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A WWII era Jumo 213 V12 engine ran at a maximum of 3,250 rpm. Modern day Formula 1 V8 engines run at 18,000 to 20,000 rpm.
How can a reciprocating engine turn that many RPMs without flying apart? What are the technical leaps which made the huge RPM increase possible while maintaining some reliability?
Makes me wonder what modern fighter engines would look like if jet and turbo-prop technology didn't exist. Would we have 10,000 hp piston engines? Or maybe a 10,000 hp Wankel engine?
I think formula 1 engines are now restricted to 16,000 RPM as a cost saving measure the extra 2 to 4 thousand RPM cost the teams millions. Shortround covered most of the bases except fuel. When fuels wernt controlled in F1 the teams or their sponsors spent millions and it made a big difference to performance and the fuels used in WWII had a major bearing on performance.
Honda raced a 500 cc V4 which revved to 20,000 RPM oval pistons and 8 valves per cylinder. F1 probably showed what was possible in the days when Turbos were allowed 1.5 Litre engines (i think) producing around 1000 BHP, but since only a few cars finished the race in that era no one would ever put those engines in a plane.
It is quite easy to make something turn at 20000 RPM but getting it to produce power is another matter from my maths 20000 RPM is 166.7 explosions per second.
The turboprop powered Tu-95 has engines producing 14,800 shp each. Max speed is 575 mph. So why can't you have a prop driven fighter with a 14,800 shp piston engine?
How about a tandem prop arrangement similiar to the Do-335? Use two smaller engines rather then a single monster engine. Such an arrangement is better for damage control as you can still limp home after an engine hit.
Lightweight strong components for one, elimination of valve springs another as they most likely would be bouncing like crazy, so air replaced them. Electronic fuel management, and ignition control. And lots of thinking out of the box engineering too. Tribology helped too, as did aerodynamics for induction and exhaust. I'm sure many millions of dollars by all the various companys were used as well. As with any engineering endeavour there were probably some failures on the way, and some messes to clean in dyno rooms.A WWII era Jumo 213 V12 engine ran at a maximum of 3,250 rpm. Modern day Formula 1 V8 engines run at 18,000 to 20,000 rpm.
How can a reciprocating engine turn that many RPMs without flying apart? What are the technical leaps which made the huge RPM increase possible while maintaining some reliability?
Lightweight strong components for one, elimination of valve springs another as they most likely would be bouncing like crazy, so air replaced them. Electronic fuel management, and ignition control. And lots of thinking out of the box engineering too. Tribology helped too, as did aerodynamics for induction and exhaust. I'm sure many millions of dollars by all the various companys were used as well. As with any engineering endeavour there were probably some failures on the way, and some messes to clean in dyno rooms.
As for the F1 racing, the sport has gone downhilln ever since the 1.5 litre turbo engine were banned. IMHO the F1 racing is the king of motor car racing and should thus have minimum on design limitations. Personally the only engine design limits should be that that a standard race is completed with a certain amount of energy. In other words, all teams would be free to use any generally available fuel (ethanol, diesel oil, gasoline etc.) or any engine (piston/gas turbine) just as long as the fuel burned during a single race would not exceed in energy content a specified limit.
If I had the funds and the equipment I could. And it would be more effcient than a turbine. So what kind of propeller would it need?You can't make a 14,500 HP avitaion piston engine.