Spain is Living in 2050? Revolutionary 1 Stroke INNengine Analyzed
5,820,408
Published 2023-07-09
Balance: • Deep Dive: Inline 4 vs. V4 vs. Boxer ...
Today I’d like to introduce you to a very special engine. It claims to be a 1 stroke engine. It has no crankshaft and no cylinder head and it squeezes out 120hp naturally aspirated from only 500cc of displacement and weighs only 35 kilograms. It’s called INNengine and it comes from the beautiful city of Granada in Spain. The engine has already been manufactured and it was even installed and tested in a Mazda mx-5. Today we will take an in-depth look at this engine, we will explain how it works and we will discuss its potential, its benefits and drawbacks and we will see what makes sense and what doesn’t.
First up, let’s see how this thing works and what makes it a 1 stroke engine. To understand that we must learn about the anatomy of this little thing. As you can see we have a total of 8 pistons in an opposed piston arrangement. Instead of a crankshaft we have this complex shaped wavy thing and the pistons ride on rollers along the wavy surface. As the combustion force pushes down the piston the piston pushes down on the wavy thing, as the piston goes down the slope it also forces the wavy thing to rotate. There are two wavy things connected to each other via a common shaft. All 8 pistons act on the wavy things and the forces generated by all 8 pistons are transferred through the shaft resulting in a single torque output at both ends of the shaft. So in theory you could connect a drivetrain at both ends. For example one of these at the center with an axle at both ends could create a simple, well balanced and very lightweight four-wheel drive vehicle.
We can connect a drive-train on both ends of this engine because this engine does not have a cylinder head and it doesn’t have camshafts or valves. So it does not need to use one end of the engine to drive the cams via an easily accessible and serviceable cam chain or cam belt. How does it work without cams or valves then? Well instead of valves we have intake and exhaust ports which are opened and closed by the piston, just like in a typical 2 stroke engine. At the middle between the two pistons we have an injector and a spark plug which ignites the air fuel mixture.
As the combustion pressure builds it pushes on the piston sending them outward. As the pistons move they uncover the intake and exhaust ports. 4 pistons on one side of the engine deal with intake and 4 pistons on the other side of the engine deal with exhaust. So how do we prevent exhaust gasses from escaping out through the intake and messing everything up? Well, we do that just like we do it in a traditional engine, by relying on scavenging which occurs when both the intake and exhaust valves are open at the same time.
The exhaust port of the INNengine likely gets uncovered first which allows the pressurized gasses to start escaping out from the combustion area. Since they are pressurized they escape rapidly and leave a void or vacuum behind them. This vacuum is at a lower pressure than the intake charge outside the chamber which is at atmospheric pressure, which means that the intake charge rushes into the combustion area and fills it with fresh air. The upward sloped part of the wavy thing then pushes the pistons back up and so they close the intake and exhaust ports and now start compressing the air. The injectors add fuel and we now have a compressed air fuel mixture in the combustion area and the process starts once again. The spark plug fires, combustion occurs, pressure builds, the pistons are forced down, they rotate the wavy thing and torque is generated.
So what we have here is a very simple engine without cams or valves but with direct injection, but also without all the deposits that accumulate on the intake valves, because we have no valves. So we have the benefits of direct injection without the drawbacks.
Bur this is clearly not a 1 stroke engine. Here we have the combustion stroke which overlaps with the exhaust stroke, followed by the intake stroke which then overlaps with the compression stroke. This is a 2 stroke engine, a direct injection two stroke without the emissions problems because the oil is under the piston and never burned, which I personally find more impressive than the 1 stroke gimmick. The other thing is the opposed piston design and this is an advantage because opposed pistons designs are more efficient than a non-opposed design. In a non-opposed design some of the energy of combustion is simply wasted on heating up the combustion chamber above the piston. The combustion chamber doesn’t go anywhere and it just absorbs the energy as heat. But in an opposed design we have a piston instead of a combustion chamber which means that more combustion energy gets to be transferred and converted into useful torque leading to improved efficiency.
