Reciprocating engine

A reciprocating engine, also often known as a piston engine, is

typically a heat engine (although there are also pneumatic and hydraulic
reciprocating engines) that uses one or more reciprocating pistons to
convert pressure into a rotating motion. This article describes the common
features of all types. The main types are: the internal combustion engine,
used extensively in motor vehicles; the steam engine, the mainstay of the
Industrial Revolution; and the niche application Stirling engine. Internal
combustion engines are further classified in two ways: either a spark-
ignition (SI) engine, where the spark plug initiates the combustion; or a
compression-ignition (CI) engine, where the air within the cylinder is
compressed, thus heating it, so that the heated air ignites fuel that is
injected then or earlier.[1]

Internal combustion piston

engine
Components of a typical, four stroke
Contents cycle, internal combustion piston
engine.
1 Common features in all types E - Exhaust camshaft
2 History I - Intake camshaft
3 Engine capacity S - Spark plug
V - Valves
4 Other modern non-internal combustion types
P - Piston
5 Reciprocating quantum heat engine R - Connecting rod
6 Miscellaneous engines C - Crankshaft
W - Water jacket for coolant flow
7 See also
8 Notes
9 External links

Common features in all types

There may be one or more pistons. Each piston is inside a cylinder, into which a gas is introduced, either already
under pressure (e.g. steam engine), or heated inside the cylinder either by ignition of a fuel air mixture (internal
combustion engine) or by contact with a hot heat exchanger in the cylinder (Stirling engine). The hot gases expand,
pushing the piston to the bottom of the cylinder. This position is also known as the Bottom Dead Center (BDC), or
where the piston forms the largest volume in the cylinder. The piston is returned to the cylinder top (Top Dead Centre)
(TDC) by a flywheel, the power from other pistons connected to the same shaft or (in a double acting cylinder) by the
same process acting on the other side of the piston. This is where the piston forms the smallest volume in the cylinder.
In most types the expanded or "exhausted" gases are removed from the cylinder by this stroke. The exception is the
Stirling engine, which repeatedly heats and cools the same sealed quantity of gas. The stroke is simply the distance
between the TDC and the BDC, or the greatest distance that the piston can travel in one direction.

In some designs the piston may be powered in both directions in the cylinder, in which case it is said to be double-
acting.
 In most types, the linear movement of the piston is converted
to a rotating movement via a connecting rod and a crankshaft
or by a swashplate or other suitable mechanism. A flywheel is
often used to ensure smooth rotation or to store energy to
carry the engine through an un-powered part of the cycle.
The more cylinders a reciprocating engine has, generally, the
more vibration-free (smoothly) it can operate. The power of a
reciprocating engine is proportional to the volume of the
combined pistons' displacement.
Steam piston engine
A seal must be made between the sliding piston and the walls
A labeled schematic diagram of a typical single-
cylinder, simple expansion, double-acting high of the cylinder so that the high pressure gas above the piston
pressure steam engine. Power takeoff from the does not leak past it and reduce the efficiency of the engine.
engine is by way of a belt. This seal is usually provided by one or more piston rings.
1 Piston These are rings made of a hard metal, and are sprung into a
2 Piston rod circular groove in the piston head. The rings fit tightly in the
3 Crosshead bearing
groove and press against the cylinder wall to form a seal.
4 Connecting rod
5 Crank
It is common to classify such engines by the number and
6 Eccentric valve motion
alignment of cylinders and total volume of displacement of
7 Flywheel
8 Sliding valve gas by the pistons moving in the cylinders usually measured
9 Centrifugal governor. in cubic centimetres (cm or cc) or litres (l) or (L) (US: liter).
For example, for internal combustion engines, single and
two-cylinder designs are common in smaller vehicles such as
motorcycles, while automobiles typically have between four and eight, and locomotives, and ships may have a dozen
cylinders or more. Cylinder capacities may range from 10 cm or less in model engines up to thousands of liters in
ships' engines.[2]

The compression ratio affects the performance in most types of reciprocating engine. It is the ratio between the
volume of the cylinder, when the piston is at the bottom of its stroke, and the volume when the piston is at the top of
its stroke.

The bore/stroke ratio is the ratio of the diameter of the piston, or "bore", to the length of travel within the cylinder, or
"stroke". If this is around 1 the engine is said to be "square", if it is greater than 1, i.e. the bore is larger than the stroke,
it is "oversquare". If it is less than 1, i.e. the stroke is larger than the bore, it is "undersquare".

