A Short Course on

Automobile Engines
by Charles Ofria

Internal combustion gasoline engines run on a mixture of gasoline and air. The ideal
mixture is 14.7 parts of air to one part of gasoline (by weight.) Since gas weighs much
more than air, we are talking about a whole lot of air and a tiny bit of gas. One part of
gas that is completely vaporized into 14.7 parts of air can produce tremendous power
when ignited inside an engine.

Let's see how the modern engine uses that energy to make the
wheels turn.

Air enters the engine through the air cleaner and proceeds to the throttle plate. You
control the amount of air that passes through the throttle plate and into the engine with
the gas pedal. It is then distributed through a series of passages called the intake
manifold, to each cylinder. At some point after the air cleaner, depending on the engine,
fuel is added to the air-stream by either a fuel injection system or, in older vehicles, by
the carburetor.

Once the fuel is vaporized into the air stream, the mixture is drawn into each cylinder as
that cylinder begins its intake stroke. When the piston reaches the bottom of the
cylinder, the intake valve closes and the piston begins moving up in the cylinder
compressing the charge. When the piston reaches the top, the spark plug ignites the fuel-
air mixture causing a powerful expansion of the gas, which pushes the piston back down
with great force against the crankshaft, just like a bicycle rider pushing against the pedals
to make the bike go.

Let's take a closer look at this process.

Engine Types

The majority of engines in motor vehicles today are four-stroke,

spark-ignition internal combustion engines. The exceptions like
the diesel and rotary engines will not be covered in this article.

There are several engine types which are identified by the

number of cylinders and the way the cylinders are laid out.
Motor vehicles will have from 3 to 12 cylinders which are
arranged in the engine block in several configurations. The most
popular of them are shown on the left. In-line engines have their
 cylinders arranged in a row. 3, 4, 5 and 6 cylinder engines
commonly use this arrangement. The "V" arrangement uses
two banks of cylinders side-by-side and is commonly used
in V-6, V-8, V-10 and V-12 configurations. Flat engines
use two opposing banks of cylinders and are less common
than the other two designs. They are used in engines from
Subaru and Porsche in 4 and 6 cylinder arrangements as
well as in the old VW beetles with 4 cylinders. Flat engines are also used in some
Ferraris with 12 cylinders

Most engine blocks are made of cast iron or cast aluminum..

Each cylinder contains a piston that travels up and down inside the cylinder bore. All the
pistons in the engine are connected through individual connecting rods to a common
crankshaft.

The crankshaft is located below the cylinders on an

in-line engine, at the base of the V on a V-type
engine and between the cylinder banks on a flat
engine. As the pistons move up and down, they turn
the crankshaft just like your legs pump up and down
to turn the crank that is connected to the pedals of a
bicycle.

A cylinder head is bolted to the top of each bank of

cylinders to seal the individual cylinders and contain the
combustion process that takes place inside the cylinder.
Most cylinder heads are made of cast aluminum or cast
iron. The cylinder head contains at least one intake valve
and one exhaust valve for each cylinder. This allows the
air-fuel mixture to enter the cylinder and the burned
exhaust gas to exit the cylinder. Engines have at least
two valves per cylinder, one intake valve and one exhaust
valve. Many newer engines are using multiple intake and
exhaust valves per cylinder for increased engine power
and efficiency. These engines are sometimes named for
the number of valves that they have such as "24 Valve
V6" which indicates a V-6 engine with four valves per
cylinder. Modern engine designs can use anywhere from 2 to 5 valves per cylinder.

