Atkinson Cycle Engine

Ken_8

This morning's WSJ had a Ford ad link I just followed for their new hybrid engined "Escape."

Being a hot rod and motor enthusiast since high school age, I wanted to see Ford's means of doing what Toyota and others have already been selling for some time now. The car was actually a small SUV Ford has ventured into the hybrid design with and had yet another link to the Atkinson Cycle engine. The link has a wonderful rendition of how the engine gets through all four strokes in one main-crankshaft rotation. What really blew my mind is the date of invention and design!

Check it out: www.keveney.com/Atkinson.html

Especially interesting was the ability of the compression and exhaust stroke piston rod distance to be varied by virtue of the linkage that allows changing of these two of the four strokes typically seen in 4-stroke engines.

The possibilities and impact of this arrangement sort of grabbed me as simplicity of the first order - with results that are far greater than the design would seem to allow.

And here I thought the Otto design was the only way to do an internal combustion engine.

100+ year old technology driving a car in 2004. What's next?

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David_5

Engines

Alot of these things were imagined 100 years ago but could not be manufactured at the time. Now technology is catching up.

David

kevin_5

Build one yourself!

I have castings for a model Atkinson cycle engine. Web search Dave Gingery (www.lindsaybks.com)and you'll find a lot of technical reprint books that include plans to build these and other wierd things. The Atkinson has a lot of monkey motion going on in the video they show there. The story I got was that Mr. Otto had all the patents tied up for the 4 stroke engine, therefore Mr. Atkinson had to take the long way around. I'm not sure why it would give any advantages to make them that way today. Maybe there are some though. Really though guys, anyone interested in old technology of any or every kind would be interested in Lindsay publications. The guy is a little crass, but he has some really neat stuff. Kevin

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