The conventional crankshaft, being of the same design now as it was for over 200 years ago and still being the prevailing and only power transmission method in piston engines, causes considerable vibrations and wear, by oscillating masses and generating side forces on the piston. In a normal combustion engine, the crank mechanism alone stands for 20% of the fuel consumption!
For these reasons rotating piston machines, such as f.ex. the Rotary Vane and the Wankel, have been developed, but for higher loads, like in a combustion engine, they cannot compete with the sealing potential of a reciprocating circular(!) piston (many do not know that this is due to a physical law – no design can change that ). Many inventors have tried to find another way of power transmission, but their inventions failed because they could not omit sliding components, causing excessive friction at other locations. This is why such designs never became commercial – except for the crosshead in high-load, low speed engines (f.ex. ship-diesels).
I got the idea for this design of a linear crankshaft many years ago, when I was with my kids in a merry-go-round and noticed the remarkable motion of my body relative the surroundings. The linear crankshaft design, resulting from this observation, actually eliminates side forces by using a configuration of rotating elements only, that generates a linear motion without introducing additional friction with sliding components elsewhere. In addition, vibrations of higher order are eliminated, as well as the need of balancing out inertial effects (they take each other out per design – resulting eccentric inertial forces do not occur). As a combining result, the sealing capacity of piston rings increases and the wear decreases significantly.