The McMaster motor is based on the principle of the rotary engine.
The McMaster motor is the centerpiece of a totally new way of looking at motorized transportation which involves the development of …
* A new engine
* A new fuel source
* A new source of power to assist in the production of the fuel
The McMaster motor is a unique, two-cycle, rotary power plant with the same displacement volume as a 200 horsepower engine. It is equivalent to the six-cylinder engines found in many U.S. luxury cars, yet with only one-tenth the weight.
The motor’s two-cycle version is powered by a previously unused fuel system comprised of hydrogen and oxygen. Both chemicals are safe to handle, but mix them together at the right temperature and pressure and explosive power erupts.
In order to produce hydrogen and oxygen in the quantities needed, an efficient and inexpensive approach to generating electrical power from solar energy has been developed.
The following is from their website:
The McMaster rotary motor is based on spherical geometry. It has an outside diameter of 12-inches, about the size of a basketball; but, with flattened sides, it resembles a drum.
The current two-cycle power plant has the same displacement volume as a 200-horsepower engine, which is equivalent to the six-cylinder engines found in many U.S. luxury cars, yet with only one-tenth the weight.
In addition to the 12-inch model, plans call for the development of a lower-horsepower, two-cycle motor with only a six-inch outside diameter. About the size of a coffee can, these smaller engines will be built into wheel hubs.
Designed for hybrid vehicles, these smaller motors will eliminate the traditional drive train entirely, since transaxles are no longer needed.
Also planned is a four-cycle, gasoline-powered version, which will burn substantially cleaner than a traditional gasoline-powered engine.
In its two-cycle format, today’s McMaster motor does not …
* Use petroleum-based fuels
* Pollute the environment
* Need environmental oxygen to operate
* Deplete natural resources
* Cause noise pollution
Instead, the McMaster motor …
* Weighs only one-tenth as much as a current six-cylinder engine
* Has only two moving parts and eight parts total
* Utilizes a unique, two-part fuel system based on hydrogen and oxygen
* Can function under water or deep in space
* Is shaped like a drum with the same circumference as a basketball
McMaster Motor was formed in 1998 to commercialize a unique and radical power plant based on the rotary engine.
The motor is named for master entrepreneur and inventive genius Harold A. McMaster, known in some circles as the father of glass tempering. McMaster holds more than 100 patents dealing with glass tempering, solar energy and rotary engines.
As a start-up company, McMaster Motor is located in Toledo, Ohio, and is aligned with The University of Toledo through its industrial incubator.
McMaster Motor is the fourth enterprise to be built from the germ of an idea into a profitable manufacturing entity by McMaster and his associates. Other companies founded and nurtured by McMaster include …
* Permaglass, Inc.; founded, 1948; merged with Guardian Industries, 1969. Glass processing.
* Glasstech Inc.; co-founded, 1971; sold to investors, 1989. Innovator and manufacturer of glass bending and tempering systems.
* Solar Cells, Inc.; co-founded, 1987; True North Partners, LLC, purchased controlling interest, 1999; renamed company First Solar LLC. Photovoltaic modules for the production of electrical energy from sunlight.
Following his successful business model, McMaster has funded the initial development of the motor himself. Now that the project is near commercialization, additional funding is sought through a limited offering of private shares along with seeking government grants for continued development.
McMaster personally is continuing to finance development of the motor's nonpetroleum fuel mixture.
The McMaster motor is the wave of the future, and its nonpetroleum fuel mixture makes it ideally suited to demands for reduced hydrocarbon emissions. Its potential uses are almost limitless, running the gamut from powering traditional autos to space exploration.
No less than three versions of the McMaster motor are envisioned. Current development efforts center on a two-cycle version, about the size of a basketball, that has the same displacement volume as a 200-horsepower standard internal combustion engine.
Further, a smaller, two-cycle version, about the size of a coffee can, and a gasoline-powered, four-cycle version are planned.
In 1940, while working in the Optics Laboratory of Libbey-Owens-Ford Company, Toledo, Ohio, Harold A. McMaster began experimenting with a metal cutting lathe at home. He was a few years out of Ohio State University with a Master of Science Degree in nuclear physics, mathematics and astronomy.