Cylinders may be aligned in line, in a V configuration, horizontally opposite each other, or radially around the
crankshaft. Opposed-piston engines put two pistons working at opposite ends of the same cylinder and this has been
extended into triangular arrangements such as the Napier Deltic. Some designs have set the cylinders in motion
around the shaft, such as the Rotary engine.

In steam engines and internal combustion engines, valves are required to allow the entry and exit of gases at the
correct times in the piston's cycle. These are worked by cams, eccentrics or cranks driven by the shaft of the engine.
Early designs used the D slide valve but this has been largely superseded by Piston valve or Poppet valve designs. In
steam engines the point in the piston cycle at which the steam inlet valve closes is called the cutoff and this can often
be controlled to adjust the torque supplied by the engine and improve efficiency. In some steam engines, the action of
the valves can be replaced by an oscillating cylinder.

Internal combustion engines operate through a sequence of strokes that admit and remove gases to and from the
cylinder. These operations are repeated cyclically and an engine is said to be 2-stroke, 4-stroke or 6-stroke depending
on the number of strokes it takes to complete a cycle.
In some steam engines, the cylinders may be of varying size with the
smallest bore cylinder working the highest pressure steam. This is
then fed through one or more, increasingly larger bore cylinders
successively, to extract power from the steam at increasingly lower
pressures. These engines are called Compound engines.

Aside from looking at the power that the engine can produce, the
Mean Effective Pressure (MEP), can also be used in comparing the
power output and performance of reciprocating engines of the same
size. The mean effective pressure is the fictitious pressure which
would produce the same amount of net work that was produced
during the power stroke cycle. This is shown by:

Wnet = MEP x Piston Area x Stroke = MEP x Displacement Volume Stirling piston engine
and therefore: MEP = Wnet/Displacement Volume Rhombic Drive Beta Stirling Engine
Design, showing the second displacer
Whichever engine with the larger value of MEP produces more net piston (green) within the cylinder, which
work per cycle and performs more efficiently.[1] shunts the working gas between the hot
and cold ends, but produces no power
itself.
History (1) Pink Hot cylinder wall
(2) Dark grey Cold cylinder wall
An early known example of rotary to reciprocating motion is the crank (5) Green Displacer piston
mechanism. The earliest hand-operated cranks appeared in China (6) Dark blue Power piston
during the Han Dynasty (202 BC220 AD).[3] Several saw mills in (7) Light blue Flywheels
Roman Asia and Byzantine Syria during the 3rd6th centuries AD
had a crank and connecting rod mechanism which converted the
rotary motion of a water wheel into the linear movement of saw blades.[4] In 1206, Arab engineer Al-Jazari invented a
crankshaft.[5]

The reciprocating engine developed in Europe during the 18th century, first as the atmospheric engine then later as
the steam engine. These were followed by the Stirling engine and internal combustion engine in the 19th century.
Today the most common form of reciprocating engine is the internal combustion engine running on the combustion of
petrol, diesel, Liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) or compressed natural gas (CNG) and used to power motor vehicles and
engine power plants.

One notable reciprocating engine from the World War II Era was the 28-cylinder, 3,500 hp (2,600 kW) Pratt &
Whitney R-4360 "Wasp Major" radial engine. It powered the last generation of large piston-engined planes before jet
engines and turboprops took over from 1944 onward. It had a total engine capacity of 71.5 L (4,360 cu in), and a high
power-to-weight ratio.

The largest reciprocating engine in production at present, but not the largest ever built, is the Wrtsil-Sulzer RTA96-
C turbocharged two-stroke diesel engine of 2006 built by Wrtsil. It is used to power the largest modern container
ships such as the Emma Mrsk. It is five stories high (13.5 m or 44 ft), 27 m (89 ft) long, and weighs over 2,300 metric
tons (2,500 short tons) in its largest 14 cylinders version producing more than 84.42 MW (114,800 bhp). Each
cylinder has a capacity of 1,820 L (64 cu ft), making a total capacity of 25,480 L (900 cu ft) for the largest versions.

