How a Radial Engine Works - Explained with a cool model

[torqueman2002]

I'll put this here, because it was made in this guy's garage.

I was bouncing around YouTube looking for interesting videos, when this caught my attention.

Each video is between 9 and 10 min.

He does a good job of explaining the operation of a radial engine. Good enough an ol' dummy like me finally understands.

Part 1
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[torqueman2002]

Part 2 of 2
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[bobmulry]

Hi all,

In the Navy (1962) I was an aircrew member on P2V Neptune’s which had 2 jets and 2 radial engines.

I was an Aviation Machinist Mate and responsible for power plants.

The jets were 2 J-34's and ran on 115/145 aviation gas and the 2 radial Wright R-3350's had 18 cylinder (twin rows of 9) engines which I think made about 3800 HP.

They had 3350 cubic inches, supercharged with a system known as PRT's (Power Recovery Turbines) powered by the exhaust of 6 cylinders grouped together into 3 PRT's and the power went into a gearbox and then was coupled directly into the crankshaft. Each PRT added 150 HP for a total of 450 HP.

Very interesting engineering.

Bob


Bob

 

[Rocky98Formula]

Thanks for posting. Best 20 minutes of my work day.

 

[alwaysFlOoReD]

^^^Agreed.
Thanks.

 

[ford33]

I was at the Experimental Aircraft Association airshow at Oshkosh, WI, this year and they had a few classes on radial engine maintenance. One vendor booth had a rotating cut-away of a radial engine. I spent about 15 minutes watching the cut-away turning before I understood how this engine works. It's wonderful piece of machinery.

 

[AMCguy]

That guy went to an awful amount of trouble to explain all of that.

Although I have a pretty good understanding of most engine designs, I was particularly impressed with his woodworking and his communication skills.

 

[willymakeit]

Slick with great work.

 

[bottom feeder]

Thanks for posting this. I agree that the fellow's woodworking skills are pretty impressive.

While we're on the topic of radial engines, here's a link to a rather old web page that I've had bookmarked in my browser for a long time that sells plans to make running scale model radial aircraft engines. Running as in ACTUALLY running: http://www.agelessengines.com/

Here's a photo of a 14 cylinder model that you can make:

There's some great videos on the site, but as I mentioned it is an old web page and you have to download them to your computer to view them.

Be sure to check out his sleeve valve engine:

 

[designr]

Nicely done! serious wood working skills and good delivery. THANKS for sharing.

 

[Krokodil]

Thanks for sharing!

 

[Lee Celtic]

awesome...

 

[raddksn]

very cool!!! thank you!!!

 

[c4cruiser]

Once you understand how a radial engine works, you can go on to do this:

The truck is a '39 Plymouth and the engine is a 757 cu. in. Jacobs radial. This truck is the cover car on the October 2016 issue of Hot Rod Magazine There's a good article in there about the truck and the build with more pics of the truck and the interior.

 

[csp]

I know that truck! A friend did a photo shoot of it at our airplane hangars a few weeks ago. It smokes so much that we had to call the tower and warn them ahead of time not to call the fire trucks out. Leno had them as a guest on his show recently. Jay should watch the Youtube videos as he was asking if the engine was smooth and balanced since it has seven cylinders.

These were taken Memorial Day at another small airport's car show.

 

[torqueman2002]

Once you understand how a radial engine works, you can go on to do this:

The truck is a '39 Plymouth and the engine is a 757 cu. in. Jacobs radial. This truck is the cover car on the October 2016 issue of Hot Rod Magazine There's a good article in there about the truck and the build with more pics of the truck and the interior.

I know that truck! A friend did a photo shoot of it at our airplane hangars a few weeks ago. It smokes so much that we had to call the tower and warn them ahead of time not to call the fire trucks out. Leno had them as a guest on his show recently. Jay should watch the Youtube videos as he was asking if the engine was smooth and balanced since it has seven cylinders.

These were taken Memorial Day at another small airport's car show.

Thanks for the feedback.

More on this Truckplane.
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[C_F]

Love the truck, especially the body mods & interior theme.

Thanks for posting. Best 20 minutes of my work day.

Me too, that was great!

 

[Finky198]

That is COOL... hell of a woodworker as well

 

[Short Round]

More than a woodworker. He's a certified wood machinist. Very nice work.

 

[torqueman2002]

Unusual engine design animations.

http://imgur.com/gallery/bxzeN

 

[Chevy-SS]

Once you understand how a radial engine works, you can go on to do this:

The truck is a '39 Plymouth and the engine is a 757 cu. in. Jacobs radial. This truck is the cover car on the October 2016 issue of Hot Rod Magazine There's a good article in there about the truck and the build with more pics of the truck and the interior.

First off, the videos from the woodworking guy were terrific. He helped me understand a lot more about radial engines.

RE: the truck - it's VERY cool, but the owner admitted that it is basically not driveable. It overheats almost immediately. He said this on the Jay Leno episode. I'm kinda surprised he would spend so much time, energy and money on something that can't be driven. Oh well......

-

 

[tfinniii]

Always wondered how oil was controlled in bottom cylinders.

 

[WVBrady]

A somewhat similar design was the rotary engine, in which the crankshaft was stationary and the block rotated, along with the attached cylinders. This sounds like a joke, but it was used in the WWI fighter, the Sopwith Camel. As you can imagine, the large rotating mass with the associated gyroscopic effect caused some tricky handling.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sopwith_Camel

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotary_engine