NO, RoundEngine is not the Wankel, an engine design developed by Felix Wankel in the 1950’s and first commercialized in the 1960’s. Similar to the RoundEngine, the Wankel has numerous benefits including low parts count (no or few valves, no camshaft, no connecting rods, and no crankshaft). Both engines are also compact and have a good power to weight ratio.

However, on other fronts, the Wankel and the RoundEngine are distinctly different. Two examples are as follows:

• The Wankel cylinder is elliptical while the RoundEngine cylinder is perfectly round. The result is that RoundEngine pistons follow a circular path while the very differently shaped rotor (the equivalent of a piston in the Wankel) follows an elliptical path.

• The two engines have materially different effective torque arms. The maximum effective torque arm of the Wankel is the distance from the drive shaft to the inner circle of the rotor (identified by green circle above). This distance is relatively short and thus the effective torque arm of the Wankel is reasonably short, even at its maximum. Moreover, since the pressure distribution and resulting force line of action changes throughout a revolution, the effective torque arm during the Wankel’s power stroke continually varies, similar to a reciprocating piston engine. By comparison, the effective torque arm of the RoundEngine during the power stroke is always constant.

RoundEngine is modern, POWERFUL, economic and low-emission technology.