The Anatomy of the Engine - Part 2

3 weeks ago i asked two questions which a petrol head or a person aspiring to be a petrol head should know. One of which i answered then and there, which i did in order to help you to understand the answer to the second question.

How many types of engines exist ???........ For Cars mind you...

Benz Tricycle

To answer that lets go back to where it all began..... The year 1885, the first ever petrol engine which was put on the Benz Tricycle by inventor Karl Benz.  It just consisted of a 3 wheeled bike like structure with a petrol engine stuffed into the back which is considered as the first motor car. It was first driven over a long distance by his wife when she went off with her daughter without telling Karl to see relatives who lived 2 towns away.

Yes the first driver was a woman... :S.....Lets not dwell in it. the real reason i brought this up was that the engine that Karl Benz put into his tricycle & later patented in 1896 was a Flat Engine.

So.........

Flat Engine Arrangement

Type 1 - The Flat /Boxer Engine

Since you have  a basic understanding of how the engine works from the previous post, it'll be easier to understand how these structures actually work. How this works is basically very simple in nature. The pistons are arranged in a horizontal position facing away from each other.

This engine structure is not very commonly used today, however its popularity began because it was the engine structure used in the Volkswagen Beetle air cooled engine. Later on it was adopted by Porsche in their beginning days and is still used in their cars to date. More modern users of this engine type is actually Subaru subsidiary of Fuji Heavy industries.

Subaru Flat Engine

The advantages to using this engine include, Claimed  to have Better Fuel Economy vs Torque and also the most important advantage is that flat engines provide much more better handling and balance to the car that other types of engines. the reason is this. Have you noticed when you rev your engine while on stand still the engine tends to twist and along with it the whole car twists. This effect causes imbalance. Having the cylinders in line or in the V line up would cause internal imbalance in the engine because there is no counter to the force of the pistons hammering down on the crankshaft. in the case of flats the cylinder opposite acts as a counter to the force exerted. Therefore there is less deflection in flats as opposed to other structures.





Also Flat engines are actually shorter therefore can be mounted lower in the car, hence lower center of gravity contributing to improved handling.

Flat engines can range from configurations of Twin Flats to 24 flat engines

Porche Flat Engine

Type 2 - In line/ Straight Engines.


 One of the most common engine formats used today. The cylinders are arranged in a row next to each other. This format is widely used because of its low cost and low complication. Although in lines sound a little boring, they are still known to provide adrenaline pumping power in their straight 6 forms. The straight 6 and the straight 4 are two of the most commonly used of the In line segment.

They can be found in cans such as the BMW Z4 or the BMW 1M

Straight engines range from Straight 1's to Straight 24's



Type 3 - V Type Engines.

Another one of the most popular types of engines used today. The V's are basically 2 rows of cylinders arranged together in 2 rows sharing one crankshaft. Giving the overall appearance/ shape of the letter V (hence its name). V's are basically used because of the low space use age. It saves up space in terms of overall length and height. The complexity in V's lie in its balance. Since one crankshaft supports 2 rows of Pistons, the firing order of the cylinders should be controlled to preserve this balance. The most common configurations of the V type engines are V-4, V-6, V-8 & V-12 Configurations.

V's can be found anywhere from the least powerful of cars to the most powerful of cars.

V type engines can be in the range from V-2 up to V-24
















Type 4 - W Engines.

Although not very popular W engines are known to power some of the worlds most powerful cars. How W engines work is basically 3 (traditional design)  or 4 (Modern design) rows of pistons connected by one crankshaft. They can also be looked at as 2 V engines joined together at the crankshaft. This structure is very complex in nature although can pack in more cylinders with less a lesser space consumption and weight.








W Engines can be found in the Bugatti Veyron & the Bentley Continental



W engines exist in formats W-8, W-12, W-16, W-24

Type 5 - The Wankel Engine.


 This is the single different engine structure that makes me want to change the name of my blog. The magic in this engine is that it does not have pistons. instead its got a series of rotors that does the job of the piston. Designed by Felix Wankel in 1929 it was made proponent by the Japaneses company Mazda. Today we can see this engine in the Mazda RX- 8. The main advantages of the Wankel is that the engine is extremely small but is capable of producing massive amounts of power. The downside is that the fuel economy is horrible.


How it works is explained in the pictures below:








Intake:The fuel/air mixture is drawn in the intake port during this phase of the rotation.

Compression: The mixture is compressed here.

Combustion: The mixture burns here, driving the rotor around.

Exhaust: And the exhaust is expelled here.

The rotary motion is transferred to the drive shaft by an eccentric wheel (illustrated in blue) that rides in a matching bearing in the rotor. The drive shaft rotates once during every power stroke instead of twice as in the Otto cycle.

The Wankel promised higher power output with fewer moving parts than the Otto cycle engine; however, technical difficulties interfered with widespread adoption. In spite of valiant efforts by Mazda, the four stroke piston engines remains much more popular.



