John Deere Developing Family Of Rotary Engines

—Literature Available This past February John Deere acquired the stratified charge rotary engine business formerly property of Curtiss-Wright Corporation. This purchase includes exclusive North American rights to the Wankel engine, patents, know-how and experimental engines and components.

After several years of study, Deere engineers have determined that the existing technology is basically sound. Deere plans to use their extensive research, design and manufacturing facilities to bring a reliable product to the marketplace.

John Deere's SCORE (Stratified Charge Omnivorous Rotary Engine) family of engines will offer many advantages to future designs including: Compactness—producing rotary motion directly, these engines achieve high power density. Up to 50 percent of the bulk and weight needed by reciprocating diesels can be eliminated.

Multi-fuel capacity—the patented "stratified charge" design makes these engines omnivorous.

This ability to burn many different fuels allows greater tactical flexibility.

Consider the advantage of using diesel, jet fuel, gasoline, alcohol or mixtures of these fuels.

Fuel economy—the high power density of this design plus direct injection and stratified charge will provide competitive fuel economy.

Improved Ram-D—the design simplicity and parts commonality of the SCORE II family of engines (from 350 to 1,500 hp) help to make them more reliable, available, maintainable and durable than conventional engines.

In brief, SCORE rotary engines will provide turbine engine compactness and smoothness with diesel engine fuel economy and dependability. All at optimum manufacturing costs.

The Navy is an important market for this engine. Applications will include propulsion and engine generator sets. Tactical and fighting vehicles are also excellent candidates.

In addition, aircraft manufacturers and NASA view the engine as a logical replacement for small piston engines in use in today's general aviation fleet. John Deere is working with a number of government and military agencies and vehicle manufacturers to ensure that these rotary engines meet their requirements.

John Deere offers a complete line of other products that include industrial equipment (graders, 4- wheel drive loaders, scrapers, dozers, and excavators).

Agricultural equipment—Deere is the world's largest manufacturer of agricultural equipment producing over 200 products including tractors and combines.

Components—a full line of diesel engines, axles, transmissions, hydraulics and other components are used in military applications worldwide.

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