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Old 21st Nov 2016, 10:57
  #18 (permalink)  
PDR1
 
Join Date: Nov 2015
Location: Mordor
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You can't compare automotive and aero engine designs. A 350bhp road car engine will be producing 350bhp for a few seconds at a time, and for >95% of the time will only be running at 50bhp or lower (the "cruise" power requirement of a saloon car on a motorway). A 350bhp aero engine will usually need to run at nearly 200bhp for >80% of its use, and will need to be able to do 350bhp for five minutes at a time (or more).

The 900bhp of an F1 turbo-hybrid engine comes with a TBO of no more than 15hours.

The reliability and integrity requirements for an aero engine don't allow some of the design trade-offs used in automotive engines. Aero-engines can't use belt or chain-driven cams; they must be gear driven to provide a graceful failure mode. The backlash in gear-driven cams prevents some of the more extreme valve timings being used, and they would risk valve and piston collisions.

Aero engine crankcases must usually accomodate thrust and gyroscopic propeller loads, where a car engine crankcase (outside of a few single0-seat racer applications) only carries torque loads.

Finally - much of the power & flexibility of modern car engines is achieved using electronic injection/ignition/management systems which are difficult to certify for aero use. The one time something like this was seriously attempted was the Porsche PFM 3200 (a varient of the 911 flat six) of the 80s, and whilst that did make it into production there was a lot of hassle over its electronic control systems, and the on-going cost of that was one of the larger factors in its demise. It has to be said that *some* of the resistance to the electronic systems was just typical american "not invented here-ness" lobbying to protect US industry against the European competition, but not all of it. The general downturn in light aviation in the 80s due to product liability and the mind-bogglingly stupid excesses of the american legal system was also a contributory factor.

PDR
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