IC engine with NO crankshaft.

Описание: Description IC engine with NO crankshaft

Planetary gear-sets can be incorporated in the design of an IC engine by replacing the conventional style crankshaft. This concept could be used in IC engines of all sizes, spark ignition or diesel, two or four stroke, the only stipulation being, in its simplest form, the architecture be that of a “boxer” opposed cylinder configuration.

The mechanisms principal benefit is to provide the piston with a connecting rod attachment that eliminates ALL angular thrust between the piston and cylinder wall. Additionally, engine designs would no longer require the fabrication of a forged, cast or billet crankshaft to provide drive to the output shaft.

The attached video is of a proof-of-concept prototype engine. The base engine concept is that of a common-axis, two cylinder module incorporating the cylinders, cylinder heads and pistons of a two-stroke Kawasaki 340 engine. By using a number of commercially available spur gears and bearings a “gear-case” with a 2.0-in. stroke was designed to operate with the 2.36-in. bore of the donor engine.

The pair of planetary gear-sets, with the annulus gears held stationary, are connected through a ball bearing mounted link to an opposing pair of planet gears. The link carries a linear bearing attached to a shaft fixed to the shuttle assembly. The shuttle's motion is then defined by an additional pair of linear bearings traveling on fixed parallel shafts. The shuttle assembly carries the connecting rods and pistons.

This mechanism allows the purely linear motion of the pistons and connecting rods to be converted to rotary motion by keying one or both output drive shafts to its associated planet carrier to provide one revolution of the output shaft for every cycle of the pistons.

Alternatively, one shaft could be keyed to its associated sun gear to provide a step-up drive in the ratio of annulus gear teeth to sun gear teeth. In this configuration the shaft could drive a supercharger or generator or to assist a turbocharger.

Northwind Engineering, Inc.
Cedarburg, WI 53012
USA
Mike Trost (Engineer)
Randy J.Tetzlaff (Designer)