Design of the Compression Chamber and Optimization of the Sealing of a Novel Rotary Internal Combustion Engine using CFD

The increasing demand for lower fuel consumption and pollutant emissions favours the development of novel engine configurations. In line with this demand, the present contribution aims to investigate the sealing performance of a new concept rotary split-engine with a very promising thermal efficiency, a very low NOx emissions' level, and a much higher power density than any conventional internal combustion engine can. It uses the Atkinson cycle, a low-temperature combustion process and when it uses two pistons, symmetrically positioned around its shaft, it gives one power stroke every 180 degrees. The main focus of this work is to provide all the steps followed so far in order to ensure an efficient sealing and operation of the compression process of this engine, including the 1D & CFD simulations, CAD design & optimisation, and experimental campaign for verifying the digital results. The so-far investigation and experiments conclude that this new rotary engine can work with no oil lubrication inside the compression chamber and with much lower mechanical losses compared to the existing reciprocating engines.