Four-stroke Spark Ignition (SI) Engine
Stroke 1: Fuel-air mixture introduced into cylinder through intake
valve
Stroke 2: Fuel-air mixture compressed
Stroke 3: Combustion (roughly constant volume) occurs and
product gases expand doing work
Stroke 4: Product gases pushed out of the cylinder through the
exhaust valve
FUEL
A
I Ignition
R
Fuel/Air
Mixture Combustion
Products
Intake Compression Power Exhaust
Stroke Stroke Stroke Stroke
1
Engine Operating Cycle
Spark plug for SI engine
Fuel injector for CI engine
Valves
Top Clearance
Center volume
(TC)
Cylinder
Stroke wall
Pressure and
Bottom
oil rings
Center
(BC) Piston
Connecting
TC rod
0o
Crank shaft
θ
270o 90o
180o
2
BC
Multi-Cylinder Spark Ignition Engine
Pressure-Volume Graph 4-stroke SI engine
One power stroke for every two crank shaft revolutions
Pressure Spark
Exhaust
Exhaust valve
valve opens
closes
Intake
1 atm valve
Intake closes
valve
opens
TC BC
Cylinder volume 4
Motored Four-Stroke Engine
Pressure (bar)
100
10
BC
TC
Intake Exhaust
IVO - intake valve opens, IVC – intake valve closes
EVO – exhaust valve opens, EVC – exhaust valve closes
Xb – burned gas mole fraction
5
Four-Stroke SI Engine
Pressure (bar)
100
Valve overlap 10
Intake Exhaust
IVO - intake valve opens, IVC – intake valve closes
EVO – exhaust valve opens, EVC – exhaust valve opens
Xb – burned gas mole fraction
6
Four stroke Compression Ignition (CI) Engine
Stroke 1: Air is introduced into cylinder through intake valve
Stroke 2: Air is compressed
Stroke 3: Combustion (roughly constant pressure) occurs and
product gases expand doing work
Stroke 4: Product gases pushed out of the cylinder through the
exhaust valve
A
I Fuel Injector
R
Air Combustion
Products
Intake Compression Power Exhaust
Stroke Stroke Stroke Stroke
7
Four-Stroke CI Engine
Cylinder
volume
Fuel mass
flow rate
SOI – start of injection
EOI – end of injection
Cylinder SOC – start of combustion
pressure EOC – end of combustion
Fuel mass
burn rate
8
Engine Anatomy
Air cleaner
Carburetor Camshaft
Rocker arm
Intake valve
Cam sprocket Exhaust valve
Piston
Connecting rod
Timing belt
Timing belt Crankshaft
tensor
Oil pump
Crank sprocket Oil pickup 9
Ford’s inline 4-cylinder Duratec 2.3 Liter (SAE Automotive Engineering, Oct. 2005)
10
Poppet Valve Actuation with Overhead Camshaft
Camshaft
Spring
Spark
plug Guide
Stem
Air manifold
Valve head
Valve seat
Piston
11
Modern Two-Stroke Spark Ignition Engine
Stroke 1: Fuel-air mixture is introduced into the cylinder and is
then compressed, combustion initiated at the end of the stroke
Stroke 2: Combustion products expand doing work and then
exhausted
* Power delivered to the crankshaft on every revolution
12
Two Stroke Spark Ignition Engine
Exhaust
Port*
Transfer
Port*
Fuel-air-oil
mixture
Reed
valve
Expansion Exhaust Intake (“Scavenging”)
Crank
shaft
*No valves and
thus no camshaft
Fuel-air-oil
mixture
Compression Ignition 13
Scavenging in Two-Stroke Engine
Cross Loop Uniflow
14
Advantages of the two stroke engine:
• Power to weight ratio is higher than the four stroke engine since there is
one power stroke per crank shaft revolution.
• No valves or camshaft, just ports
Most often used for low cost, small engine applications such as lawn
mowers, marine outboard engines, motorcycles….
Disadvantages of the two-stroke engine:
• Incomplete scavenging – limits power
• Fuel-air short circuiting – low fuel efficiency, high HC emission
• Burns oil mixed in with the fuel – high HC emission
15
Multi-cylinder Engines
Multi-cylinder engines spread out the displacement volume amongst
multiple smaller cylinders. Increased frequency of power strokes
produces smoother torque characteristics.
Most common cylinder arrangements are in-line 4, 6 and V-6,-8:
Engine balance (inertia forces associated with accelerating and
decelerating piston) better for in-line versus V configuration.
16
V-6 Engine
Inlet
runner
Air intake
manifold
17
Power Regulation
• For proper combustion the ratio of the mass of air to the mass of fuel
in the cylinder must be roughly 15.
• An IC engine is basically an air engine, the more air that enters the
cylinder, the more fuel can be burned, the more energy (power) output.
• Vary throttle position - Maximum intake pressure (and power) achieved
at wide-open-throttle (WOT) minimum at idle
Fuel
Patm Pint < Patm
Idle
Intake
manifold
WOT
18
Power Regulation Methods
Basic methods:
1) Manifold pressure
2) Air mass flow rate
3) Throttle position
Engine Control Unit (ECU) activates the fuel injector solenoid for a
duration corresponding to measurement
Pressure
Air mass transducer
flow meter Fuel
Patm Pint < Patm
Throttle
position
sensor Intake
manifold
19
Fuel-Air Mixing
• In spark ignition engines the air and fuel are usually mixed prior to entry
into the cylinder.
