The Wankel engine is a type of internal combustion engine using an eccentric rotary design to convert pressure into rotating motion.
Compared to the reciprocating piston engine, the Wankel engine has more uniform torque; less vibration; and, for a given power, is more compact and weighs less.
The rotor creates the turning motion. Wankel engines deliver three power pulses per revolution of the rotor.
User:Y_tambe, CC BY-SA 3.0 <http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/>, via Wikimedia Commons
The Wankel KKM motorcycle: The “A” marks one of the three apices of the rotor. The “B” marks the eccentric shaft, and the white portion is the lobe of the eccentric shaft. The distance between “A” and “B” remains constant. The shaft turns three times for each rotation of the rotor around the lobe and once for each orbital revolution around the eccentric shaft.
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