Kerbal Piston Engines - soon!

[Azimech]

This is the topic for my newest upcoming mod:

Kerbal Piston Engines

 

Focused on building the machines we all love or hate.

With it, you can build your own piston engines, in any configuration you like!

Here's an animation of the first ever "car" running with a piston engine, a 6 cylinder two-stroke, medium sized ship diesel to be precise.
In the future the mod will have clutches, transmissions and more!

 

And this is the first flight with a piston engine!

Thermal analysis of the straight six:

 

 

At the heart of this mod is the ignition system. It's not perfect but gets the job done for now. Programmed using stock modules only!

 

Nine-cylinder radial!

 

Don't expect high revving race cars or airplanes soon, engine tech started at a level comparable with 1860 and is at level 1895 at the moment. With the right help, we can accelerate development!

 

Stay tuned for version 0.1!

 

 

Edited September 8, 2016 by Azimech

[123nick]

WOAH this looks EXTREMELY innovative, and different, and cool.

quick question- how does this mod work? do you like, have parts set up in such a way instead of just 1 big part that generates torque or whatever?

[Sturmgeschutz]

And here begins the future. Great innovation!  

[blackheart612]

I have been trying to think about implementing torque and horsepower with just resource configs, they obviously were bad as they are. But this is just awesome! I'm not sure if the extra detail will make the modding harder or not but I am certainly interested.

[AlexSilver]

Wow. This is awesome, mate! Hope to try it soon.

[Azimech]

14 hours ago, 123nick said:

WOAH this looks EXTREMELY innovative, and different, and cool.

quick question- how does this mod work? do you like, have parts set up in such a way instead of just 1 big part that generates torque or whatever?

You have to build everything yourself, crankshaft, initial piston/rod angle, ignition timing etc. It's a big challenge but somewhere in the future I want to make a video building one.

[SpannerMonkey(smce)]

22 minutes ago, Azimech said:

You have to build everything yourself, crankshaft, initial piston/rod angle, ignition timing etc. It's a big challenge but somewhere in the future I want to make a video building one.

In that case how about pre built custom crankshafts etc? viable? i don't see why not, though the collider would be most interesting. Is the crankcase assembled from parts also? if so that could certainly be modularised.

  Would this ignition system work for a single cylinder creation or does it need the mass of the other piston assembly to function at low revs, I ask as single cylinder is the ideal testing config for modular parts.  Very curious as  to what you use for bearings etc

[Azimech]

1 minute ago, SpannerMonkey(smce) said:

In that case how about pre built custom crankshafts etc? viable? i don't see why not, though the collider would be most interesting. Is the crankcase assembled from parts also? if so that could certainly be modularised.

  Would this ignition system work for a single cylinder creation or does it need the mass of the other piston assembly to function at low revs, I ask as single cylinder is the ideal testing config for modular parts.  Very curious as  to what you use for bearings etc

Pre-modeled crankcases are a good idea. Building or modeling custom crankshafts may reduce part count but that's about the only advantage, and since colliders are indeed "interesting" it would mean a lot of work, at least with Wings3D. I'm fine with people distributing their own crankshaft or engine subassemblies.

A basic crankshaft is built out of a few standard parts, in this case a two cylinder:

Crankshaft end - crank (or throw) - big end - crank - big end - crank - big end - crank - crankshaft end.

I could use the proper names for every single part but that only creates an even larger part list and more confusion.

Single cylinder engines work fine and you can adjust the balancing mass in and on the flywheel and per crank. I've modeled the bearings in Wings3D and they're simple, using the module from Infernal Robotics.

[blackheart612]

What might reduce part count is making it adjustable. For example, you can have Inline/V/W/Rotary engine and you can set how many cylinders that will have. If you want to detail the bottom parts/piston/crankshaft components then size and material adjustment would make it even less part heavy instead of making them all... Although maybe the piston size should be adjusted on cylinder instead  Then there's your choice of camshaft DOHC/SOHC/OHV all of this can be - when you attach to the engine casing - automatically adjusted according to the number of cylinders that you have chosen. (i.e, you set inline 6 and put the piston module, it automatically mutiplies to 6). I'm not sure if it is possible though but just throwing that out just in case.

