Talk:Internal combustion engine

Graph Colours

Hi,

could the colours on the graph at the bottom of the page be changed? it's rather hard to distinguish the lines.

Fuel systems?

Seems to me this article is missing any discussion of carburettors, turbochargers, superchargers, fuel injection and so forth. There's no fuel going into our ICs! WolfKeeper

question about compression ratios

I have a question:

When you press on the accelerator pedal of a petrol engine, you open the throttle and allow more fuel/air mixture to enter each cylinder. Therefor the harder the acclerator is pushed, the more volume enters the cylinder; and thus the compression is increased, yes?

The average compression ratio of a petrol engine is about 10, but is that at full throttle. Is the compression much less when the engine is idling?

On the other hand a diesel engine is only controlled by how much fuel is injected , so the compression ratio is always about 20.

However it gets much more confusing when a turbo is added =(

The compression ratio remains the same no matter what the throttle setting is but the compression pressure varies with throttle settings . Usually on petrol engines with 10 to 1 compression ratio the open full throttle cranking start speed (1000RPM) is about 150 to 220 PSI but at part throttle it could be as low as 40 PSI. malbeare 20/5/2007

Swashplate Engine?

No mention of the swashplate configuration is listed in the current article (31 July 2007). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swashplate_engine Swashplate Engine

Sentence fragment in introduction

Hello, I am not a regular contributor to wikipedia, so forgive any buffoonish errors I make in the following.

In revision 413119031, user Twexcom removed the clause "the ICE delivers an excellent power-to-weight ratio with few disadvantages" from the sentence "Powered by an energy-dense fuel (which is very frequently petrol, a liquid derived from fossil fuels), the ICE delivers an excellent power-to-weight ratio with few disadvantages."

It seems clear that this was an attempt to remove the potentially controversial claim that internal combustion engines have "few disadvantages," but what remains is the fragment "Powered by an energy dense fuel."

I considered simply adding "...the ICE delivers an excellent power-to-weight ratio," but given that this error has persisted for nearly two years, and that even this reduced version of the sentence contains the value-laden word "excellent," I decided to post to the talk page and let the wiki natives decide how to proceed.

Thanks for all y'all do.

Fossil fuel wording

"ICEs are typically powered by fossil fuels like natural gas or petroleum products such as gasoline, diesel fuel or fuel oil."

The sentence structure makes it sound like there are two typical types of fuel: fossil fuels (e.g. natural gas) and petroleum products (e.g. gasoline, diesel fuel, or fuel oil). Is there a better way to word it, so that the sentence structure makes it clear that natural gas and petroleum products are both fossil fuels? I can't think of one. 175.39.61.121 (talk) 01:35, 15 September 2022 (UTC)

How about "ICEs are typically powered by hydrocarbon-based fuels like natural gas, gasoline, diesel or ethanol." This would naturally include synthetic fuels. We might possibly add hydrogen in as well, which is not a hydrocarbon, by adding a follow-up sentence "Hydrogen is sometimes used as an alternative to hydrocarbons."  Stepho  talk  04:40, 15 September 2022 (UTC)

Theory

Combustion ignition CI engine 41.210.147.129 (talk) 10:45, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

Nope.

Compression Ignition - commonly called a Diesel engine.

Spark Ignition - commonly called a petrol (or gasoline) engine but also including hydrogen, LPG and many others.  Stepho  talk  10:18, 30 July 2024 (UTC)