Opposed Piston Engine - Conecpt Engine

[poita]

Well im not extremly mechanical myself, so half of htis means nothing to me.
For those of you who are, does this make sense?
Would it work well?

There is a few videos, goes for about 10 minutes all up

http://engineeringtv.com/blogs/etv/archive/2008/07/01/opposed-piston-opposed-cylinder-engine.aspx


An extremely lightweight opposed piston opposed cylinder (OPOC) engine has been developed under a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) program. FEV and Advanced Propulsion Technologies (APT) were asked by the U.S. Army Tank Automotive Research Development and Engineering Center (TARDEC) to modify this engine for heavy-truck applications. Analyzing the two stroke scavenging, the side-injection combustion, and the structure of the key components shows the potential of the OPOC concept. It is predicted for the 465 kW (650 hp) OPOC truck engine. The OPOC engine was designed to be modular. Each module is self-contained and delivers 325 hp. The modules are connected together via the Modular Displacement Clutch, which synchronizes the modules for achieving even firing when both modules are functioning. With an optimized scavenging process, the special design features of the OPOC engine offer a significant step towards the potential of the two-stroke engine having double the power density of a four-stroke engine. An estimated 90% scavenging efficiency has been achieved with unique gas exchange characteristics of the OPOC engine and the use of an electric assisted turbocharger. The OPOC engine runs with almost two times the engine speed (3800 rpm) along with a large cylinder stroke (167.53 mm), as a result of the split stroke of the opposed piston structure. This also improves the power density by another factor of 2.

[shoey85]

Well im not extremly mechanical myself, so half of htis means nothing to me.
For those of you who are, does this make sense?
Would it work well?

There is a few videos, goes for about 10 minutes all up

http://engineeringtv.com/blogs/etv/archive/2008/07/01/opposed-piston-opposed-cylinder-engine.aspx

sounds like a power house to me, 2 stroke meaning fire on the downward stroke and exhaust on the upward and being opposed this should almost be a form of forced induction and extraction in the one, that's sweet!

how ever 2 stroke motors traditionally use more fuel and are less reliable than 4 stroke motors.

but i like the idea.

[shoey85]

i just don't like how wide the motor will have to be it would make it virtually imposable to make it in to the family car unless it gets a major down size.

[poita]

but with the design does it have to be horizontal?
couldnt they move them to any angle, still using the central crank?

[shoey85]

but with the design does it have to be horizontal?
couldnt they move them to any angle, still using the central crank?

i think its about the balance, im not to sure :confused:

[Neeko]

but with the design does it have to be horizontal?
couldnt they move them to any angle, still using the central crank?

wouldnt be a horizontally opposed engine then :p

the write up sounds complicated

[gslrallysport]

but with the design does it have to be horizontal?
couldnt they move them to any angle, still using the central crank?
Yep, they certainly can, because the two opposing conrods per cylinder means even as a 1cyl variant the thing is perfectly balanced. That's why he goes on to say they can use a very light magnesium crank.

It's probably horizontal at the moment for the specific military application. I like it as a diesel, but as a petrol I think it will be complication for complications sake... Petrol doesn't really suffer the same piston speed issues that diesels do, which is this engine's biggest advantage.