The conventional crankshaft piston engines dominate in the automotive industry. Automotive development centers seek for innovations in the engine efficiency, ecology, fuel and air supply, control or economics but the research area mostly refers to conventional constructions. The authors propose to come back to old and forgotten constructions called barrel engines which originate from the period between First and Second World Wars. The design and properties of barrel engines differ a lot from conventional crankshaft engines. The most characteristic feature of barrel engines is that the cylinder axis is parallel to drive shaft axis and due to multiple cylinders they have axial symmetry. Although there are not many historical applications and production experience of barrel engines, the authors believe they may offer a few really significant advantages to contemporary automotive business. The paper presents unique classification of barrel engines specific mechanisms to convert reciprocating motion of the piston to the rotary motion of the crank shaft. The examples of historical applications of each group of mechanisms are given with comments to their mode of action.
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Barrel engines are characterized by unconventional construction feature: cylinder axes are parallel to drive shaft axis. The rotation of the central power shaft is created from the reciprocating motion of the pistons with the use of different types of mechanisms, including wobble plate, swash plate or cam disc. Due to complex internal motion their kinematics and dynamics is completely different than that of crankshaft engine. Barrel engines are expected to have a potential to compete with currently used power units, especially in aircraft applications. The paper reviews and compares all classified types of barrel engines with conventional crankshaft engine in terms of kinematics: mechanical losses and mechanicals efficiency. Advanced computations were made for each mechanism to derive formulas describing 3 dimensional movements of barrel engines' parts. Comparison of mechanisms parameters was made with the use of MatLab software. The paper gives a brief idea of barrel engines classification and design. Computations methodology for mathematical description of all mechanisms' kinematics is presented as well as the results of mechanical losses and efficiency comparison. Wobble plate mechanism blocked by gear has been identified as the most promising for further analysis and research.
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