MB&F C3H5NCO9

Experiment ZR012 by C3H5N3O9 features Wankel engine inspired hour and minute indications in an asymmetrical zirconium case with articulated and compound lugs.

At first glance the time appears to be indicated by centrally rotating triangular rotors; however, the triangles are actually Releaux polygons; they rotate eccentrically rather than centrally and track complex epitrochroid curves rather than circles.

The system was inspired by the Wankel engine, which features orbital Releaux polygon rotors rather than the reciprocating pistons that power the majority of our cars and machines today.

Experiment ZR012 indications were inspired by the Wankel engine :



In 1919, a 17-year-old German boy called Felix Wankel dreamt of a new type of engine. Despite no formal training, Wankel believed that he could design an engine in which the four stages of intake, compression, combustion and exhaust-took place in one rotation, rather than four separate reciprocations of a piston as in a normal engine.

It was an ambitious goal, which others had been unsuccessfully attempting since the 16th century. In 1924 Wankel created a small laboratory to develop his rotary engine and eventually tested the first prototype in 1957, over three decades later.

One of the main reasons development took so long is that Wankel’s orbital engine was based on a convex-triangle rotor rotating inside a epitrochoid combustion chamber. An epitrochoid is a very complex shape traced by a point on a small circle rotating around the perimeter of a larger circle and plotting that shape involves seriously complex mathematics.