A special thank you to my patrons:
Daniel
Pepe
Brian Alvarez
Peter Della Flora
Dave Westwood
Joe C
Zwoa Meda Beda
Toma Marini
Cole Philips
#d4a #innengine
All Comments (21)
-
100 cars that changed the world: amzn.to/3DGXDf6 Stem engine model: amzn.to/3Y5iZLv 1-2-3 count with Car parts: amzn.to/3jxP7Z6 Patreon: www.patreon.com/d4a Motivation: www.youtube.com/channel/UCt3YSIPcvJsYbwGCDLNiIKA
-
I was trying to think of ways that could build this engine into an actual torque monster. Thinking "hey, just take the pistons and rotate them 90 degrees, 360 degree placement around a central crankshaft! That will build TONS of low torque!" And then I realized I just discovered a radial engine lol
-
so basically this engine is an AC compressor
-
I love this guy I am hearing impaired and hespeaks slowly, delibertly, with perfect diction.
-
I absolutely love your, " that's really great but wait just a minute buddy" attitude towards design claims and the like. A very humble but well educated and honest matter of fact approach and comment. Nice video as usual.
-
Actual one stroke engine, mass manufactured and used widely in it’s era: the double-acting steam engine. Each stroke of the piston is a power stroke.
-
Thank you for pointing out the error of thinking "if it hasn't been done before it's because it can't be done". One of my perpetual pet peeves. There are cases in history where it definitely looks like something wasn't done earlier (sometimes for centuries) simply because no one thought of it. More precisely, no one thought of it who was in a position to do anything about it.
-
I have enjoyed the video as always and as a mechanic/machinist/amateur designer, you never cease to amaze me with what you dig up and how you are able to explain it in Lehman terms so everyone is able to understand it .
-
It's not just that conventional engines have so much research and refinement behind them, but they have inertia. Manufacturing capacity already exists, engineers already know how to design/adapt them, mechanics know how to fix them, etc... You have to make a significantly better product than an existing well established product. Being as good or a little better just isn't worth trading off all that established infrastructure
-
Looks like a perfect generator unit for a hybrid electric vehicle. Electric motor will compensate for lack of torque.
-
I immediately recognised this as an Axial engine and similar to a swashplate engine. These are normally always inspired by what others will recognise as AC/Refrigerative compressors and Hydraulic/Hydrostatic pumps and motors.
-
Thank you! Well done. Also, the comments section contributors are very helpful….”swash plate” is something I can now never forget😊
-
Manufacturers and inventors ought to have this man evaluate their product and marketing. Great and informative video. Thank you.
-
the rollers at the bottom of the piston will cause reliability issues. I see wear marks on camshafts all the time, but fluid bearings basically live forever if they have oil pressure.
-
Now that's what I call a very informative video. A man who is capable of taking complex ideas, processing them, and then translating them into fully digestible pieces of information. I am very impressed with his gift and thank him for sharing it with us.
-
I have worked on direct injected 2 stroke engines for over 30 years. A major issue is at light loads you MUST have sufficient air flow to scavenge the exhaust gasses out of the cylinder otherwise on the next cycle there will be an excess of exhaust gas in the cylinder causing typical 2 stroke combustion instability and misfires. With the increased air flow to scavenge the cylinder then there is too much air for the amount of fuel you wish to inject The only answer to this is to run a highly stratified mixture. You need a very carefully designed combustion chamber shape and injector spray characteristics to achieve this. A homogeneous mixture will not work at light loads. Air fuel ratios around 30:1 are needed to achieve this at idle conditions. A homogeneous mixture at 30:1 will not ignite from a spark. This same combustion chamber design and injection system then also needs to work at high loads. Next problem, when running at light loads and high air fuel ratios the NOx part of a conventional catalyst does not work although lean NOx catalysts are being developed. I have tested hundreds of combustion chamber shapes with a variety of injector spray shape characteristics and have never found a set up that works with a radially mounted injector. The only set up that works over the full speed/load range of the engine is with an axially mounted injector near the centre of the combustion chamber and a small bowl in the piston directly below the injector. Good luck doing that with this engine design. Roy B.
-
Love your videos and passion and the fact you seek to explain even the most technical details in a none baffling way
-
You once again break down it down to its simplest parts and call it what it is, a 2 stroke engine. I see this as being a great hybrid engine. Small, light weight and can run at a set RPM and get great fuel efficiency. Keep up the great work, and may God bless you brother.
-
I think what would have been cool to mention is how the swash plate offsetting not only varies the compression but also the timing of the exhaust and intake ports.
-
Love your explanation and honest humble opinion. We need more people like you on the internet! Thank you
