Orbital Corporation Limited (), formerly Orbital Engine Corporation Limited pioneered by

Ralph Sarich Ralph Tony Sarich (born 10 December 1938 in Baskerville, Western Australia) is an Australian automotive engineer, inventor, and businessman who developed the orbital engine and the orbital combustion process engine. Sarich founded the Orbital E ...

, is an Australian company based in Balcatta,

Western Australia Western Australia (commonly abbreviated as WA) is a state of Australia occupying the western percent of the land area of Australia excluding external territories. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to th ...

, that aims to provide clean engine technologies and alternative fuel systems with reduced environmental impact from gas emissions and improved fuel economy.

Consulting services

Design, manufacturing, development and testing facilities have been established at the Balcatta facility. Orbital has developed infrastructure in engine design and modelling, numerical analysis, computational fluid dynamics, combustion and fuel system development, rapid-turn-around prototyping, and engine-management system software and hardware design.

Autogas systems

Orbital Autogas Systems, a former subsidiary of Orbital Corporation, used to produce a retrofit LPG system applicable to a range of vehicles. Orbital Liquid LPG injection (LLi) is claimed to be the latest generation in automotive LPG fuel systems, promising substantial fuel savings, improved fuel consumption and reduced pollution. Injection of LPG into the engine as a liquid rather than a vapour is claimed to improve engine volumetric efficiency, producing more power from less fuel. Due to falling demand for automotive LPG conversions, and the resulting decline in profitability, the business was closed in December 2015. The assets and ongoing customer and supplier contracts were sold to Sprint Gas (Aust) Pty. Ltd. for approximately A$500,000

Variable-fuel engine

A technology named FlexDI purports to improve emissions and fuel consumption in internal combustion engines designed to accept any common fuel type. The invention is being promoted to marine, recreational and light commercial vehicle markets including

autorickshaw An auto rickshaw is a motorized version of the pulled rickshaw or cycle rickshaw. Most have three wheels and do not tilt. They are known by many terms in various countries including auto, auto rickshaw, baby taxi, mototaxi, pigeon, jonnybee, bajaj ...

s. In 2003, the company was awarded a Banksia Award for its innovative combustion technology—winning in the category 'Leadership in Sustainable Product Design'. The Orbital Redback heavy fuel engine using FlexDI was chosen in 2012 to power an

unmanned aerial vehicle An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), commonly known as a drone, is an aircraft without any human pilot, crew, or passengers on board. UAVs are a component of an unmanned aircraft system (UAS), which includes adding a ground-based controller ...

(UAV) manufactured by AAIs Australian division

Aerosonde Aerosonde Ltd, now part of Textron Systems Unmanned Systems, is an Australian-based developer and manufacturer of unmanned aerial vehicles, including the AAI Corporation Aerosonde series. The company has customers in Australia, Asia and North Ame ...

.Gomez, Kevin
Australian engineering company wins contract to supply new engine for pilotless military aircraft
''PACE today'', 26 June 2012. Retrieved: 9 July 2012.

References

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Consulting services

Autogas systems

Variable-fuel engine

See also

References

Further reading