The valves are opened and closed by means of a camshaft. A camshaft is a rotating shaft
that has individual lobes for each valve. The lobe is a "bump" on one side of the shaft
that pushes against a valve lifter moving it up and down. When the lobe pushes against
the lifter, the lifter in turn pushes the valve open. When the lobe rotates away from the
lifter, the valve is closed by a spring that is attached to the valve. A common
configuration is to have one camshaft located in the engine block with the lifters
connecting to the valves through a series of linkages. The camshaft must be
synchronized with the crankshaft so that the camshaft makes one revolution for every two
revolutions of the crankshaft. In most engines, this is done by a "Timing Chain" (similar
to a bicycle chain) that connects the camshaft with the crankshaft. Newer engines have
the camshaft located in the cylinder head directly over the valves. This design is more
efficient but it is more costly to manufacture and requires multiple camshafts on Flat and
V-type engines. It also requires much longer timing chains or timing belts which are
prone to wear. Some engines have two camshafts on each head, one for the intake valves
and one for the exhaust valves. These engines are called Double Overhead Camshaft
(D.O.H.C.) Engines while the other type is called Single Overhead Camshaft (S.O.H.C.)
Engines. Engines with the camshaft in the block are called Overhead Valve (O.H.V)
Engines.

Now when you see "DOHC 24 Valve V6", you'll

know what it means.

How an Engine Works

Since the same process occurs in each cylinder, we

will take a look at one cylinder to see how the four
stroke process works.

The four strokes are Intake, Compression, Power

and Exhaust. The piston travels down on the Intake
stroke, up on the Compression stroke, down on the
Power stroke and up on the Exhaust stroke.

• Intake
As the piston starts down on the Intake
stroke, the intake valve opens and the fuel-
air mixture is drawn into the cylinder
(similar to drawing back the plunger on a
hypodermic needle to allow fluid to be
drawn into the chamber.)
When the piston reaches the bottom of the intake stroke, the intake valve closes,
trapping the air-fuel mixture in the cylinder.
• Compression
The piston moves up and compresses the trapped air fuel mixture that was
brought in by the intake stroke. The amount that the mixture is compressed is
determined by the compression ratio of the engine. The compression ratio on the
average engine is in the range of 8:1 to 10:1.
This means that when the piston reaches the top of the cylinder, the air-fuel
 mixture is squeezed to about one tenth of its original volume.
• Power
The spark plug fires, igniting the compressed air-fuel mixture which produces a
powerful expansion of the vapor. The combustion process pushes the piston
down the cylinder with great force turning the crankshaft to provide the power to
propel the vehicle. Each piston fires at a different time, determined by the engine
firing order. By the time the crankshaft completes two revolutions, each cylinder
in the engine will have gone through one power stroke.
• Exhaust
With the piston at the bottom of the cylinder, the exhaust valve opens to allow the
burned exhaust gas to be expelled to the exhaust system. Since the cylinder
contains so much pressure, when the valve opens, the gas is expelled with a
violent force (that is why a vehicle without a muffler sounds so loud.) The
piston travels up to the top of the cylinder pushing all the exhaust out before
closing the exhaust valve in preparation for starting the four stroke process over
again.

Oiling System

Oil is the life-blood of the engine. An engine running without oil will last about as long
as a human without blood. Oil is pumped under pressure to all the moving parts of the
engine by an oil pump. The oil pump is mounted at the bottom of the engine in the oil
pan and is connected by a gear to either the crankshaft or the camshaft. This way, when
the engine is turning, the oil pump is pumping. There is an oil pressure sensor near the
oil pump that monitors pressure and sends this information to a warning light or a gauge
on the dashboard. When you turn the ignition key on, but before you start the car, the oil
light should light, indicating that there is no oil pressure yet, but also letting you know
that the warning system is working. As soon as you start cranking the engine to start it,
the light should go out indicating that there is oil pressure.

Engine Cooling

Internal combustion engines must maintain a stable operating temperature, not too hot
and not too cold. With the massive amounts of heat that is generated from the
combustion process, if the engine did not have a method for cooling itself, it would
quickly self-destruct. Major engine parts can warp causing oil and water leaks and the oil
will boil and become useless.

While some engines are air-cooled, the vast majority of engines are liquid cooled. The
water pump circulates coolant throughout the engine, hitting the hot areas around the
cylinders and heads and then sends the hot coolant to the radiator to be cooled off. For
more information on the cooling system, click here.

