The trouble with any kind of wear coating on bare aluminum is there
    are only a couple of molecules between you and disaster. It is extremely
    sensitive to any kind of foreign particles. The only kind of tried and true,
    robust and reliable wear surface for piston engines and rotary engines is a
    hard steel steel liner.

    Paul Lamar

    Paul, earlier you said that the steel liner increased thermal
    efficiency, would putting a 2 or 3 times thicker liner in, make a significant
    difference?

    Dave James

    I think it would as heat transfer is a function of the distance it must
    travel. Everything I have learned on this subject in regard to the rotary
    has to do with keeping  the oil working between the apex seal and the wear
    surface. That is what the cooling system is required to do.

    In that case just using synthetic oil should cut the cooling
    requirements. I discussed this with the Mazda factory several times and their
    attitude was we did not try Mobil One  so it is not endorsed one way or the other.
    However the large Japanese oil company Idemitsu sells synthetic oil
    for the Mazda. I use it in my RX8.

    So far I have not seen a tech paper on this subject where synthetic
    oil was tried back to back. It should be investigated with both iron and
    silicon nitride seals. The question is: What temperature can the wear
    surface be and still work?

    Perhaps Frank Herfert can help in regard to a tech paper on this
    subject.
    Here is some info from Rotary Engine.

    This is relevant to piston engines as well.

    Paul Lamar

    This is an interesting chart from  Heinz Heisler book
    Advanced Engine Technology. You can see how the oil film would cool
    the apex seal. Organic oils break down around 250 F so the OMC was designed
    around that factor. Synthetic  oils help a lot.

    The apex seal takes the brunt of the heat as it sweeps all the hot gas
    stagnant film in front of it. The steel wall temperature is quite
    low.  My guess is 300 F.

    Silicon Nitride seals are a major advance and should be used in all
    rotary aircraft engines as they will tolerate 1000 F.


    Paul Lamar

    Paul,

    Mazda went trough hell and high water to solve the chatter problem.
    Since then 2.5 million steel lined chrome plated rotary engines have
    been sold.  All others have failed.

    Henry Ford said : "Show me a pioneer in technology and
    I will show you candidate for bankruptcy" . Or words to that effect.
    I agree with Henry :-)

    If it were me I would copy Mazda with regard to the wear surface.

    Paul Lamar


    Nice Paul, good info on the apex seals.

    The chrome plating of the rotor housing is the same technique used for Chrome plated piston cylinders?

    David Mikesell

    Yes. I would think any chrome shop could do it. I think they reverse the current for a short
    while after it is done to get a bit of porosity on the chrome layer to enhance oil wetting.
    This would be far less expensive than any other kind of effective coating on aluminum.
    2.5 million rotary engines prove it works.

    I think they can mask off the surfaces that do not need to be chromed.

    My name for the all steel  new design is "Unsymmetrical Rotary" Copyright Paul Lamar 2016

    I will scale it up to Mazda size and determine the weight.
    I'll bet it is not much more than a stock Mazda rotor housing.
On Sat, Oct 29, 2016 at 12:23 PM, paul lamar <rotaryeng@earthlink.net <mailto:rotaryeng@earthlink.net>> wrote:

    I was right! The stock Mazda ( mostly aluminum) rotor housing weighs 6.5 pounds.
    The Unsymet all steel water cooled weighs 7 pounds. Plus or minus a few ounces.

    It is all that useless junk on the cold side of the Mazda rotor housings.

    The air cooled Mazda version would be about the same weight.

    The way to make the aluminum heat sink fins is gang slitting saws. This is the way
    P&W and CW did it in the old days on radial engine cylinders.

    The way to get rid of most of the material in the big block of steel is drill
    a trochoide pattern roughly in the center. Then band saw it out. That is the way
    the Wright brothers built their first crank shaft. They drilled a big block of steel
    then they sawed it to rough shape.

    Anybody for an air cooled one rotor Mazda size  rotary engine weighing
    70 pounds and  putting out 130 HP ?

    E-shaft and rotor the same Mazda parts.

    Of course :-)

    Paul Lamar


Build your own housing, maybe some ideas hear !

http://www.rx7club.com/old-school-other-rotary-63/tegheim-home-made-4-rotor-wolvo-project-892879/page32/

Steve Carlisle


Wow!! This guy is doing what we need to do. If you are a member see if you can get an
email for him. He might sell us steel rotor housings.

If it was not winter it is almost worth a trip over there :-)

Paul Lamar



    The Rotary Engine free News Letter. Powered by Linux. If you want off
    the list PLEASE let me know and I will remove  you.  ACRE NL web
    site. http://www.rotaryeng.net You Tube http://tinyurl.com/beqqxas
    Copyright 1998-2016 All world wide rights reserved.