Combustion Chambers in SI Engine:

The design of combustion chamber has an important influence upon the

engine performance and its knock properties.
The design of combustion chamber involves the shape of the combustion
chamber, the location of the sparking plug and the disposition of inlet
and exhaust valves.
Because of the importance of combustion chamber design, it has been a
subject of considerable amount of research and development in the last
fifty years.
It has resulted in raising the compression ratio from 4: 1 before the First
World War period to 8: 1 to 11:1 in present times with special combustion
Chamber designs and suitable anti-knock fuels.

Combustion Chambers in SI Engines:

Cylinder heads are designed to help improve the swirl or turbulence
of the air-fuel mixture, and prevent fuel droplets settling on the
surfaces of the combustion chamber or cylinder walls.
When air-fuel mixture is compressed between the piston and the
flat part of the cylinder head, it produces whats called squish.
That means squeezing of the gases to increase their velocity and
turbulence.
In gasoline engines, the three most popular combustion chamber
designs are called hemispherical pent roof, bath-tub and wedge.

Hemispherical Combustion Chamber:

Hemispherical combustion chamber:

In this design combustion chamber is approximately the shape of
hemisphere.
An intake valve is on one side of the combustion chamber and an
exhaust valve is on the other.
This provides a cross flow the air-fuel mixture enters the chamber on
one side and combustion gases on the other.
Because of this Cylinder heads of this design are also referred to as
cross flow Cylinder-Heads.
Positioning the valves in this way leaves room for relatively large
valves and ports, and that helps the engine breathe.

Hemispherical combustion chamber:

Breathing refers to the engine taking in the air or air-fuel mixture.
Two intake and two exhaust valves are used on some engines.
These arrangements assist the engines breathing.
This design is also referred to as a pent roof combustion chamber.

As soon as cross flow, hemispherical combustion chambers have an

advantage because the spark plug is able to be located at the center
of the chamber.

Also with the spark located and the center, the flame travel distance
is reduced and this provides rapid and effective combustion.

Hemispherical combustion chamber:

Burning of the fuel starts and the spark plug and travel rapidly
outwards in all directions. This is known as flame propagation.
This design is common in a lot of passenger vehicles.

Bathtub Combustion Chamber:

Bathtub Combustion Chamber:

This is the somewhat oval-shaped chamber in the cylinder head, with the valves
side by side.
The name has been derived from its shape, which has been likened to an inverted
bathtub.
The sparkplug is located on one side.
This arrangement provides a short flame path from the spark-plug.

The valves are usually vertical and the cylinder head and are in-line.

Bathtub Combustion Chamber:

Turbulence in the combustion chamber is assisted by the shape of
chamber and fact that it has a smaller cross section than the
cylinder.
This produces a squish effect when the air fuel mixture is
compressed between the piston and the flat part of the cylinder head.

Wedge Shaped Combustion Chamber:

In this design, the combustion
chamber is shaped like a
wedge, tapering away from the
spark plug, which is located at
the thick end of the wedge.
The valves are inclined from
the vertical, but all the valves
are in-line.

Wedge Shaped Combustion Chamber:

Wedge shaped combustion chamber tend to have a smaller surface
area than other designs and so have less area on which droplets of
you can condense.
This assists in reducing the amount of fuel that remains unburnt
after combustion and so reduces the hydrocarbon emissions and the
engine exhaust.

Different Combustion Chamber: