Conceptual Design of a Novel Valve Mechanism for Four Stroke IC Engines

Description

The widespread use of poppet valves has led to their almost standardized use in the automotive sector. They have some really useful features but possess some attributes that could be improved upon. Improvement can be made in numerous ways, one of them is to abandon the poppet valve and use rotary valves instead. The designs and solutions to produce working rotary valves have their own problems mainly associated with friction, sealing and wear. With the use of modern materials and design concepts these can be solved with satisfactory results but these still produce unwanted turbulences during the gas exchange process. This project tries to find a solution to the problems associated with rotary valves by investigating a pivoting valve concept. To reach that goal and to come up with realistic results first the flow characteristics of an existing cylinder head was obtained on a flow bench. Then the poppet valve head was reproduced in CAD environment. Following this a pivoting valve cylinder head was designed as well, in a way that – in theory – it would directly fit the donor engine, hence the original engine parts (carburettor, exhaust system, etc) still could be used.