Developmental feasibility for a ceramic wankel rotary combustion chamber using computer aided analysis

The goal to achieve higher fuel-efficient internal combustion engines is a common goal for engine manufacturers. Current engines reject approximately 20 percent of the fuels energy to the engine cooling system. The waste energy is rejected to the atmosphere, in order to maintain the proper operating temperatures of the engine components. Controlling the energy loss by providing material that can operate a higher temperature can be one solution to minimize energy loss. Ceramics allow higher operating temperatures than current alloys that are common in mass production engines. Using ceramics as part of the combustion chamber can lower the energy loss. An engine with ceramic inserts to control temperature and alloys to provide the load bearing structure where testing using computer aided thermal simulations. Using SolidWork's Thermal Simulations, a rotary engine was analyzed for heat losses, using inputs from field-collected data and data available from literature reviews. Results showed that the ceramic inserts provided a higher resistance to heat flow to the coolant systems, thus allowing more energy available in the combustion chamber.