Chapter 2
Power Generation Characteristics of Internal Combustion Engines
2.1 Introduction
The engine plays a dominant role in overall vehicle performance and it is essential to learn about its behaviour prior to performing vehicle studies. The internal combustion engine is a complicated system and its thorough analysis requires a multi-disciplinary knowledge of physics, chemistry, thermodynamics, fluid dynamics, mechanics, electrics, electronics and control. Electronics and control are becoming crucial parts of all modern engines and engine control units (ECUs) manage the engine operating parameters to try to achieve a good compromise between drivability, fuel consumption and emissions control.
Traditionally, in the literature on internal combustion engine design, the material discussed included: working fluids, thermodynamics, gas dynamics, combustion processes and chamber design, heat transfer, engine efficiency, friction, emissions and pollution. Also, the dynamics of engine moving parts and loads acting on the engine bearings and components are traditionally discussed in books on mechanism design or the dynamics of machinery. On the other hand, in areas related to the vehicle powertrain designs, the engine properties are needed as inputs to the system. Such vital information suitable for powertrain analysis cannot be found in the aforementioned books. Students have always seemed to have difficulties relating the engine design materials to powertrain design requirements. Moreover, ...