So, Insult to Intelligence??.. I hardly think so.. Cheers!!!

The Anatomy of the Engine - Part 1

2 Very Simple question every petrol head or a person aspiring to be a petrol head should know the answer to.

1. Do you know how a basic engine works? What are its In’s & Out’s?

2. Do you know how many types of engines exist?




I might very well be insulting your intelligence by asking these questions, but come on, I'm pretty sure there will be a thing or two in this post that you will learn for the first time :)

So Happy Reading.....

Question Number 1

Ladies ( if any are reading this.. Hopefully they are..) & Gentleman.. Here’s to the basic functionality of the Four stoke engine. 



Sub- Section 1 - The Anatomy of the Cylinder

If you may, please direct your attention to the image to your immediate Right.

You might notice the lettering and the colouring on the different parts of the diagram.

 If you keep track of these colours you'll pretty much understand how the engine works.

The basic concept of an engine is to create a force large enough to move it self + anything else we might put onto it. So how does it create movement by using Petrol. The answer is an "EXPLOSION". Yes a series of "CONTROLLED" explosions move the car forward

I (Blue) - The intake valve, which sucks in cold air into the piston chamber

S - The Spark Plug used to trigger the explosion to burn petrol

E (Red) - The Exhaust value, used to take the waste gas after the burning of petrol away from the piston chamber

P (Yellow) - Is the piston, Movement is vertical ( Up & Down)

C (Purple) - The Crankshaft- This is connected through the gear box to the wheels

W (Green) - Water takes away the unwanted heat generated by the explosion of petrol to the outsides of the car.

Grey Area - Cast Iron/ Steel/ Aluminum Engine Block 

Understood the basic anatomy of the engine???

Now lets move to the Next Sub Section

Sub Section 2 - How it Works

Very basically how it works is in a 4 step process called a 4 stroke cycle.

OK lets begin with STROKE 1

Stroke 1- (Piston Movement Top to Bottom) The Piston moves from Top to Bottom of the Cylinder. The Intake value is left open when this happens. The result, a cold mixture of gaseous petrol & air is sucked in from outside as the piston moves down. When the piston reaches the bottom of the cylinder it is full of the mixture. Now its ready for Stroke 2

Stroke 2- (Piston Movement Bottom to Top) The intake value is now closed. The Piston moves upwards compressing the Petrol air mixture to a tiny space as shown in the figure.

Stroke 3 - (Piston Movement Top to Bottom) The Spark Plug fires a spark and BANG!!!!!. The Spark causes the petrol air mixture to explode casuing a sudden expansion of gases exerting a massive power inside the cylinder. The force results in the movement of the only movable part inside the cylinder (The Piston) to move downwards making the crankshaft turn & deliver power to the wheels.

Stroke 4 - ( Piston Movement Bottom to Top) The Exhaust Value opens and as the piston is pushed upwards the exhaust gases leaves the chamber as the piston comes to the top and the exhaust value closes.  Now its ready to do Stroke 1 again.

Theses four strokes combined is athermodynamic cycle called "Otto Cycle". The cycle continues over and over and over again at a speed enough to create thousands of revolutions per minute.

 




Sub Section 3 - Functionality Aids

Basic Air Filter Location

Ok.. Since we talked about what happens inside the Engine... Lets talk about other basic functionality which helps an engine work, Starting with how the air gets into the engine.






The atmosphere around us is filled with dust particles and basically all sorts of stuff which can cause damage to the engine. The best way to prevent this is to ensure that the breathing system of the car is fixed to an air filter. Every car has air filter.

Carburetor

So once the air gets filtered in through the air filter, it then has to be mixed in with petrol in order to form the explodable formula. This job is done by a carburetor. The petrol is atomized into the air in the carburetor to form the petrol air mixture, which is then fed into the intake system. In modern day cars however they use a system called EFI (Electronic Fuel Injection System), where the petrol is injected into the intake pipe just before the entrance into the cylinder and atomized there.This method is actually more fuel efficient.

Spark Plug

The spark plug is the ingenious device which creates the spark that causes the explosion in the engine. Its kind of like the detonation switch in a bomb. Seems like a easy process yeah.......Not really. The park plug actually needs a voltage of at least 10,000 volts to create a  spark. So considering that our mains only carry a voltage of 240 volts which is pretty much enough to shock us or even kill us, I don't think you'd want to go near a spark plug..

Dangerous fellows those spark plugs...

Distribution Hub

So the 10,000 volts actually begs another question, Where does all this power come from?? If we were to trace our steps backwards from the spark plug we will be going along high conductible wires to something called a distributor. This is where the power is divided into separate wires for each cylinder spark plug. If you take a peak under you bonnet its actually the heavily insulated pieces with thick black wires coming out of it. The distributor is connected to the alternator which is kind of like a dynamo that generates electricity when the engine is turning.