Engine Balance
Flywheel A 4 cylinder engine produces a power stroke every half crankshaft revolution,
an 8 cylinder, every quarter revolution. This means that a V8 will be smother running
than a 4. To keep the combustion pulses from generating a vibration, a flywheel is
attached to the back of the crankshaft. The flywheel is a disk that is about 12 to 15 inches
in diameter. On a standard transmission car, the flywheel is a heavy iron disk that doubles
as part of the clutch system. On automatic equipped vehicles, the flywheel is a stamped
steel plate that mounts the heavy torque converter. The flywheel uses inertia to smooth
out the normal engine pulses.

Balance Shaft Some engines have an inherent rocking motion that produces an
annoying vibration while running. To combat this, engineers employ one or more
balance shafts. A balance shaft is a heavy shaft that runs through the engine parallel to
the crankshaft. This shaft has large weights that, while spinning, offset the rocking
motion of the engine by creating an opposite rocking motion of their own.
Engine
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search

For other uses, see Engine (disambiguation).

An engine is a mechanical device that produces some form of output from a given input.

Military engines included siege engines, large catapults, trebuchets and battering rams.

An engine whose purpose is to produce kinetic energy output from a fuel source is called
a prime mover; alternatively, a motor is a device which produces kinetic energy from a
preprocessed "fuel" (such as electricity, a flow of hydraulic fluid or compressed air).

A car has a starter motor, a windscreen wiper motor, windscreen washer motor, a fuel
pump motor and motors to adjust the wing mirrors from within the car and a (motorised)
radio antenna - but the power plant that propels the car is an engine. Again an aircraft will
have many motors installed for operation of its many auxiliary operations and services,
but aircraft are propelled by engines, in this case, jet engines.
Contents
[hide]

• 1 Usage of the term "Engine"

o 1.1 Antiquity
o 1.2 Medieval
o 1.3 Modern
• 2 Air-breathing engines
• 3 Environmental effects
• 4 References
• 5 See also

• 6 External links

[edit] Usage of the term "Engine"

Originally an engine was a mechanical device that converted force into motion. Military
devices such as catapults are referred to as siege engines. The term "gin" as in cotton gin
is recognised as a short form of the Old French word engin, in turn from the Latin
ingenium, related to ingenious. Most devices used in the industrial revolution were
referred to as an engine, and this is where the steam engine gained its name.

In more modern usage, the term is used to describe devices that perform mechanical
work, follow-ons to the original steam engine. In most cases the work is supplied by
exerting a torque, which is used to operate other machinery, generate electricity, pump
water or compressed gas. In the context of propulsion systems, an air breathing engine is
one that uses atmospheric air to oxidise the fuel carried, rather than carrying an oxidiser,
as in a rocket.

The term is used in computer science in "search engine", "3-D graphics game engine",
"rendering engine" and "text-to-speech engine", even though these "engines" are not
mechanical and cause no mechanical action (this usage may have been inspired by the
"difference engine", an early mechanical computing device).

[edit] Antiquity

Simple machines, such as club and oar (examples of the lever), are prehistoric. More
complex engines using human power, animal power, water power, wind power and even
steam power date back to antiquity. Human power was focused by the use of simple
engines, such as the capstan, windlass or treadmill, and with ropes, pulleys, and block
and tackle arrangements, this power was transmitted and multiplied. These were used in
cranes and aboard ships in Ancient Greece, and in mines, water pumps and siege engines
in Ancient Rome. The writers of those times, including Vitruvius, Frontinus and Pliny the
Elder, treat these engines as commonplace, so their invention may be far more ancient.
By the 1st century AD, various breeds of cattle and horses were used in mills, using
machines similar to those powered by humans in earlier times.

According to Strabo, a water powered mill was built in Kaberia in the kingdom of
Mithridates in the 1st century BC. Use of water wheels in mills spread throughout the
Roman Empire over the next few centuries. Some were quite complex, with aqueducts,
dams, and sluices to maintain and channel the water, and systems of gears, or toothed-
wheels made of wood with metal, used to regulate the speed of rotation. In a poem by
Ausonius in the 4th century, he mentions a stone-cutting saw powered by water. Hero of
Alexandria demonstrated both wind and steam powered machines in the 1st century,
although it is not known if these were put to any use.