Non-naturally aspirated engines would also be interesting especially with air density and all that (when used for aircrafts).

[Deimos Rast]

Quote

Programmed using stock modules only!

This is the part that intrigues me.

Have a space cookie.

(+1)

[RaendyLeBeau]

very inovative idea !  great mod. congrats

but i missing a career campagne or mission to integrate this in the game flow.

[SpannerMonkey(smce)]

36 minutes ago, RaendyLeBeau said:

very inovative idea !  great mod. congrats

but i missing a career campagne or mission to integrate this in the game flow.

As this is right on edges of what is doable in KSP and a lot more complex  than a simple parts pack I would advise that  you re-calibrate your expectancy meter and set it to long duration. I think it's a tad early to consider career mode

 

[Azimech]

Exactly ... It's really a lot of pioneering. A lot of things in KSP are simpler than in real life. That also means if you want to do (semi-) realistic stuff like fine mechanical construction, you need to find a lot of workarounds.

[Azimech]

Video!

 

[SpannerMonkey(smce)]

F(animals mating(ha filter) amazing,  great to see these shrinking to a more usable size, loving the engine design details.

[Azimech]

Another video, first flight with a piston engine!

 

[Azimech]

Blew up my engine. Running at full power without cooling system = not smart.

 

[SpannerMonkey(smce)]

3 hours ago, Azimech said:

Blew up my engine. Running at full power without cooling system = not smart.

I think the pistons hanging out of the side are just the icing on that wrecked cake, so now you are the first to blow up a piston engine in KSP,  come to think of it, as rockets etc just heat go bang and disappear you're the first to properly blow up an engine of any type. At least the repairs wont  cost you a mortgage

[Azimech]

I'm back. I've been working on a cooling system the last few days. If I can find the time, I'll upload 0.1 somewhere next week. Writing the manual is a lot of work.

In the mean time, here's a thermal analysis for your viewing pleasure.

[SpannerMonkey(smce)]

I notice that the image features six cylinders, are you noticing any better performance, stability or smoothness/lack of vibration from using multiples of 3 , triples and sixes being well known for turbine smooth running.  Probably not as it's KSP but as we get closer to trying out these amazing things, i think it relevant to know if the simulation bears any reality to the real world of infernal combustion engines

[Azimech]

23 minutes ago, SpannerMonkey(smce) said:

I notice that the image features six cylinders, are you noticing any better performance, stability or smoothness/lack of vibration from using multiples of 3 , triples and sixes being well known for turbine smooth running.  Probably not as it's KSP but as we get closer to trying out these amazing things, i think it relevant to know if the simulation bears any reality to the real world of infernal combustion engines

It's a non-standard setup and not the best for dealing with vibration but at least I have a cylinder firing every 60 degrees. Firing order is 1-6-3-2-5-4. I'm not exploring other 6 cylinders right now because I've got something much more interesting: I'm balancing my 9 cylinder radial :-)

[SpannerMonkey(smce)]

1 hour ago, Azimech said:

I'm balancing my 9 cylinder radial :-)

Never cease to be impressed by your next steps, looking fwd to seeing that come to fruition.

[Azimech]

Here it is, nine-cylinder two-stroke diesel radial piston engine, the first in the Kerbal universe. It overheats, the stroke is too long, the injection-timing is a mess and I still have to write the injectors, transistors, temp. sensors and temp. stabilizers for cylinders 7,8 and 9.

But it runs!

[SpannerMonkey(smce)]

4 minutes ago, Azimech said:

Here it is, nine-cylinder two-stroke diesel radial piston engine, the first in the Kerbal universe. It overheats, the stroke is too long, the injection-timing is a mess

Ah just like a real one then   But bloody marvellous,  is that a timing trigger that i see rotating around the perimeter, I'm only seeing it through the gap between the two lower left cylinders. There seems to be some interesting stuff going on round the back too,

[Azimech]

14 minutes ago, SpannerMonkey(smce) said:

Ah just like a real one then   But bloody marvellous,  is that a timing trigger that i see rotating around the perimeter, I'm only seeing it through the gap between the two lower left cylinders. There seems to be some interesting stuff going on round the back too,

Yes, it uses the same timing system as you can see in the thermal animation, at the back you see them alternating between white and black. White means hot, no signal.