5 CYLINDER RADIAL ENGINE
Description
The radial engine made its first appearance in 1901 when Charles Matthews Manly produced a 5-cylinder water cooled variant. While more efficient engine designs have greatly reduced the need for radial engines in today’s world, they played a large role in the advancement of aircraft in the early to mid-1900’s as they offered large power outputs while retaining relatively small profiles. An example being the Pratt & Whitney R-1830 Twin Wasp radial found on the DC-3 with its 14 cylinders in two row formation. As a reciprocating combustion engine, a radial engine obtains its difference with all combustion cylinders radiating from a central crankcase in coplanar fashion. In order to keep an ‘every-other-piston’ firing order, all 4-stroke radials must have an odd number off cylinders. For 2-stokes, an adequate firing order can be obtained on both even and odd cylinder set-ups. While the pistons in a radial transfer linear motion into rotational motion at the crankshaft, this design takes a rotational input produced by the crank handle allowing for the combustion mechanism to cycle visually.
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