[edit] Medieval

During the Muslim Agricultural Revolution from the 7th to 13th centuries, Muslim
engineers developed numerous innovative industrial uses of hydropower, early industrial
uses of tidal power, wind power, and fossil fuels such as petroleum, and the earliest large
factory complexes (tiraz in Arabic).[1] The industrial uses of watermills in the Islamic
world date back to the 7th century, while horizontal-wheeled and vertical-wheeled water
mills were both in widespread use since at least the 9th century. A variety of industrial
mills were invented in the Islamic world, including fulling mills, gristmills, hullers, paper
mills, sawmills, ship mills, stamp mills, steel mills, sugar refineries, tide mills, and
windmills. By the 11th century, every province throughout the Islamic world had these
industrial mills in operation, from the Middle East and Central Asia to al-Andalus and
North Africa.[2]

Muslim engineers also invented crankshafts and water turbines, employed gears in mills
and water-raising machines, and pioneered the use of dams as a source of water power to
provide additional power to watermills and water-raising machines.[3] Such advances
made it possible for many industrial tasks that were previously driven by manual labour
in ancient times to be mechanized and driven by machinery to some extent in the
medieval Islamic world. The transfer of these technologies to medieval Europe later laid
the foundations for the Industrial Revolution in 18th century Europe.[2]

In 1206, al-Jazari invented the crankshaft and connecting rod, and employed them in a
crank-connecting rod system for two of his water-raising machines. His invention of the
crankshaft is considered one of the most important mechanical inventions after the wheel,
as it transforms continuous rotary motion into a linear reciprocating motion, and is central
to modern machinery such as the steam engine and the internal combustion engine.[4] In
1551, Taqi al-Din invented a practical steam turbine as a prime mover for rotating a spit.
A similar steam turbine later appeared in Europe a century later, which eventually led to
the steam engine and Industrial Revolution in 18th century Europe.[5]

[edit] Modern
Animation showing the four stages of the combustion engine cycle

English inventor Sir Samuel Morland allegedly used gunpowder to drive water pumps in
the 17th century. For more conventional, reciprocating internal combustion engines. the
fundamental theory for two-stroke engines was established by Sadi Carnot, France, 1824,
whilst the American Samuel Morey received a patent on April 1, 1826. Sir Dugald Clark
(1854 – 1932) designed the first two-stroke engine in 1878 and patented it in England in
1881. Automotive production has used a range of energy-conversion systems. These
include electric, steam, solar, turbine, rotary, and piston-type internal combustion
engines. The petrol internal combustion engine, operating on a four-stroke Otto cycle, has
been the most successful for automobiles, while diesel engines are used for trucks and
buses. Karl Benz was one of the leaders in the development of new engines. In 1878 he
began to work on new designs. He concentrated his efforts on creating a reliable gas two-
stroke engine that was more powerful, based on Nikolaus Otto's design of the four-stroke
engine. Karl Benz showed his real genius, however, through his successive inventions
registered while designing what would become the production standard for his two-stroke
engine. Benz was granted a patent for it in 1879.

In 1896, Karl Benz was granted a patent for his design of the first engine with
horizontally-opposed pistons. Many BMW motorcycles use this engine type. His design
created an engine in which the corresponding pistons move in horizontal cylinders and
reach top dead centre simultaneously, thus automatically balancing each other with
respect to their individual momentums. Engines of this design are often referred to as flat
engines because of their shape and lower profile. They must have an even number of
cylinders and six, four or two cylinder flat engines have all been common. The most
well-known engine of this type is probably the Volkswagen beetle engine. Engines of this
type continue to be a common design principle for high performance aero engines (for
propellor driven aircraft) and, engines used by automobile producers such as Porsche and
Subaru.

