Part two of the Quest for Power series breaks down rotary and radial engines, why circular layouts solved cooling and reliability, and why they also came with nasty tradeoffs. From WWI rotaries to ...

Everyone generally knows about piston and rotary engines, with many a flamewar having been waged over the pros and cons of each design. The “correct” answer is thus to combine both ...

Rotary engines (also known as Wankel engines and Wankel rotary engines) are quite different from piston or "reciprocating" engines. One of the distinguishing features is that they don't need valves to ...

In a world dominated by pistons, the rotary engine was something different for motorists. It was the vision of German engineer Felix Wankel, built on the belief that the up-and-down motion of pistons ...

A Wankel engine is a type of rotary engine, but not all rotary engines are Wankel engines. Wrapping your mind around this idea will help you to better understand the similarities as well as the ...

For a time, the Wankel rotary engine seemed like the future. In 1963, German automaker NSU—later absorbed into Audi—debuted the Wankel Spider, the first internal-combustion production car not powered ...

WASHINGTON – LiquidPiston, supported by Army innovation programs, is poised to transform the U.S. Army’s capabilities as the company delivers compact, heavy-fuel-capable rotary engines and hybrid ...