Hello all,

I am currently working on a SolidWorks Clerget Rotary Engine model for my design classes. I have been making great progress until I have tried to attach the connecting rods to to the rocker arms on the top of the cylinder heads.

If I keep the cylinder barrel assembly ridgit, I can easily rotate the cylinder assembly, along with the pistons, and cam gearing and pushrods around the stationary crankshaft.

The instant I change the cylinder barrel assembly to flexible to allow movment of valves, I run into all sorts of problems. Firstly the model grinds to a halt, and mates go out of alignment. I am wondering if the large number of flexable components is causing problems, as there is a huge number of calculations to solve as the engine rotates around the crankshaft.

I have set the entire assembly to lightweight, with no change in results. I am currently running SolidWorks on a Lenovo W500 with 4GB of RAM and a T9400 processor. I have learned to SolidWorks is only using one core becasue the task manager is saying the processor is used at 50% while the engine assembly is struggling. This is the most complex project that I have ever attempted with SolidWorks. All of my other projects (with much less moving parts) worked worked well on this computer.

Is there anything that I have overlooked? Have I made several mating errors that are only making things worse, as the model rotates around the stationary crankshaft?

I have included all of the required files.

Thanks