Subject: Aluminum rotor results..
From: Rotary Engine
Date: 11/5/2008, 9:50 PM
To: AAA Put this in the To box


    > > Paul,
    > > > I read that portion of the book too. Seems like they just rough
    mill
    > > them then final grind and lap for accuracy. Then again this book was
    > > written in 1969 when cnc equipment sucked so I bet it is much
    different
    > > today. Also by there manufacturing methods back then lead to much
    > > variance in the rotors as written about in the compression ration of
    the
    > > rotors in that turbo 2 design paper you sent out. So two point
    > > approximations and such are worthless these days.
    > > > I think aluminum is the wrong direction to go. Talk of any of
    the exotic
    > > alloys that it would take to make it work well will never happen and
    we
    >
     > all know it in terms of cost,saftey,etc. With aluminums greater
    > > expansion rate you would have to increase the clearances which means
    in
    > > start up and part throttle the thing is going to blowby a bunch.
    > > Aluminum does have a fatigue life and is just to damn soft to take
    any
    > > kind of oops factor either from assembly or coughing seals. Titanium
    is
    > > way to prohibitive after re-reading the nasa paper on it useage.
    Special
    > > coatings on the seal grooves and needing chemical machining to take
    off
    > > the out layers after heat treating is just unrealistic. Like I said
    > > before Steve B. gave me an idea to do a furnace brazed sheetmetal
    rotor
    > > after he mentioned they did it on the side housing with good results.
    > > Welding is good but brazing is better since you would be able to get
    all
    > > the fins/vanes/whathaveyou
     to join instead of just the outer edges
    where
    > > the weld can go. A multi-piece steel rotor brazed I think is the
    > > direction we should concentrate on. The only thing to beat steel in
    > > strength to weight, modulus to weight,etc is carbon fibers and
    titaniums
    > > which are not usable. If you went the extra mile and made the rotors
    out
    > > of 4340 Hardened to RC 48-50 the yield is 180kpsi and ultimate is
    > > 230kpsi. Not much is going to touch that. 1020 or 4130 is more
    realistic
    > > but with steel you have a ton of choices.
    > > > Rob Woods
    > > > The problem is wall stiffness. To get it down to the weight of
    aluminum the > walls would have to be one third as thick as cast iron. About
    the thinnest one > can cast in iron is about 3/16 of an inch. That means most
    of the walls and webs > would be 1/16 thick. I don't think that is
     going
    to be stiff enough for the > rotor faces.
    > > > What is the NASA paper you are referring to?. Can you upload a
    copy?
    > > > If Ted wants to do Titanium let him try.
    > > > BTW Rob please set your left margin to zero so it does not screw
    up the forwarding.
    > > > Paul Lamar
    > > > As far as the ringing is concerned I am not to familiar with the
    ins and
    > > outs but the connection of the ringing would be pathed through the
    roll
    > > pins of the gear, journal bearings,etc so I would assume that would
    take
    > > care of it. I am unaware of any system in an engine that doesnt
    benefit
    > > from stiffness.  I am against titanium for the reasons i listed in
    the
    > > reply i just sent.
    > > > Rob Woods
    > > > It is local panel vibration due to the shock of combustion.
    > > The roll pin loads would
     definitely be different due to the reduced
    > > mass.
    > > > Paul Lamar
    >
    >    Rob,
    >   Can you upload that nasa paper you're reffering to?
    >
    >   Thank You
    >   Ted
    >
    > Paul,
    >
    > Dont know what the zero margin thing is. I am just responding in the space
    yahoo gives me and I dont see any options for this. Please explain to me what I
    have to do.
    >
    > I dont follow you on your dimension conversion. If you were to cast the
    rotor out of aluminum to be equal in stiffness (since cast iron is only a
little
    above aluminum) the aluminum would have to be about 2 times the thickness since
    the UTS and YS are about 1/2 to 1/3 the strength of nodular cast iron. If you
    were to go from cast iron to steel the E value is about 2.5 times greater. Not
    to mention you can get really high UTS and YS number out of it. But lets
jst say
    we do it out  or 1020 then
     the UTS and YS are about the same but still a stiffer
    material. So you could go do half the thickness of the cast iron webbing
which i
    think is more than enough. The centrifual loads wont effect anything but the
    base ring area so all you have to do it provide a 1000 psi load on the
    combustion chamber in FEA to see what the deformation is which I dont think
    would be that great. Point being with the increased stiffness and strength of
    steels over aluminums I dont think that it would be any kind of a problem to go
    thinner wall. If anything you could always go to a 15 pin for additional
    strutting if it is an issue. Until it gets modelled and worked out it is all
    conjecture. I just know which very strong alloys it wont be much of an issue.
    >
    > 1000psi x 15in^2 = 15,000lbs load (but this is only peak) supported over
    the face thickness and the 4 webs. For comparison a AN-NAS 1/4 bolt can take
    about 5000 lbs of load
     in double sheer. That area time three pales in comparison
    to the amount of metal on a rotor and sheer forces are the worst kind in terms
    of material strength(parallel vs perpendicular to grain axis).
    >
    > I sent that paper to you about 4 months ago or maybe it was the one that
    was too big for you to take. I will copy and paste the good and bad about
the ti
    rotor they did. The negatives outweigh the positive since the amount of post
    work is prohibitively expensive for small scall operations.
    >
    > Do you have any scarpped rx-8 rotors handy anyone? I would like to get 2
    to cut apart and disect for comparitive engineering purposes.
    >
    > Rob Woods.
    >
    > That explains it. Yahoo uses their own email program I think
    > and I don't think you can set the margin.
    >
    > Aluminum density is .1 pounds per cubic inch and cast iron is around .3
    pounds
    > per cubic inch. Strength
     at room temp per se is probably not the problem
    as 7075 T6 is 80 kips. Strength at 500 F is an issue and that is why you
want to
    use Be/al allow not to mention the density is .076 pound per cubic inch.
    >
    > If the aluminum was 2 times the thickness of a cast iron  panel ignoring
    modulus of elasticity for the moment stiffness would be about 100 times stiffer
    as it is a fourth power function of the panel thickness. We are not talking
    tensile stiffness here. We are taking about panel stiffness. Roughly thickness
    to the fourth power. You cannot go to half the thickness of cast iron with
steel
    and expect it to be as stiff.
    >
    >
    > http://www.engineersedge.com/beam_bending/beam_bending1.htm
    > This is a simplistic way of looking at it because I can't find
    > simple steel panels uniform pressure loaded on the internet so far.
    >
    > Plus the panel support structure enters into the
     equation.
    > Nothing less than a good FEA is going to help us out here.
    > A simple FEA would be a 3 by 3 by 3 box with one side open.
    > A constant pressure applied to the opposite panel would give
    > good insight. What we are really interested in is the panel resonant
    > frequency.
    >
    >
    > Paul Lamar

