How a Radial Engine Works

[Charl]

Last week at Ardmore we gawped at a radial piston engine in one of the hangars, cut away showing the crankshaft and attached bits.
Something no-one seemed able to explain, was that one of the piston conrods was solidly attached to the crankshaft (i.e. no gudgeon pin).
How would this even work?
Well, one of the group subsequently unearthed this clip, now you know too!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3DHKyiXKyE

[cowpatz]

It probably appears that it is solidly attached but it will be the master rod that you are observing. The other Conrods are called articulating rods and they attach to the base flanges of the master rod. It’s because you can’t have all of the conrods attached to the same crank journal individually (there is only one crank journal).