Physics of the Internal Combustion Engine

Background information In Cambridge, England, a man named Pastor W. Cecil in 1820 explained to scientists and inventors how internal combustion engines work. All his colleagues laughed at him and told him that he never would. In 1860, Jean Joseph E'tienne Lenoir realized Cecil's idea by manufacturing the first practical internal combustion engine. Three years later in 1863, Lenoir produced the world's first gas engine car. Ignition System You have thought about ways to turn easy keys to start a car so far.

An internal combustion engine (ICE) is a heat engine in which the combustion of fuel is carried out in the combustion chamber using an oxidant (usually air), which is an integral part of the working fluid flow circuit. In internal combustion engines, the expansion of high-temperature, high-pressure gases produced by combustion exerts a direct force on certain components of the engine. This force is usually applied to the piston, turbine blade, rotor or nozzle. This force moves the part a certain distance and converts chemical energy into useful mechanical energy.

Internal combustion engines can be divided into two groups: continuous internal combustion engines and intermittent internal combustion engines. A continuous combustion engine is characterized in that the fuel and the oxidant flow into the engine in a stable manner. Please maintain a stable flame in the engine (such as jet engine). Intermittent combustion engines are characterized by periodic ignition of air and fuel and are commonly referred to as reciprocating engines. Discrete air and fuel are processed periodically. Gasoline piston engine and diesel engine are examples of the second group

Like gasoline engines, diesel engines are internal combustion engines. Combustion is another term of combustion, the interior is internal, so the internal combustion engine is just where the fuel burns in the main part (cylinder) of the engine. This is very different from the external combustion engine used in the old steam locomotive. In a steam engine, there is a big fire at one end of a boiler that generates steam by heating water. Steam flows through a long tube and flows into the cylinder at the other end of the boiler where it pushes the piston back and forth to move the wheel. This is external combustion as the fire is outside the cylinder (actually 6 to 7 meters or 20 to 30 feet in fact). In gasoline or diesel engines, the fuel burns in the cylinder. That's why internal combustion engines are more efficient than external combustion engines (they produce more energy from the same amount of fuel).