is anyone still active in this thread? any new development on Chinese land vehicle engine, especially in more exotic engine configurations like opposed piston diesel or even OPOC?
US army has
Cummins to do development on opposed piston diesel for quite some time. I wonder if PLA had done the same and asked their domestic suppliers to do some development.
on OPOC engine
New thought about OPOC:
What if people develop OPOC (look at GIF below), then change the structure from flat to V. Now we have an Opposed-Piston V engine with a single output crankshaft, so no complicated gearing to combine crankshafts like other opposed piston designs. It'll also be more compact compared to the original OPOC layout (especially in width because I don't know if you can put OPOC on vertical orientation).
Imagine integrating that into a power pack. It could have a high power-to-weight ratio, and have high fuel efficiency. Sounds like a perfect engine for AFV hybrid to me. The original OPOC might be adaptable to use as a Helicopter/Aircraft/UAV engine.
Getting excited yet? Now comes the bummer.
The main problem that I could see is that this layout is not proven. The startup that invented this layout had gone bankrupt, so we might never know the full potential of this engine. Then there's the question of maintenance and durability. What is the cylinder/piston wear going to be like? If there's something wrong with the cylinder/piston, how complicated will the maintenance be? Will it be highly strung and therefore reduce durability? We still don't know...
And from the manufacturer's perspective, there are several issues. Is this engine design going to be modular? How easy is it to increase power output by just stacking cylinder numbers so we can save on development costs? How difficult is it to produce this thing? What does the production cost look like?
And even more importantly, since the world is going electric, who else is going to use this engine in a new design aside from the military? Will we get into the mass production stage where individual unit costs can go down sufficiently enough to be competitive with incumbent engines? So many different questions...
TL;DR: Sounds interesting, until reality kicks in...