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Rolls-Royce Vulture
The Rolls-Royce Vulture was a British aero engine developed shortly before World War II that was designed and built by Rolls-Royce Limited. The Vulture used the unusual "X-24" configuration, whereby four cylinder blocks derived from the Rolls-Royce Kestrel were joined by a common crankshaft supported by a single crankcase. The engine was originally designed to produce around , but continuing problems with the Vulture design meant that the engines were derated to around 1,450-1,550 hp in service by limiting the maximum rpm.〔Gunston 1989, p. 143.〕
Although several new aircraft designs had been planned to use the Vulture, work on the engine's design ended in 1941 as Rolls-Royce concentrated on their more successful Merlin design. Another 24-cylinder engine , the Napier Sabre, would prove more successful after a lengthy development period.
==Design and development==
The supercharged Kestrel was a fairly standard design, with two cylinder banks arranged in a V form and with a displacement of . The Vulture, in effect, was two Kestrels joined by a new crankcase turning a new crankshaft, producing an X engine configuration with a displacement of . Although the Vulture used cylinders of the same bore and stroke of the Kestrel, the redesigned cylinder blocks had increased cylinder spacing to accommodate a longer crankshaft, necessary for extra main bearings and wider crankpins.〔Rubbra 1990, p. 139.〕
The engine suffered from an abbreviated development period due to Rolls-Royce being required to suspend Vulture development in 1940 during the Battle of Britain to concentrate its work on the Merlin, which powered the RAF's two main fighters, the Hawker Hurricane and Supermarine Spitfire, and as a consequence the reliability of the Vulture when it entered service was very poor. Apart from delivering significantly less than the designed power, the Vulture suffered from frequent failures of the connecting rod big end bearings, which was found to be caused by a breakdown in lubrication, and also from heat dissipation problems. Rolls-Royce were initially confident that they could solve the problems, but in part because of its accelerated development in 1940, the company's much smaller Merlin was already nearing the same power level as the Vulture's original specification, and so production of the Vulture was discontinued after only 538 had been built.〔Lumsden 2003, p.200.〕
抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』
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