The Rotary Engine The Mazda RX-8 uses an unconventional engine (invented by Felix Wankel in 1954) in which the pistons are replaced by a triangular rotor that turns in a special housing as shown in the figure on the next page. The vertices of the rotor maintain contact with the housing at all times, while the center of the triangle traces out a circle of radius r, turning the drive shaft. The shape of the housing is given by the parametric equations below (where R is the distance between the vertices and center of the rotor):
- (a) Suppose that the drive shaft has radius r = 1. Graph the curve given by the parametric equations for the following values of R: 0.5, 1.3, 5.
- (b) Which of the four values of R given in part (a) seems to best model the engine housing illustrated in the figure?
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Chapter 8 Solutions
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