David W. Garside is an inventor and former project engineer at BSA's

Umberslade Hall Umberslade Hall is a 17th-century mansion converted into residential apartments situated in Nuthurst near Tanworth-in-Arden, Warwickshire. It is a Grade II* listed building. The Archer family were granted the manor of Umberslade by Henry II in ...

research facility. He is notable for having developed an

air-cooled Air-cooled engines rely on the circulation of air directly over heat dissipation fins or hot areas of the engine to cool them in order to keep the engine within operating temperatures. In all combustion engines, a great percentage of the heat ge ...

twin-rotor Wankel motorcycle engine which powered the

Norton Classic The Norton Classic is a rotary-engined motorcycle built in 1987 by Norton as a special edition of just 100 machines. Engine development The Classic used an air-cooled twin-rotor Wankel engine that had been developed by David Garside at BSA's ...

road bike. Although the Classic was not the first production rotary-engined bike, it was significantly lighter, smoother, more powerful and better-handling than the contemporary

Suzuki RE5 The Suzuki RE5 is a motorcycle with a liquid-cooled single-rotor Wankel engine, manufactured by Suzuki from 1974 to 1976. Apart from its unusual engine, the RE5 is mostly a conventional roadster, albeit with some peculiar styling details thanks ...

Personal history

In his book "Norton Rotaries", Kris Perkins states that "David Garside could rightly be called the father of the Norton Rotary". Garside studied mathematics and mechanical engineering at

Emmanuel College, Cambridge Emmanuel College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college was founded in 1584 by Sir Walter Mildmay, Chancellor of the Exchequer to Elizabeth I. The site on which the college sits was once a priory for Dominican mon ...

, where he obtained a first class degree. He served an apprenticeship with Rolls-Royce, and after a spell at the CEGB, he returned to Rolls-Royce to work on diesel rotaries. He later moved to BSA as a development engineer at Kitts Green. After BSA was subsumed into NVT, over 90% of BSA's research projects were cancelled, but Garside managed to persuade NVT's boss,

Dennis Poore Roger Dennistoun "Dennis" Poore (19 August 1916, Paddington, London – 12 February 1987, Kensington) was a British entrepreneur, financier and sometime racing driver. He became chairman of NVT during the dying days of the old British motorcycle ...

to continue with the rotary programme. The project moved to Shenstone, near

Lichfield Lichfield () is a cathedral city and civil parish in Staffordshire, England. Lichfield is situated roughly south-east of the county town of Stafford, south-east of Rugeley, north-east of Walsall, north-west of Tamworth and south-west of B ...

, where production of bikes such as the Interpol took place.

The Norton Classic

Garside, who had been impressed by the

Fichtel & Sachs ZF Sachs AG, also known as Fichtel & Sachs, was founded in Schweinfurt in 1895 and was a well-known German family business. At its last point as an independent company, the company name was Fichtel & Sachs AG. In 1997, the automotive supplier wa ...

engine in the

DKW DKW (''Dampf-Kraft-Wagen'', en, "steam-powered car", also ''Deutsche Kinder-Wagen'' en, "German children's car". ''Das-Kleine-Wunder'', en, "the little wonder" or ''Des-Knaben-Wunsch'', en, "the boy's wish"- from when the company built to ...

Hercules Hercules (, ) is the Roman equivalent of the Greek divine hero Heracles, son of Jupiter and the mortal Alcmena. In classical mythology, Hercules is famous for his strength and for his numerous far-ranging adventures. The Romans adapted the Gr ...

bike, installed a bought-in F&S

single-rotor engine into a BSA B25 'Starfire' frame as a "proof of concept". This proved reliable and smooth, but under-powered. Garside then created a prototype twin-rotor engine (with F&S rotors), which doubled the capacity of the earlier test "mule". This twin-rotor engine was installed in a BSA A65 frame. Wankel engines run very hot, so Garside gave this air-cooled motor additional interior air-cooling. Filtered air was drawn through an intake that was forward-facing to provide a ram air effect. This air was channelled initially to the rotating mainshaft and through the interior of the two rotors, then entering a large pressed-steel plenum before entering the combustion chambers via twin carburettors. The plenum, which doubled as the bike's semi-monocoque frame, enabled the transfer of much of the heat to the surrounding atmosphere. (This idea was taken from the monocoque

Ariel Arrow The Ariel Leader was a British motorcycle produced by Ariel Motorcycles between 1958 and 1965. A radical design, the Leader was fully enclosed with an integral windscreen and was the first British motorcycle to have optional flashing indicators ...

). The carburation process further reduced temperatures via the

heat In thermodynamics, heat is defined as the form of energy crossing the boundary of a thermodynamic system by virtue of a temperature difference across the boundary. A thermodynamic system does not ''contain'' heat. Nevertheless, the term is al ...

of evaporation. Even so, at the fuel-air mixture was still hotter than ideal, and the engine's volumetric efficiency remained somewhat impaired. The eccentric shaft's main bearings and the inlet manifolds were fed by oil-injection lubrication, and the fuel-air mix also carried residual mist of oil from the interior of the rotors, which helped to lubricate the rotor tips. DKW Wankel 2000

Notable inventions

To address the deficiencies of the air-cooled Norton Wankel engine, Garside went on to develop SPARCS (self-pressurising-air rotor cooling system), a system that utilises self-pressurising blow-by gases as a cooling medium, absorbing higher levels of heat from the engine core and dispersing the heat by means of an external heat exchanger. This system provides superior heat rejection than standard air cooling methods. In addition to SPARCS, Garside also filed a patent in 2011 to develop a rotary exhaust expander unit or CREEV (compound rotary engine for electric vehicles) for use with Wankel rotary engines. The CREEV system acts as an ‘exhaust reactor’ by consuming unburned exhaust products while expansion occurs, reducing overall emissions and improving thermal efficiency. In 2015, David Garside signed a licensing agreement with UK Midlands based engineers Advanced Innovative Engineering (UK) Ltd for exclusive use of his patents in their next generation Wankel rotary engines.

Aero-engine derivative

The Norton Wankel engine was further developed at Staverton into the

MidWest The Midwestern United States, also referred to as the Midwest or the American Midwest, is one of four Census Bureau Region, census regions of the United States Census Bureau (also known as "Region 2"). It occupies the northern central part of ...

aero-engine. The MidWest engine's output increased from BSA's 85 bhp to nearly 110 bhpMidWest Engines Ltd AE1100R Rotary Engine Manual by improving volumetric efficiency. This was achieved by dumping overboard (rather than burning) the pressurised hot rotor cooling air, and by feeding fresh cool air into the combustion chambers.

References

External links

Patents by David Garside

Freedom Motors Consultants and Advisors

Advanced Innovative Engineering (UK) Ltd Patent Agreement
{{DEFAULTSORT:Garside, David Year of birth missing (living people) Living people British automotive engineers British motorcycle pioneers British motorcycle designers