birotor, to name a few. There were also some other production mazdas in there as well. Other manufacturers also made running prototypes for testing and investigation purposes.

Wankel engines have been out of production since June 2012.

No, it is an obsolete technology that reached the end of its development potential

@@sandervanderkammen9230 ok je suis d'accord pour la détente des gaz donc un mauvais rendement, mais pour l'architecture il est encore possible de l'améliorer