Continuance of the use of the internal combustion engine for automobiles is partly due to
the improvement of engine control systems (onboard computers providing engine
management processes, and electronically controlled fuel injection). Forced air induction
by turbocharging and supercharging have increased power outputs and efficiencies
available. Similar changes have been applied to smaller diesel engines giving them
almost the same power characteristics as petrol engines. This is especially evident with
the popularity of smaller diesel engine propelled cars in Europe. Larger diesel engines are
still often used in trucks and heavy machinery. They do not burn as clean as gasoline
engines, however they have far more torque. The internal combustion engine was
originally selected for the automobile due to its flexibility over a wide range of speeds.
Also, the power developed for a given weight engine was reasonable; it could be
produced by economical mass-production methods; and it used a readily available,
moderately priced fuel - petrol.

Mercedes V6 engine in 1996

School model of engine

School model of an engine

There has been a growing emphasis on the pollution producing features of automotive
power systems. This has created new interest in alternate power sources and internal-
combustion engine refinements. Although a few limited-production battery-powered
electric vehicles have appeared, they have not proved to be competitive owing to costs
and operating characteristics. In the twenty-first century the diesel engine has been
increasing in popularity with automobile owners. However, the gasoline engine, with its
new emission-control devices to improve emission performance, has not yet been
significantly challenged.

The first half of the twentieth century saw a trend to increasing engine power, particularly
in the American models. Design changes incorporated all known methods of raising
engine capacity, including increasing the pressure in the cylinders to improve efficiency,
increasing the size of the engine, and increasing the speed at which power is generated.
The higher forces and pressures created by these changes created engine vibration and
size problems that led to stiffer, more compact engines with V and opposed cylinder
layouts replacing longer straight-line arrangements. In passenger cars, V-8 layouts were
adopted for all piston displacements greater than 250 cubic inches (4 litres).

The design principles favoured in Europe, because of economic and other restraints, leant
toward smaller cars and corresponding design principles that concentrated on increasing
the combustion efficiency of smaller engines. This produced more economical engines
with earlier four-cylinder designs rated at 40 horsepower (30 kW) and six-cylinder
designs rated as low as 80 horsepower (60 kW), compared with the large volume V-8
American engines with power ratings in the range from 250 to 350 hp (190 to 260 kW).

Earlier automobile engine development produced a much larger range of engines than is
in common use today. Engines have ranged from 1 to 16 cylinder designs with
corresponding differences in overall size, weight, piston displacement, and cylinder
bores. Four cylinders and power ratings from 19 to 120 hp (14 to 90 kW) were followed
in a majority of the models. Several three-cylinder, two-stroke-cycle models were built
while most engines had straight or in-line cylinders. There were several V-type models
and horizontally opposed two- and four-cylinder makes too. Overhead camshafts were
frequently employed. The smaller engines were commonly air-cooled and located at the
rear of the vehicle; compression ratios were relatively low. The 1970s and '80s saw an
increased interest in improved fuel economy which brought in a return to smaller V-6 and
four-cylinder layouts, with as many as five valves per cylinder to improve efficiency. The
Bugatti Veyron 16.4 operates with a W16 engine meaning that two V8 cylinder layouts
are positioned next to each other to create the W shape, which means the Veyron has the
largest number of cylinders to appear in a production car.

The largest internal combustion engine ever built is the Wärtsilä-Sulzer RTA96-C, a 14-
cylinder, 2-stroke turbocharged diesel engine that was designed to power the Emma
Maersk, the largest container ship in the world. This engine weighs 2300 tonnes, and
when running at 102 RPM produces 109,000 bhp (80,080 kW) consuming some 13.7
tonnes of fuel each hour.
[edit] Air-breathing engines
Air-breathing engines use atmospheric air to oxidise the fuel carried, rather than carrying
an oxidiser, as in a rocket. Theoretically, this should result in a better specific impulse
than for rocket engines. Air-breathing engines include:

• Internal combustion engine

• Jet engine
• Ramjet
• Scramjet
• Pulse detonation engine
• Pulse jet
• Liquid air cycle engine/SABRE
• Marquez jet cycle

[edit] Environmental effects

Operation of engines and typically lead to impacts upon ambient sound levels air quality.
In the case of sound levels engine operation is of greatest impact with respect to mobile
sources such as automobiles and trucks. Engine noise is a particularly large component of
mobile source noise for vehicles operating at lower speeds, where aerodynamic and tyre
noise is less significant.