What happened to the rotary engine?

Question

Unless I'm wrong, there was a time these engines were expected to replace the piston engine. Their advantages over piston engines were even listed.

Answer 1

Mazda owns it.

Answer 2

The Wankel or rotary engine did have some advantages over the piston engine in that it converted the energy of burning gas into rotary motion with less friction loss than a piston engine. It had several problems to over come however. The bearing in the Wankel engine that was the equivalent to rings in a piston engine, the things that held pressure in the combustion chamber were longer, with several dead ends and as such were prone to leak. And the wangles internal gearing was more complicated and prone to wear. In a piston engine the moving parts are all round--the main bearings, the connecting rod bearings and the wrist pin bearings. Where the Wankel's load bearing surface was a gear. It would appear that the Wankel's weakness over whelm its strength and as such will probably not over come the piston driven motor. I believe that Mazda still offers the rotary engine.

Answer 3

Rotary engines or Wankel engines proved their ability to give higher compression ratio therefore improve the engines efficiency due to the small clearances between the rotor touching point and stator and also due to lesser moving parts compared to reciprocating engines that requires a lot of energy, but it also proved its failure in maintaining the pressure inside the combustion chamber due to wearing edges, caused by continous friction of the rotor on the engine's inside layer of the stator's body. In my opinion depending on a rotating bearing is a high risk because if this bearing breaks or anything goes wrong your engine is dead!!

Answer 4

These engines proved to be unstable at varying temperatures, when they heated they lost compression.
There is still a lot of research going in attempt to improve these engines, so some day we might See the return of the rotary (Wankel) engine.

Answer 5

. The only type of rotary engine currently considered to be of practical value is the Wankel engine (see internal-combustion engine). Although the gas turbine produces rotary motion directly, it is not generally considered a rotary engine because it functions differently

Answer 6

Anyone here that says they have gone, doesn't know too much about the Engine. they are still used widely and are actually more efficient than cylinder engines. Telling me an RX8 has no compression or performance?

Answer 7

They have a problem with the seals on the edges of the rotors. They did not last long enough, ie required frequent maintenance. Work has been done on better seals. They may come back someday.

Answer 8

It was forced out of the market by the big boys like Ford and GM

Answer 9

Nothing they use them in the Mazda RX8, the problem was they had trouble making them meet emissions standards, and also they don't make alot of torque.

Answer 10

they ended up being crap and were discontinued. google a "wankel" engine and see what pops up.