Automobiles

1. The difference between spark ignition engines and diesel engines. Just before burning their fuels, both engines compress air inside a sealed cylinder. This compression process adds energy to the air and causes its temperature to skyrocket. In a spark ignition engine, the air that's being compressed already contains fuel so this rising temperature is a potential problem. If the fuel and air ignite spontaneously, the engine will «knock» and won’t operate at maximum efficiency.

The fuel and air mixture is expected to wait until it’s ignited at the proper instant by the spark plug. That’s why gasoline is formulated to resist ignition below a certain temperature. The higher the «octane» of the gasoline, the higher its certified ignition temperature.

Virtually all modern cars operate properly with regular gasoline. Nonetheless, people frequently put high-octane (high-test or premium) gasoline in their cars under the mistaken impression that their cars will be better for it. If your car doesn’t knock significantly with regular gasoline, use regular gasoline. A diesel engine doesn’t have spark ignition.

Instead, it uses the high temperature caused by extreme compression to ignite its fuel. It compresses pure air to high temperature and pressure, and then injects fuel into this air. Timed to arrive at the proper instant, the fuel bursts into flames and burns quickly in the superheated compressed air. In contrast to gasoline, diesel fuel is formulated to ignite easily as soon as it enters hot air.

2. An automatic transmission in a car. An automatic transmission contains two major components: a fluid coupling that controls the transfer of torque from the engine to the rest of the transmission and a gearbox that controls the mechanical advantage between the engine and the wheels. The fluid coupling resembles two fans with a liquid circulating between them. The engine turns one fan, technically known as an «impeller», and this impeller pushes transmission fluid toward the second impeller. As the liquid flows through the second impeller, it exerts a twist (a «torque») on the impeller.

If the car is moving or is allowed to move, this torque will cause the impeller to turn and, with it, the wheels of the car. If, however, the car is stopped and the brake is on, the transmission fluid will flow through the second impeller without effect. Overall, the fluid coupling allows the efficient transfer of power from the engine to the wheels without any direct mechanical linkage that would cause trouble when the car comes to a stop.

Between the second impeller and the wheels is a gearbox. The second impeller of the fluid coupling causes several of the gears in this box to turn and they, in turn, cause other gears to turn. Eventually, this system of gears causes the wheels of the car to turn. Along with these gears are several friction plates that can be brought into contact with one another by the transmission to change the relative rotation rates between the second impeller and the car’s wheels.

These changes in relative rotation rate give the car the variable mechanical advantage it needs to be able to both climb steep hills and drive fast on flat roadways. Finally, some cars combine parts of the gear box with the fluid coupling in what is called a «torque converter». Here the two impellers in the fluid coupling have different shapes so that they naturally turn at different rates. This asymmetric arrangement eliminates the need for some gears in the gearbox itself.

3. The difference between internal and external combustion engines. External combustion engines burn a fuel outside of the engine and produce a hot working fluid that then powers the engine. The classic example of an external combustion engine is a steam engine. Internal combustion engines burn fuel directly in the engine and use the fuel and the gases resulting from its combustion as the working fluid that powers the engine. An automobile engine is a fine example of an internal combustion engine.

4. Why are there pistons in an engine? The pistons in a gasoline engine compress the fuel and air mixture before ignition and then extract energy from the burned gases after ignition. When the engine is operating, each piston travels in and out of a cylinder with one closed end many times a second. The piston makes four different strokes during its travels. In the first or «intake» stroke, the piston travels away from the closed end of the cylinder and draws the fuel and air mixture into the cylinder through an opened valve.

During the second or «compression» stroke, the piston travels toward the closed end of the cylinder and compresses the fuel and air mixture to high pressure, density, and temperature. The spark plug now ignites the fuel and air mixture and it burns. During the third or «power» stroke, the piston travels away from the closed end of the cylinder and the expanding gases do work on the piston, providing it with the energy that propels the car forward. During the fourth or «exhaust» stroke, the piston travels toward the closed end of the cylinder and pushes the burned gases out of the cylinder through another opened valve.

5. An internal combustion engine. An internal combustion engine burns a mixture of fuel and air in an enclosed space. This space is formed by a cylinder that's sealed at one end and a piston that slides in and out of that cylinder. Two or more valves allow the fuel and air to enter the cylinder and for the gases that form when the fuel and air burn to leave the cylinder. As the piston slides in and out of the cylinder, the enclosed space within the cylinder changes its volume. The engine uses this changing volume to extract energy from the burning mixture.

The process begins when the engine pulls the piston out of the cylinder, expanding the enclosed space and allowing fuel and air to flow into that space through a valve. This motion is called the intake stroke. Next, the engine squeezes the fuel and air mixture tightly together by pushing the piston into the cylinder in what is called the compression stroke. At the end of the compression stroke, with the fuel and air mixture squeezed as tightly as possible, the spark plug at the sealed end of the cylinder fires and ignites the mixture. The hot burning fuel has an enormous pressure and it pushes the piston strongly out of the cylinder.

This power stroke is what provides power to the car that's attached to the engine. Finally, the engine squeezes the burned gas out of the cylinder through another valve in the exhaust stroke. These four strokes repeat over and over again to power the car. To provide more steady power, and to make sure that there is enough energy to carry the piston through the intake, compression, and exhaust strokes, most internal combustion engines have at least four cylinders (and pistons). That way, there is always at least one cylinder going through the power stroke and it can carry the other cylinders through the non-power strokes.

6. A steam engine. Like the internal combustion engines used in automobiles, a steam engine is a type of heat engine--a device that diverts some of the heat flowing from a hotter object to a colder object and that turns that heat into useful work. The fraction of heat that can be converted to work is governed by the laws of thermodynamics and increases with the temperature difference between the hotter and colder objects. In the case of the steam engine, the hotter the steam and the colder the outside air, the more efficient the engine is at converting heat into work.

A typical steam engine has a piston that moves back and forth inside a cylinder. Hot, high-pressure steam is produced in a boiler and this steam enters the cylinder through a valve. Once inside the cylinder, the steam pushes outward on every surface, including the piston. The steam pushes the piston out of the cylinder, doing mechanical work on the piston and allowing that piston to do mechanical work on machinery attached to it.

The expanding steam transfers some of its thermal energy to this machinery, so the steam becomes cooler as the machinery operates. But before the piston actually leaves the steam engine’s cylinder, the valve stops the flow of steam and opens the cylinder to the outside air. The piston can then reenter the cylinder easily. In many cases, steam is allowed to enter the other end of the cylinder so that the steam pushes the piston back to its original position. Once the piston is back at its starting point, the valve again admits high-pressure steam to the cylinder and the whole cycle repeats. Overall, heat is flowing from the hot boiler to the cool outside air and some of that heat is being converted into mechanical work by the moving piston.

7. What is the purpose of pistons in an engine? The piston moves in an out of a cylinder, moving the air, fuel, and exhaust about and extracting work from the burned fuel and air. Without the piston, there would be no way to obtain energy from the gasoline.