Development of a Natural Gas Stratified Charge Rotary Engine

A water model has been used to determine the positions of separate inlet ports for a natural gas, stratified charge rotary engine. The flow inside the combustion chamber (mainly during the induction period) has been registered by a film camera.

From these tests the best locations of the inlet ports have been obtained, a prototype of this engine has been built by Audi NSU and tested in the laboratories of the university of Gent. The results of these tests, for different stratification configurations, are given. These results are comparable with the best results obtained by Audi NSU for a homogeneous natural gas rotary engine.