CrisPDuk

Anyone know how a radial aero engine works? As fitted to most US & Japanese, & some German WW2 aircraft. Specifically how do you connect nine radially arranged cylinders, on a common centre to one crank?

Lust4Life

Here you go

http://travel.howstuffworks.com/radial-engine.htm

Phil

^Qwerty^

If you don't run one for a while, then try start it, I gather it can get very very expensive to fix the damage that follows....

Something to do with oil collecting in the bottom cylinder(s) and creating a hydrolic(sp?) lock

CrisPDuk

Once again I find the information available via this board to be staggering! Cheers Phil

ajm

yeah, hydraulic lock is a is a classic problem in these quirky engines. The correct procedure is to turn the engine by hand first to see if there is any unusual resistance to starting. Also to look for any oil coming out the exhausts whilst doing so. If oil is found to have seeped past the piston rings into the bore then it has to be drained by removing the park plugs. Some engines had dedicated drain plugs for this task.

Another interesting fact with radial engines is that there are always an odd number of cylinders. This is because the firing sequence "is fire one, skip one". In a normal 9 cylinder radial the sequence would be 1,3,5,7,9,2,4,6,8 then back to 1 again. Even number radial engines e.g. 18 cylinder are actually 2 x 9 cylinder banks 180 degrees opposed.

J4CKO

iTrader: (1)

Yeah its one of those things that you know you have seem a diagram in the past but for the life of you cant remeber how it worked, like auto gearboxes !