The Orbital principle is simple - an orbiting rotor, coupled to a crank, provides chambers that carry out the four-stroke cycle.
Like all rotary engines, the face and corner seals on the rotor are important. This engine manages to avoid the high-speed face and flank seal contacts typical of rotary engines like the Wankel, however it is much more complicated than the sketch at left suggests.
Each chamber requires its own set of valves (disc valves originally, poppet valves in later versions) and a complex set of seals which are much more difficult to manufacture than piston rings. |
