The articleHow Diesel Engines Workdescribes the four - stroke diesel engines commonly found in cars and trucks . The articleHow Two - stroke Engines Workdescribes the little two - separatrix engines found in things likechain byword , mopeds and jet skis . It turns out that Rudolf Christian Karl Diesel engine engineering science is often blend with a two - stroke cycle in the immense diesel engine engine found inlocomotives , large ships and generating quickness .
In this edition ofHowStuffWorks , we will research Rudolf Diesel two - stroke technology and learn about the Brobdingnagian locomotive that use it !
Understanding the Cycle
If you readHow Two - stroke Engines Work , you learned that one big divergence between two - stroke andfour - stroke enginesis the amount of exponent the engine can produce . The spark plug fires double as often in a two - stroke railway locomotive – once per every revolution of the crankshaft , versus once for every two revolutions in a four - stroke engine . This means that a two - stroke engine has the potential to producetwice as much poweras a four - CVA engine of the same size .
The two - slash engine article also explicate that thegasoline engine cycle , where gas and atmosphere are mixed and compressed together , is not really a complete match for the two - stroke attack . The problem is that some unburned fuel leaks out each metre the cylinder is recharge with the air - fuel mixing . ( SeeHow Two - stroke Engines Workfor details . )
It reverse out that the Rudolf Diesel approach , which compact only aviation and then injects the fuel directly into the compressed air , is a much better match with the two - cerebrovascular accident bike . Many manufacturers of largediesel enginestherefore use this approaching to create high - ability engines .
The figure show the layout of a typical two - stroke Rudolf Christian Karl Diesel engine :
At the top of the piston chamber are typically two or four fumes valves that all open at the same time . There is also the Rudolf Diesel fuel injector ( show above in yellow ) . The Walter Piston is elongated , as in a gasoline two - stroke railway locomotive , so that it can act as the intake valve . At the bottom of the piston ’s travelling , the piston uncovers the interface for air inspiration . The intake air is pressurized by aturbochargeror asupercharger(light blue ) . The crankcase is seal and contains oil as in a four - separatrix railway locomotive .
Thetwo - stroke diesel engine cyclegoes like this :
From this description , you could see the big difference between a diesel two - diagonal engine and a gasoline two - cerebrovascular accident engine : In the diesel translation , only air occupy the cylinder , rather than gas and melodic phrase ruffle together . This means that a diesel two - stroke engine suffers from none of the environmental job that plague a gasoline two - separatrix engine . On the other hired man , a diesel two - stroke locomotive must have aturbochargeror asupercharger , and this means that you will never detect a diesel two - stroke on achain saw– it would just be too expensive .
General Motors EMD Engines
The General Motors EMD engine occupation is typical of the two - stroke diesel engine breed . These railway locomotive were introduced in the 1930s and power a large phone number of thediesel locomotivesfound in the United States . There have been three successive serial publication in the EMD blood line : the 567 series , the 645 serial , and the 710 series . The numbers refer to the phone number of cubic inches per cylinder , with a typical engine suffer 16 cylinder ( for a total supplanting on the decree of 10,000 three-dimensional inches ! ) . When you consider that a 5 - liter ( 305 - cubic - inch ) engine is considered to be very expectant in an motorcar , you could see that one of these EMD engines is massive !
Here are some of the specifications for the EMD 645E3 engine :
Cylinder diameter - 9 - 1/16 inches
Piston stroke - 10 inches
Displacement per cylinder - 654 three-dimensional inches
Number of cylinders - 16 or 20
Compression ratio - 14.5:1
exhaust system valves per cylinder - 4
railway locomotive weight -
Idle speeding - 315 rotations per minute ( rpm )
Full speed - 900 rpm
A typicalhorsepower ratingfor one of these engines is4,300 hp !
For more information on the diesel two - stroke and other engines , insure out the links on the next page !