[Mike Everman]

If nothing else, that's the most impressive animation I've seen.

[BillTodd]

If nothing else, that's the most impressive animation I've seen.

Very impressive animation...

But, how else are they going to persuade investors to plough millions of Rubles into an old, failed and rehashed technology?

Ignoring the sealing problems, the pursuing piston toroidal engine is just a piston engine; it offers something in the way of reduced friction but little in the way of improved breathing . Instead it concentrates the waste heat into a smaller space (I suspect that the pistons rely greatly on the incoming charge for cooling - thus decreasing efficiency further).


I wonder if the big chunky gears have more to do with avoiding aliasing in the animation than backlash (BTW the cycloidal thing in the front is the oil pump).

Bill
[edit] coincidently , I've just come across this pursuing piston toroidal with a very clever Cardan joint drive (these guys are really very creative)
http://www.pattakon.com/pattakonRotary.htm

[Mike Everman]

Like the Segway or the dirigible, it's a "yes, but why?". Just because it can be done differently...oops, ok, I'm really guilty of that kind of thinking!

This one has more of a sealing problem than the wankel, and that failed in production. Grinding perfect toroidal grooves in mating parts makes my head hurt, and the sealing of all that makes these pistons transmit their force through the chamber wall seems like some hand waving. While an interesting problem, it's not going in the right direction, of simplicity.

Here, I need to put my head on the floor, reach through my legs and scratch my backside..