Ww1 rotary, ROTARY construction?

[Bozothenutter]

General question, if there are specifics please do share!

Am I right in assuming the cylinders were cast iron/steel?

Or aluminium with a steel sleeve?

Heads and crankcase in aluminium?

Edited January 19, 2023 by Bozothenutter
Have neen shown the error of my ways

[Paul Thompson]

Hardly any radials used in WW1, except towards the end. Mostly rotaries and inlines. Early rotaries used steel for the cylinders, Bentleys used aluminium with iron linings (according to the Vintage Aviator).  For modelling purposes, any aluminium colour is a good starting point, for the whole thing, then a wash of something dark and nasty  to make the cylinders look oil and heat stained. Induction pipes could be copper, black, or steel colour. No exhaust pipes on rotaries.

 

Paul.

[Paul Thompson]

Here, I know it's from Wiki but a quick check and it seems to cover the salient points accurately:

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotary_engine

 

Some early Caudron G types in RFC service used radials BTW, including the example in the RAF Museum at Hendon, but in general they were mostly very unreliable even by the end of the war, delaying the introduction of a few promising types that were designed to use them.

 

Paul.

[Jure Miljevic]

Hello,

as Paul said. There were probably others, but at the moment the only radials I can think of were Salmsons for their 2A2 two-seaters. These were water-cooled engines, as with airspeeds of that period airflow alone could not cool radial engines, hence the rotaries.

Several photos of Salmson 9Z can be found here:

https://forum.ww1aircraftmodels.com/index.php?topic=2183.0

Cheers

Jure

[Paul Thompson]

I feel guilty now, having totally forgot the Salmsons.

 

Paul.

[europapete]

Oh, Paul, how could you! 

[Paul Thompson]

1 minute ago, europapete said:

Oh, Paul, how could you! 

Years of practise.

 

Paul.

[Bozothenutter]

Oops, meant rotaries, not radials......will take two spoons of castor oil as punishment.

[Torbjorn]

The Salmson/Canton-Unne was used in other machines as well, e.g. the Farman HF30 which the Russians used in sizeable numbers during the entire course of the war.

 

Beside Salmson there were also radial Anzani engines, used by Caudron in their G.3 and G.4.

 

 

Edited January 19, 2023 by Torbjorn

[Bozothenutter]

Oh no.....I've derailed my own thread! 😭

[Black Knight]

well, back on topic; the combination of cylinders, sleeves, head, crankcases can be any of what you suggest

[Bozothenutter]

Ok, for now Le Rhone 9(J) and the UR derivative?

[Black Knight]

I'll see if my books say anything

I do remember that Oberursel was owned by Antony Fokker and tight-wad that he was he used cheaper materials in the construction of the engine, which was a pre-WW1 licensed copy of the Le Rhone engine, which caused problems with the engines and thats why German pilots would 'pay' soldiers to bring them Le Rhone engines from crashed aeroplanes

[Paul Thompson]

Don't know about the 9j but for the Le Rhone (80 H.P.)  Chrome nickel steel crankshaft. Steel crankcase.  Steel cylinders with cast iron liners. Copper induction pipes. Steel con rods. I'd imagine it was similar to the 9J.

 

That's taken from the air board technical notes. Knew I had one somewhere. Doesn't help with the Oberursel though.

 

Have a look at http://www.wwi-models.org/Photos/Engines/LeRhone/index.html

 

This is the at-this-moment-still-accessible photo archive of the WW1 Modelling Page, the bit with a collection of Le Rhone photos. Telling one type from another appears hard even for the photographers.

 

Paul.

Edited January 19, 2023 by Paul Thompson
Added a link.

[RichieW]

I'm going to be visiting the Shuttleworth Collection soon and will ask the engineers about materials etc for you. Will be early next month.

 

Richie

[Bozothenutter]

11 hours ago, Paul Thompson said:

Don't know about the 9j but for the Le Rhone (80 H.P.)  Chrome nickel steel crankshaft. Steel crankcase.  Steel cylinders with cast iron liners. Copper induction pipes. Steel con rods. I'd imagine it was similar to the 9J.

 

That's taken from the air board technical notes. Knew I had one somewhere. Doesn't help with the Oberursel though.

 

Have a look at http://www.wwi-models.org/Photos/Engines/LeRhone/index.html

 

This is the at-this-moment-still-accessible photo archive of the WW1 Modelling Page, the bit with a collection of Le Rhone photos. Telling one type from another appears hard even for the photographers.

 

Paul.

From the look of some (Virginia museum) the cylinders are indeed steel. (Rust)

The heads and crankcase/cover seem to be aluminium (no rust)

[RichieW]

I found this page from the Smithsonian which might be of interest re materials. Scroll through to the bottom for dimensions. There is probably a similar page for the Le Rhone.

 

https://www.si.edu/object/gnome-monosoupape-type-b-2-rotary-9-engine%3Anasm_A19490063000

 

Richie

[Brandy]

Search FB for KipAero. They build these engines and regularly post updates on the process.

 

Ian