       Guys,
     Just gimme a drawing or 3D model of mazda rotor and I'll do all FEA
    (it's fairly simple and I have ANSYS, NASTRAN/PATRAN, ABAQUS at my disposal)
    and the rest. I just don't have time to fiddle with equation driven curves.
    If one will send me a rotor (I will send halfs of it back) I will simply 3D
scan
    it and make 3D model myself.
     Rob - would you email that paper to me please? nevaracing @ mail.ru
    Here some very tricky parts are made out of Ti alloys... It's not simple
    and very cheap but it is doable.
     I'm not saying that steel is worse than Ti or other way around. To
     me
    it's just a matter of material and technology available.

     Thank You
     Ted

    OK Ted send me your mailing address by email and I will keep it private.
    I'll send you a rotor. I don't need it back. Just take some digital
    pictures
    of it after you cut it in half. And the stp file from Solid Works.

    Paul Lamar


Guys,

The nasa file is 20Meg and i cannot send it over email. I could send it
to you through IM in about 3 minutes if you have an address you want to
give me. Other wise you will just have to deal with this copy and paste.

I understand ti can be worked with but in this case I think it is above
and beyond just welding stuff together. Weld it and you'll have to heat
treat it which brings up all sorts of problems. Cast it and the same.
The few drawbacks that it has are large ones.

Also in this paper they were getting a reliable .375 BFSC and they had
realistic plans to get it down to .3


Rob Wood


Rob,

I am searching for some used Renesis rotors right now as well in Japan.
I'll let you know what I find out.

Doug in Japan.


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