• Initially a purely mechanical device known as a carburetor was used to
mix the fuel and the air
• Most modern cars use electronic fuel-injection systems:
- 1980s single injector used to spray fuel continuously into the air manifold
- 1990s one injector per cylinder used to spray fuel intermittently into the
intake port
20
Basic Carburetor
Air Flow
Venturi
Fuel
Throttle
21
Mixture to manifold
SI Engine Fuel Injection System
Air intake
manifold
Throttle
Fuel tank
200 KPa
During start-up the components are cold so fuel evaporation is very slow, as a result
additional fuel is added through a second injecting valve
22
Diesel Fuel Injection System
With diesel engines fuel is sprayed directly into the cylinders
power is varied by metering the amount of fuel added (no throttle)
Diesel fuel injection systems operate at high-pressure, > 100 MPa
• fuel pressure must be greater than the compression pressure
• need high fuel jet speed to atomize droplets small enough for rapid
evaporation
Fuel system includes fuel pump, lines and nozzles
In traditional systems the pump is used to raise the pressure of the
fuel, as well as meter and distribute the fuel to each cylinder.
The pressure is raised by individual barrel-plunger for each nozzle
(in-line type) or a single barrel plunger (distributor type).
Nozzle is a passive device that actuates (spindle rises) when the fuel
pressure increases. The spindle is normally held closed by a spring. 23
Gasoline Direct Injection (GDI) Engine
• Fuel is injected directly into the cylinder during the intake stroke or the
compression stroke
• High pressure injector required, 5-10 MPa
• Need bowl in piston design to direct the fuel spray towards the spark plug
24
Benefits of GDI Engine
Engine that combines the best features of SI and CI engines:
• Operate at optimum compression ratio (12-15) for efficiency by
injecting fuel directly into engine during compression (avoiding knock
associated with SI engines with premixed charge)
• Ignite the fuel as it mixes (avoid fuel-quality requirement of diesel fuel)
• Control engine power by fuel added (no throttle 🡪 no pumping work)
• During intake stroke fuel cools the cylinder wall allowing more air into
the cylinder due to higher density
25
Port and Direct Fuel Injector
Stoichiometric mixture created by
combination of fuel port and direct
fuel injection
• Low rpm use 30-40% DI to produce
extra in-cylinder turbulence
• High RPM and load use 100% DI
to reduce air temp (increase density)
2006 Lexus 3.5 L V6 engine (SAE Automotive
Engineering Dec 2005)
26
Direct-Injection Stratified-Charge Engines
• Create easily ignitable fuel-air mixture at the spark plug and a leaner
fuel-air mixture in the rest of the cylinder.
• Lean burn results in lower emissions and higher energy efficiency
Example:
Mitsubishi GDI engine achieves complete combustion with an air-fuel
ratio of 40:1 compared to 15:1 for conventional engines
This results in a 20% improvement in overall fuel efficiency and CO2
production, and reduces NOx emissions by 95% with special catalyst
27
Stratified Charge Engine
During intake stroke air enters the cylinder
Near the end of the compression stroke fuel is injected and directed
by the piston head bowl towards the spark plug
The mixture at the spark plug is “rich” in fuel thus easy to ignite but
the amount of fuel injected results in an overall “lean” fuel-air mixture
Lowers heat transfer to the walls but increases thermal cyclic load on
the spark plug, and standard catalytic converter doesn’t work
28
Electric Motor Powered Vehicles
Biggest asset: no emissions
Problems:
- vehicle range dictated by battery storage
- batteries need to be recharged which takes several hours
- low power
Alternative is gas-electric hybrid:
- Toyota Prius (1997), Honda Insight (2000)
- Over 100,000 units sold in 2005
29
Gasoline-Electric Hybrid Vehicles
• Parallel hybrid uses a combination of a small IC engine (1-1.5 L) and
an electric motor driven off batteries, in a series hybrid IC engine only
charges the batteries.
• Electric motor is used exclusively during cruise and idle when the
vehicle is stationary.
• IC engine kicks in when additional power is needed during
acceleration and up hills.
• Vehicles use “regenerative braking” - during braking the electric motor
acts like a generator recharging the batteries, so never need to recharge.
• Disadvantage: premium price and cost to replace batteries after 8 year
160,000 km warranty period is expensive.
30
Supercharger and Turbocharger
These devices are used to increase the power of an IC engine by raising
the intake pressure and thus allowing more fuel to be burned per cycle.
Knock or autoignition phenomenon limits the amount of precompression.
Superchargers are compressors that are mechanically driven by the engine
crankshaft and thus represents a parasitic load.
Compressor
Pint > Patm
Patm
Win
31
Turbochargers couple a compressor with a turbine driven by the exhaust
gas. The compressor pressure is proportional to the engine speed
Compressor also raises the gas temperature, so after-coolers are used
after the compressor to drop the temperature and thus increase the air
density.
32
The peak pressure in the exhaust system is only slightly greater than
atmospheric – small ΔP across turbine
In order to produce enough power to run compressor the turbine speed
must be very fast (100k-200k rev/min) – long term reliability an issue
It takes time for turbine to get up to speed so when the throttle is opened
suddenly there is a delay in achieving peak power - Turbo lag
EXHAUST
FLOW
INTAKE
AIR 33
