|
Non Compos Mentis
Join Date: May 2001
Location: Off the grid- Almost
Posts: 10,653
|
While I am a fan of rotarys, they do have poor thermodynamic efficiency due to the crescent-shaped combustion chamber, compared to the ball of flame in a conventional piston engine. The flame front pushes directly onto the piston dome, whereas the flame front in a rotary has to push to rotor sideways (to oversimplify).
Lotsa power when you spin them up fast, but it takes a lot of gas to do it.
|