It was during this experimentation that McMaster built the first version of his rotary motor. It was not successful because the vane dragged too much.
Despite starting his own successful glassmaking company, Permaglass, Inc., McMaster continued to work occasionally on revising the motor. In 1970, McMasters son, Ronald McMaster, received his doctorate in engineering and began experimenting with the motor.
The McMasters built their own machine shop in Northwest Ohio. About the same time, Harold and others began developing Glasstech, Inc. This left Ronald with the challenge of developing the rotary motor in competition with the commercialized Wankel version, also a cylindrical geometry engine that was enjoying success in Europe and Japan.
After five years and several models, none of which were kept, the solution was still elusive and the machine shop was closed. However, the idea was never far from Harold McMaster’s thoughts.
By 1980, Harold McMaster had developed new concepts based on spherical geometry, involving vanes that receded into cones to make compartments. Models were produced and were closer to the mark; but, still, they fell short.
In the ensuing years, a good deal of McMaster’s time and energy were directed toward perfecting his approach toward the production of photovoltaic cells for the production of electrical energy from sunlight.
In 1999, following the sale of a major interest in his company, Solar Cells, Inc., McMaster started to design the present-day rotary motor with help from his brother, Robert.
Working together gave the brothers the chance to combine their thinking and come up with concepts they would not have achieved individually. This collaboration has lead to radical changes and improvements in the motor’s design.
As a youth growing up in Northwest Ohio, just prior to the Roarin’ Twenties, Harold A. McMaster’s hero was another northern Ohio product, Thomas Alva Edison.
While the two never met, they were both members, along with Harvey Firestone, of the first class to be inducted into the Ohio Inventor’s Hall of Fame in 1991.
McMaster is a unique individual who combines the foresight and analytical nature of the scientist with the acumen and “street smarts” of the successful businessman. The former helps him “see” how to do things, while the latter enables him to commercialize his innovations.
A physicist, he holds more than 100 patents dealing with glass tempering, solar energy and rotary engines. McMaster is known in many circles as the father of glass tempering.
He graduated in 1938 from The Ohio State University with a Bachelor of Arts Degree in mathematics and in 1939 with a Master of Science Degree in nuclear physics, mathematics and astronomy.
In 1940, he went to work as a research physicist for Toledo, Ohio’s Libbey-Owens-Ford Glass Company, a producer of flat glass for windows and automobile windshields. He received his first patent in the early days of World War II for a periscope used by fighter pilots to see behind them during combat.
McMaster Motor is the fourth enterprise to be built from the germ of an idea into a profitable manufacturing entity by McMaster and his associates. Other companies founded and nurtured by McMaster include …
* Permaglass, Inc.; founded, 1948; merged with Guardian Industries, 1969. Glass processing.
* Glasstech Inc.; co-founded, 1971; sold to investors, 1989. Innovator and manufacturer of glass bending and tempering systems
* Solar Cells, Inc.; co-founded, 1987; True North Partners, LLC, purchased controlling interest, 1999; renamed company First Solar LLC. Photovoltaic modules for the production of electrical energy from sunlight.
In October 1995, McMaster was enshrined into the Engineering and Science Hall of Fame in Dayton, Ohio. He received the prestigious Phoenix Award as the national glass industry’s man of the year in 1993.
McMaster and his wife, Helen, are major philanthropic contributors to libraries, colleges, universities and hospitals throughout Northwest Ohio and Southeast Michigan.
The McMaster motor is so radical, yet efficient, that vehicles using it no longer need …
* A transmission
* A drive shaft
* A differential
* A center hump
* A catalytic converter
* A traditional exhaust system
* An extensive cooling system
* A starter and ignition system
* Spark plugs
The engine is environmentally friendly. The two-cycle version does not use gasoline, so it does not expel hydrocarbons. Further, the McMaster motor is sealed and does not require oxygen. It exhausts only air and water.
The engine has only two moving parts and is virtually noiseless. Further, the McMaster motor generates smoother torque and creates less vibration than a piston engine producing the same horsepower.
The engine can be mounted in either the vehicle’s front or rear.
Vehicles equipped with the McMaster motor will be considerably cheaper to operate once its unique fuel sources are commercially developed.