Alternator

Radiator

Water Pump

On explosion the engine only uses 25% of the energy stored in the petrol to move the car. The other 75% is turned into heat. That actually is quite a lot of heat, which if left without doing anything could pretty much melt the engine. So the heat should be taken away continuously. How??.. The answer is water. The engine block has holes in it specially designed to help take the heat by transferring the heat to the water, which is sent to something called a radiator. This is actually one long lead pipe bent and compressed into a tiny area and then given fins to look like kind of a grill. The logic is that the water takes sometime to pass through this grill as there is pretty much a long distance for the water to travel. During this time a fan is used to blow air onto the radiator cooling the water inside the pipes over a period of time such that the water that comes out the other end of the radiator is actually cold water which is then pumped using a engine driven water pump back into the engine to take the heat out again.





Question Number 2

I think you had enough for today. So...
Another Day, Another Time.....

Honda - The Success Story

 Since its founding in 1948 Honda has evolved into one of the largest diverse companies in the engineering sector producing over 14 million internal combustion engines a year. Honda was the first to release the a Luxury brand, Acura in 1986. Honda is currently the sixth largest car manufacturer globally. In 2007 the geographic revenues of Honda were as follows:


Honda's Total Revenue by Geographic Region  (in millions of ¥)

• Japan -1,681,190 
• North America - 5,980,876
• Europe - 1,236,757
• Asia - 1,283,154
• Others - 905,163

Honda’s core business is considered to be motor cycle. But they are very much existent in other manufacturing fields such as garden equipment, marine engines, personal watercraft and power generators. Much more importantly is the futuristic scope that Honda has with its consistent involvement in the fields of aerospace aviation and in the field of artificial intelligence driven robotics. Honda is also a prominent Formula one car manufacturer and racer until 2008 when they quit due to effects o the global economic crisis.

So that is Honda as it is today (in very short detail ofcource). If you thought that I might be talking about a Honda car today, well.... you are wrong. 

This week I thought of going in a different direction. To be more precise a Direction of Inspiration. The reason I gave the present scenario of Honda was to give you proof of how one mans determination not to give up…….. can show you what a True Winner is...

 As of today everyone knows what Honda is what it does. Many people use a Honda car or motor bike or any other piece of equipment without knowing the real story behind how challenging it was for Mr. Soichiro Honda to establish Honda Motors.

Like most other countries, Japan was hit badly by the Great Depression of the 1930s. In 1938, Soichiro Honda was still in school, when he started a little workshop, developing the concept of the piston ring.

His plan was to sell the idea to Toyota. He labored night and day, even slept in the workshop, always believing he could perfect his design and produce a worthy product. He was married by now, and pawned his wife’s jewelry for working capital.

Finally, came the day he completed his piston ring and was able to take a working sample to Toyota, only to be told that the rings did not meet their standards! Soichiro went back to school and suffered ridicule when the engineers laughed at his design.

He refused to give up. Rather than focus on his failure, he continued working towards his goal. Then, after two more years of struggle and redesign, he won a contract with Toyota.

By now, the Japanese government was gearing up for war! With the contract in hand, Soichiro Honda needed to build a factory to supply Toyota, but building materials were in short supply. Still he would not quit! He invented a new concrete-making process that enabled him to build the factory.




With the factory now built, he was ready for production, but the factory was bombed twice and steel became unavailable, too.





Was this the end of the road for Honda? No!

He started collecting surplus gasoline cans discarded by US fighters – “Gifts from President Truman,” he called them, which became the new raw materials for his rebuilt manufacturing process. Finally, an earthquake destroyed the factory.






After the war, an extreme gasoline shortage forced people to walk or use bicycles. Honda built a tiny engine and attached it to his bicycle. His neighbors wanted one, and although he tried, materials could not be found and he was unable to supply the demand.

Was he ready to give up now? No!

Soichiro Honda wrote to 18,000 bicycles shop owners and, in an inspiring letter, asked them to help him revitalize Japan. 5,000 responded and advanced him what little money they could to build his tiny bicycle engines. Unfortunately, the first models were too bulky to work well, so he continued to develop and adapt, until finally, the small engine ‘The Super Cub’ became a reality and was a success. With success in Japan, Honda began exporting his bicycle engines to Europe and America.

End of story? No!











In the 1970s there was another gas shortage, this time in America and automotive fashion turned to small cars. Honda was quick to pick up on the trend. Experts now in small engine design, the company started making tiny cars, smaller than anyone had seen before, and rode another wave of success.


Today, Honda Corporation employs over 100,000 people in the USA and Japan, and is one of the world’s largest automobile companies. Honda succeeded because one man made a truly committed decision, acted upon it, and made adjustments on a continuous basis. Failure was simply not considered a possibility.









So …........... you think success has eluded you because you failed a few times… 
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Mr. Soichiro Honda says “Think again”