TechnoLOGY. Powered by Blogger.

Translate

Total Page Views

CATEGORY

Friday, May 4, 2012

Can Mazda Save The Rotary Engine

In 1929 a German engineer by the name of Felix Wankel received his first patent on his engine design that was to be known as the rotary engine. The overall design of this engine was completely different from our standard reciprocating engine design of the time. At the heart of the engine was a Reuleaux triangle which utilized each side in order to perform compression, combustion, and the intake and exhaust process. The design proved to be able to run at much higher revolutions per minute than your standard reciprocating engine of the time. The rotary engine proved to be reliable as well as powerful enough to be used in aircraft, race cars, and watercraft. The downside to the Rotary engine with the fact that it had a hard time sealing up each chamber upon rotation therefore efficiency was constantly an issue. As a result of inefficiency the Renesis rotary design in the Mazda RX-8 was only able to deliver 23 miles per gallon on the highway and 16 miles per gallon in the city. So when gas prices started to rise and put a large damper on the sales of the RX-8. Customers were also skeptical of the overall reliability as well as parts if the engine was in need of repair. So it seems Mazda was ready to lay the Rotary engine to rest but during some research we found out that Mazda is quite possibly stepping up their Rotary engine engineer team to twice the size in order to create a more efficient and powerful Rotary engine.

For 2013 Mazda is all about efficiency as well as the fun to drive factor and as a company that produced this engine when no one else would mean that there more than likely the final hope and saving Mr. Wankel’s design. One positive note for this engine design is that it can run on much lower octane fuel than our standard engine can so therefore we can actually be running these engines on 80 octane made from agricultural waste for some other type of biofuel. What would be awesome beaches see a compressed natural gas option as we have plenty of CNG.

 
Could the 2014 RX-9 Mazda be a hybrid? Yes, because Mazda is looking to add the i-ELOOP regenerative braking process in order to run electrical components off of instead of the engine therefore freeing up more horsepower and causing less resistance. If the Mazda RX-9 has electric power steering as well as an electric air conditioner compressor and possibly even an electric turbocharger and we should see horsepower ranging around 300 hp and also delivering gas mileage closer to 40 miles per gallon if linked up to Mazda’s SKYACTIV®-drive six-speed automatic transmission. So look for a possible introduction of a 2014 Mazda RX-9 and for it to possibly be sporting a very powerful and efficient rotary engine.