Probably Worst design proposal for an engine. (Created by me in Paint)
I call it the "Hammer Engine" and created this at 3am when I was bored.
I could talk for hours abbout how I would expect this to work, yet I still havnt found a single advantage for this instead of a normal design. (But a lot of Drawbacks). It basicly works bay having a hammer moving inside a small space inside a big disc that is connected to a cranckshaft/drivetrain. On the right side of the hammer a normal fuel-air reaction takes place, pushing the hammer to the left and hitting it hard against the left wall and spinning the disc. While that is happening the air on the left can escape through a valve on that left wall and then get pushed back into the left chamber, making the hammer move back to he right and compressing the mixture again. (Basicly a 2 stroke design). With that the big disc could move bit by bit with each hit of the hammer. Youd probably have to make stuff like starting the engine and probably even moving the hammer back to the right electronically assisted for it to work, but you can put multiple hammers on one disc and multiple discs behind each other to get more power. The wear would be emense, but I still want to create a smal version of this just to test what would breake first and to hear the constant clancking noise of the engine when the hammer hits.
As you can probably tell this is a joke design but it may actually work. I have thought abbout ths more than I have written down here so I believe that I could actually create a small working version. I know it has a lot of issues, including for example that its basicly impossible to spin a big disc like that at high RPMs so it wont be a performance engine either. Like I said, more drawbacks than advantages, but hopefully a funny sound.
👍
Posted Aug 13, 2026, 8:29 PM UTC