Dyna-Cam Engines

Well I had to write a paper about Dyna-Cam engines for my Ag. Mechanics class and I thought I would share with the forum....yall are tech junkies and will probably appreciate it.

Dyna-Cam motors have an axial mounted plate which acts as the cam. The cam is sinusoidal in shape (so it has ridges and valleys). The pistons (usually 1 facing each direction) ride on the axial cam.
The motors are very small and super lightweight when compared to "normal" motors and due to their variable compression ratio they can run any types of fuel from palm oil to JP5.
Since you have 2, 3, 6, etc pistons the engine creates the power of a 4, 6, 8, 12 etc cylinder motor. Below are a few pics....

Here is an example of a 4cyl swash plate motor (w/out the sinusoidal cam but it operates on the same principles)
Usually there would be 4 more pistons pointing to the left as well which would produce the power of an 8 cylinder motor.



A few pics where you can see the sinusoidal cam and some of the pistons:

Russian aircraft motor (cutaway)


Cutway where you can see the 2X sided pistons as well as the axial cam:

Hmm, interesting concept. My first reaction is that it might be another way of doing something, but overly complicated vs. the benefits? Maybe not. I don't know enough about it. They claim a rotary engine's benefit to be smaller size, and I could possibly see this here. It just reeks of "over engineering" like when the germans came up with perimeter? brakes, (where the entire wheel was like a brake with brake shoes that clamped on it. I think Buell used some of that on their bikes. Kind of one of those things, you can do it but is the extra complexity worth it? Kind of like the Bugatti Veyron. I believe that usually the most simple engineering soution is usualy the best. But I could see some benefit to this motor if it was small and compact, and yes the variable compression ratio def has benefits.

Ben there are a lot more benefits that just those, here a few more. (btw the design was 1st developed in 1911....a GREAT year for patents)

-Is lighter and smaller than conventional engines
-Incorporates approximately 80% fewer parts (300 parts)
-Has a high power-to-weight ratio
-Is less costly to produce
-Is considerably cleaner with fewer emissions
-Is capable of using multiple fuel types, including diesel, JP5 and JP8 fuels, kerosene, bio-diesels, ethanol, and other blends of these fuels, with a special conversion kit available for the combustion of natural gas or propane

A link to the major company who is developing these motors: http://www.axialvectorengine.com/index.html



also here a few examples that are on use today
toyota compressors (for use on vehicles around the world)
Mk48 Torpedo

I can def see this as a good design for torpedo motors with the compactness.

Ben wrote:

I can def see this as a good design for torpedo motors with the compactness.

heck yea compactness!!!!!