I can't get past this idea. Ceramics are haunting me. I know that a
 coating could come off. For much greater combustion heat what if we
 do a ceramic housing or better yet a ceramic housing and rotors as
 well? Using a high heat alloy for the combustion chamber on the
 ceramic rotor.  They have run all ceramic piston v6 motors with no
 cooling system. I went to search for the V6 for reference and I found
 this! Good things are coming as necessity is the Mother of invention.
 http://ceramicrotaryengines.com <http://ceramicrotaryengines.com

 Diesel fuel with its 20% higher energy content per equal mass to
 Gasoline could go a lot further with a given amount of fuel. I was
 thinking E-Charger for starting but stratified charge converting to
 compression ignition once the Turbos spooled up would be perfect.
 Small ceramic rotary ultralight motor? https://youtu.be/YnfFEf7wyww
 Here is the V6 I was thinking about. https://youtu.be/sAk5tc_gpmo

 GE is making huge strides in Ceramics https://youtu.be/is1BBilkyUM
 I'm more convinced than ever now.

 Kurt Emerson

 The idea of ceramic rotors has been around for years. As I recall a
 British company made and tested a ceramic rotor. I searched my files
 but I could not find it. Apparently the results were disappointing.
 If it had worked it would have been available by now.


 The total cooling losses are only 25% of all the losses. The exhaust
 is about 50%. So turbo compound has the best chance of making a big
 difference. I think the company that did that ceramic rotors are
 gone.

 I have no doubt they would be strong enough as silicon nitride apex
 seals are wonderful. The F1 guys use all ceramic ball bearings as
 does the turbo charger in the TTC.

 SAE  860616 paper is on the subject but I am not going to buy it. If
 some one has it perhaps they can scan it for us.

 Paul Lamar



 Kurt, Thank you for your missive on ceramics, I also curse you for it
 as I stayed up ALL NIGHT following the links, it fair did my head in
 to be sure but what an eye opener ! it is only when one reads
 knowledge like this that one realizes what little one actually knows,
 I salute you. It reminds me of when Paul stayed here, the man NEVER
 SLEPT ! until I joined this news letter I thought that rotaries just
 went round and round instead of up and down, how wrong I was !

 Chris Hoskins



 Chris, It was my pleasure, I did exactly the same. I was just
 thinking about it and the info was there. The technology is still in
 it's infancy but it is sure to change everything. Has been extremely
 difficult to machine and or work with. I have some friends that work
 at GE turbine. They machine using dry high speed ceramic cutting
 tools. Says the metal from the parts like inconel streams off in a
 red hot ribbon. GE is laying the groundwork, I bet it happens within
 5 years. Imagine no cooling system weight and complete combustion.


 For now I'm dreaming of a 70% scale carbon fiber CL-84 Dynavert with
 twin quad rotor turbo compounded 26Bs. The best design to date,
 better than the difficult to fly and deadly Osprey. In my opinion
 anyway. http://www.aviastar.org/helicopters_eng/canadair_dynavert.php
 <http://www.aviastar.org/helicopters_eng/canadair_dynavert.php
 https://youtu.be/iCd2FqTJKs0 https://youtu.be/tzsAuSyEOl0
 https://youtu.be/dKcmjuoPQfs Really cool vtol/stol mix including
 CL-84 and vertical take off design like Paul's.
 https://youtu.be/tzsAuSyEOl0 Best Regards, Kurt Emerson

 I would hardly say the Osprey is difficult to fly or deadly.  It has
 a fly by wire control system which is probably universally now used
 in expensive aircraft. The F16 is inherently unstable with out it.
 One must avoid the ring vortex state but all helicopters have that
 problem more or less.  Yes they had some fatal crashes in the Osprey
 development period when the ring vortex state was not fully
 understood. Now the Marines love them.

 The idea of making an adiabatic internal combustion engine has been
 around for years. Several have been built regardless of the
 difficulty or ease of fabricating the parts. No positive BSFC results
 have been reported so far. BSFC is so critical to the function of an
 internal combustion engine if it had worked the ceramic parts would
 have now  been common.

 Some claims for ceramic coatings on piston tops have been mentioned
 but I don't thing that is common on production pistons either. The
 risk factor is high because  if it comes off the engine is toast.

 AIXRO does not recommend ceramic rotor bearings for that reason. In
 addition there is the initial increased cost of the ceramic bearing
 itself.

 Ceramic turbines in turbo charger have also been successfully tried.
 However they do not dominate turbo charger turbine material. Inconel
 is still preferred.

 As far as turbines in turbo jets or turbo fans I have no idea if
 ceramic version are widely used or not. Cost of course is less of an
 issue.

 Paul Lamar


 Definitely the KOOL factor, but horribly complex mechanically, and to
 operate !

 Steve Carlisle


Steve are you talking about the CL-84 or the Osprey? The articles on the CL-84 say it flew just like a plane. The control box was a piece of genius. I'm sure it could be duplicated and mimicked using fly by wire.

Kurt Emerson

 It was a 2 engine copy of the  LTV XC-142
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LTV_XC-142

Or the   Vertol VZ-2 (Model 76)

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Vertol_VZ-2_%28Model_76%29_NASA_GPN-2000-001732.jpg

The problem was they had too high of a disk loading for taking off
vertically with a low payload to power ratio.

They solved that  problem in the Osprey. The Osprey solved that problem
 with much larger diameter rotors.

Paul Lamar

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