Patent GB-532714-A (GB)
Title: Improvements in or relating to internal combustion or fluid pressure engines, or compressors
IPC: F01B5/00
Filed: 1939-07-28
Abstract: 532,714. Air compressors. BURNEY, Sir C. D., and BROADWAY AUTOMOTIVE PRODUCTS, Ltd. July 28, 1939, No. 21906. [Class 8 (i)] [Also in Groups XXVII and XXVI] An internal combustion or fluid pressure engine or compressor comprises several cylinders and pistons arranged with their axes tangential to a circle, a common rigid star member having arms radiating from a common centre within the circle and slidably engaging with the pistons for movement transversely thereof, and a crankshaft disposed within or without the circle with or without additional crankshafts outside the circle, to which shaft or shafts the rigid member is connected by crank arms and about which it moves in a circular path without rotating about its own centre. In a modification arms radiating from a common central crankshaft replace the rigid star member. Three pairs of coaxial cylinders 1, Fig. 1, are disposed tangentially to a circle centred on the geometrical axis of the engine and pairs of pistons 21 which reciprocate in the cylinders are interconnected by members 22 bored transversely to receive the arms 26 of a three-armed star member which rotates bodily about the axis of the engine without turning about its own centre, its arms being connected at their extremities to crankshafts 11. These shafts are operatively connected through coupling boxes with stub shafts carrying pinions 3, Fig. 2, which mesh with a pinion 4 on a main driving shaft. A crankshaft may be provided on the geometrical axis of the engine. Each piston 21 is formed with a cored top terminating in a cup 24 surrounded by a ledge 25 adapted to, enter a correspondingly shaped conical exhaust valve 30 oscillated through bevel gearing 36, 37 to open and close an exhaust port on each half-oscillation. When the ledge 25 engages the exhaust valve 30, a reciprocating valve 33 opens a byepass 32 to equalize pressures in the cylinder and cup 24. Lubricating oil pumped into the main shaft and the crankshafts 11 flows through apertures in the crankshafts to a space between a liner 59 and the inner member 79 of the arm 26 and thence through perforations 61 to a peripheral groove 61<SP>1</SP> on the outer member of the arm to the sleeve 22 in the piston-connecting member, the reciprocation of the arm in the sleeve exercising a pumping action on the oil. Oil is also forced through telescopic tubes into the pistons 21 and is squirted against the insides of the heads thereof to cool them, some of the returning oil escaping through the sides of the pistons to lubricate the cylinders. The engine comprises a number of banks of cylinders arranged, so that throughout the engine the cylinders fire at equal intervals and no two cylinders fire simultaneously. In a single bank engine, the star member is balanced by a counterweight and the pistons by a weight or weights equalling half the piston weight at the distance of the crank throw of the crankshafts 11, this weight being met by increasing the weight of the star member, but in an engine having several banks only the resultant of all the piston is balanced. Each pair of cylinders constitutes a unit and, in assembling the engine, the units are registered by guides 49 and clamped together by bridges 51 engaging wedges 52 when the cylinder head units are secured on the cylinder units by bolts 53. Banks of cylinders are secured together by bolts 55 parallel to the axis of the engine and by bolts passed through internal and external peripheral flanges on the cylinder blocks. With an engine of the compression ignition type, fuel is injected into the byepass 32 which is tangential to the conical exhaust valve 30.