Engine capacity
For piston engines, an engine's capacity is the engine displacement, in other words the volume swept by all the pistons
of an engine in a single movement. It is generally measured in litres (l) or cubic inches (c.i.d. or cu in or in) for larger
engines, and cubic centimetres (abbreviated cc) for smaller engines. All else being equal, engines with greater
capacities are more powerful and consumption of fuel increases accordingly (although this is not true of every
Reciprocating engine), although power and fuel consumption are affected by many factors outside of engine
displacement.

Other modern non-internal combustion types

Reciprocating engines that are powered by compressed air, steam or other hot gases are still used in some applications
such as to drive many modern torpedoes or as pollution-free motive power. Most steam-driven applications use steam
turbines, which are more efficient than piston engines.

The French-designed FlowAIR vehicles use compressed air stored in a cylinder to drive a reciprocating engine in a
pollution-free urban vehicle.[6]

Torpedoes may use a working gas produced by high test peroxide or Otto fuel II, which pressurise without
combustion. The 230 kg (510 lb) Mark 46 torpedo, for example, can travel 11 km (6.8 mi) underwater at 74 km/h
(46 mph) fuelled by Otto fuel without oxidant.

Reciprocating quantum heat engine

Quantum heat engines are devices that generate power from heat that flows from a hot to a cold reservoir. The
mechanism of operation of the engine can be described by the laws of quantum mechanics. Quantum refrigerators are
devices that consume power with the purpose to pump heat from a cold to a hot reservoir.

In a reciprocating quantum heat engine the working medium is a quantum system such as spin systems or an
harmonic oscillator. The Carnot cycle and Otto cycle are the ones most studied.[7] The quantum versions obey the laws
of thermodynamics. In addition these models can justify the assumptions of endoreversible thermodynamics. A
theoretical study has shown that it is possible and practical to build a reciprocating engine that is composed of a single
oscillating atom. This is an area for future research and could have applications in nanotechnology.[8]

Miscellaneous engines
There are a large number of unusual varieties of piston engines that have various claimed advantages, many of which
see little if any current use:

Free-piston engine
Swing-piston engine
IRIS engine
Bourke engine

See also
Heat engine for a view of the thermodynamics Internal combustion engine
involved in these engines. Otto cycle
For a contrasting approach using no pistons, see the Diesel cycle
pistonless rotary engine. Engine configuration for a discussion of the
For an historical perspective see Timeline of heat layout of the major components of a reciprocating
engine technology. piston internal combustion engine.
Steam engine Diesel engine
Steam locomotive Gasoline engine
Stirling engine

Notes
 1. Thermodynamics: An Engineering Approach by Yunus A. Cengal and Michael A. Boles
2. Hanlon, Mike. Most powerful diesel engine in the world (http://www.gizmag.com/go/3263/) GizMag. Accessed: 14
April 2017.
3. Needham, Joseph. (1986). Science and Civilization in China: Volume 4, Part 2, Mechanical Engineering. Taipei:
Caves Books, Ltd. Pages 118119.
4. Ritti, Tullia; Grewe, Klaus; Kessener, Paul (2007), "A Relief of a Water-powered Stone Saw Mill on a Sarcophagus
at Hierapolis and its Implications", Journal of Roman Archaeology, 20: 138163
5. Sally Ganchy, Sarah Gancher (2009), Islam and Science, Medicine, and Technology, The Rosen Publishing
Group, p. 41, ISBN 1-4358-5066-1
6. AIRPod (http://zeropollutionmotors.us/) manufactured by MDI SA. Accessed February 19, 2015
7. [1] (http://iopscience.iop.org/1367-2630/8/5/083/fulltext/) Irreversible performance of a quantum harmonic heat
engine, Rezek and Kosloff, New J. Phys. 8 (2006) 83
8. Can a car engine be built out of a single particle? (http://phys.org/news/2012-11-car-built-particle.html) Physorg,
November 30, 2012 by Lisa Zyga. Accessed 01-12-12

External links
Combustion video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObmAOJA__1k) - in-cylinder combustion in an optically
accessible, 2-stroke engine
HowStuffWorks: How Car Engines Work (http://auto.howstuffworks.com/engine.htm)
Reciprocating Engines (http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/sci/A0858857.html) at Infoplease.
Piston Engines (http://www.centennialofflight.gov/essay/Evolution_of_Technology/piston_engines/Tech23.htm) at
the US Centennial of Flight Commission.

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This page was last edited on 28 August 2017, at 21:38.

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