GB1025993A - Rotary piston internal combustion engines - Google Patents

Abstract

1,025,993. Rotary-piston I.C. engines. A. C. CONSTANTINE. March 12, 1964 [Dec. 15, 1962], No. 47414/62. Heading F1F. In a rotary-piston I.C. engine comprising a pair of cylindrical pistons 22, 26 (Fig. 1, not shown) which are rotatable in a planetary manner within chambers 19, 20 respectively, fuel-air mixture is forced by piston 26 into a combustion chamber 58 wherein it is ignited by a spark-plug 67 (Fig. 5, not shown) and the products of combustion are expanded in chamber 19 to drive piston 22. The pistons are fixed to a sleeve 28 which is rotatably mounted on an eccentric 29 attached to a power-output shaft 30, the planetary motion of the pistons being controlled by a gear 36 fixed to the sleeve and meshing with an internal-gear 34 attached to intermediate walls 11, 12 of the engine casing. Outwardly-sliding radial vanes 38, 51 are lodged in the peripheral wall 14 of chamber 19 to define working spaces communicating with an exhaust port 56 and chamber 58 through a port 54. Within an idle space which is vented to the ambient atmosphere through a port 57 the piston does not make contact with the wall 14, whereas the remainder of wall 14 is slidably. engaged by the piston. Sealing strips 75, 76 are mounted in wall 14 to seal the periphery of piston 22, similar strips being provided in the peripheral wall 15 of chamber 20. Chamber 58 is defined by a tube 59 lodged in a block 60 and rotatably driven by shaft 30 through chain- and-sprocket gearing (Fig. 3, not shown), the ends of the tube being closed by plugs or discs 65, 66. Openings 63, 64 in the tube come periodically into register with ports 53, 54 respectively, in walls 14, 15 when the tube rotates. Alternatively, the tube may be replaced by two axially-slidable plugs or pistons (not shown) housed in block 60, the plugs being spaced apart to define a combustion chamber and coupled to one another by external tie rods driven by shaft 30 through a swash-plate mechanism and linkage system. Ports 53, 54 are periodically opened and closed by the plugs when they are oscillated axially. Two engines may be arranged with a common poweroutput shaft and have their pistons in antiphase relative to one another.