NationMaster - Encyclopedia: Reciprocating engine

A reciprocating engine, also often known as a piston engine, is a heat engine that uses one or more pistons to convert pressure into a rotating motion. This article describes the common features of all types. Labeled diagram of a four-stroke engine, created by Wapcaplet in Blender. ... Labeled diagram of a four-stroke engine, created by Wapcaplet in Blender. ... The four-stroke cycle of an internal combustion engine is the cycle most commonly used for automotive and industrial purposes today (cars and trucks, generators, etc). ... For the fictional characters of the same name, see Camshaft (Transformers). ... This article or section should include material from Spark gap A spark plug is an electrical device that fits into the cylinder head of some internal combustion engines and ignites compressed aerosol gasoline by means of an electric spark. ... A poppet valve is a valve consisting of a hole, usually round or oval, and a tapered plug, usually a disk shape on the end of a shaft also called a valve stem. ... For the American composer, see Walter Piston. ... piston (top) and connecting rod from typical automotive engine (scale is in centimetres) Components of a typical, four stroke cycle, DOHC piston engine. ... Crankshaft (red), pistons (gray) in their cylinders (blue), and flywheel (black) Continental engine marine crankshafts, 1942 Components of a typical, four stroke cycle, DOHC piston engine. ... A heat engine is a physical or theoretical device that converts thermal energy to mechanical output. ... For the American composer, see Walter Piston. ... This article is about pressure in the physical sciences. ...

Common features in all types

There may be one or more pistons. Each piston is inside a cylinder, into which a gas is introduced, either already hot and under pressure (steam engine), or heated inside the cylinder either by ignition of a fuel air mixture (internal combustion engine) or by contact with a hot heat exchanger in the cylinder (stirling engine). The hot gases expand, pushing the piston to the bottom of the cylinder. The piston is returned to the cylinder top (Top Dead Centre) either by a flywheel or the power from other pistons connected to the same shaft. In most types the expanded or "exhausted" gases are removed from the cylinder by this stroke. The exception is the Stirling engine, which repeatedly heats and cools the same sealed quantity of gas. Cylinder with piston in a steam engine A cylinder in the central working part of a reciprocating engine, the space in which a piston travels. ... // The term steam engine may also refer to an entire railroad steam locomotive. ... The ignition system of an internal-combustion engine is an important part of the overall engine system that provides for the timely burning of the fuel mixture within the engine. ... The internal combustion engine is an engine in which the combustion of fuel and an oxidizer (typically air) occurs in a confined space called a combustion chamber. ... Cut away diagram of a Rhombic Drive Beta Stirling Engine Design Pink - Hot cylinder wall Dark Grey - Cold cylinder wall (with coolant inlet and outlet pipes in Yellow) Dark Green - Thermal insulation separating the two cylinder ends Light Green - Displacer piston Dark Blue - Power piston Light Blue - Flywheels Not Shown... Look up top dead center in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Spoked flywheel Flywheel from stationary engine. ... Automobile exhaust Exhaust gas is flue gas which occurs as a result of the combustion of fuels such as natural gas, gasoline/petrol, diesel, fuel oil or coal. ... A stroke is a single action of certain engines. ...

In some designs the piston may be powered in both directions in the cylinder in which case it is said to be double acting. A steam engine is a heat engine that makes use of the potential energy that exists as pressure in steam, converting it to mechanical work. ...

In all types the linear movement of the piston is converted to a rotating movement via a connecting rod and a crankshaft or by a swashplate. A flywheel is often used to ensure smooth rotation. The more cylinders a reciprocating engine has, the more vibration-free (smoothly) it can run also the higher the combined piston displacement volume it has the more power it is capable of producing. Image File history File links Download high resolution version (892x532, 32 KB) Description Object: Steam engine nomenclature Description: Made to avoid some licence problems with this image. ... Image File history File links Download high resolution version (892x532, 32 KB) Description Object: Steam engine nomenclature Description: Made to avoid some licence problems with this image. ... piston (top) and connecting rod from typical automotive engine (scale is in centimetres) Components of a typical, four stroke cycle, DOHC piston engine. ... Crankshaft (red), pistons (gray) in their cylinders (blue), and flywheel (black) Continental engine marine crankshafts, 1942 Components of a typical, four stroke cycle, DOHC piston engine. ... The swashplate is the device that translates the pilots (or autopilots) commands via the helicopter flight controls into motion of the main rotor blades. ... Spoked flywheel Flywheel from stationary engine. ...

It is common for such engines to be classified by the number and alignment of cylinders and the total volume of displacement of gas by the pistons moving in the cylinders usually measured in cubic centimeters (cc). For example for internal combustion engines, single and two-cylinder designs are common in smaller vehicles such as motorcycles, while automobiles typically have between four and eight, and locomotives, and ships may have a dozen cylinders or more. Cylinder capacities may range from 10cc or less in model engines up to several thousand cc in ships' engines. One complete cycle of a four cylinder, four stroke engine. ... A cubic centimetre (cm3) is an SI derived unit of volume, equal to the volume of a cube with side length of 1 centimetre. ... A motorcycle (or motorbike) is a two-wheeled vehicle powered by an engine. ... Car redirects here. ... Great Western Railway No. ... For online phenomenon of shipping, see Shipping (fandom). ...

The compression ratio is a measure of the performance in an internal-combustion engine or a Stirling Engine. It is the ratio between the volume of the cylinder, when the piston is at the bottom of its stroke, and the volume when the piston is at the top of its stroke. Bold text The compression ratio is a single number that can be used to predict the performance of any engine (such as an internal-combustion engine or a Stirling Engine). ...

Cylinders may be aligned in line, in a V configuration, horizontally opposite each other , or radially around the crankshaft. Opposed piston engines put 2 pistons working at opposite ends of the same cylinder and this has been extended into triangular arrangements such as the Napier Deltic. Some designs have set the cylinders in motion around the shaft, see the Rotary engine. An inline engine is an internal-combustion engine with cylinders aligned in one or several rows. ... A V engine is a common configuration for an internal combustion engine. ... The Boxer engine, first patented by German engineer Karl Benz A flat engine is an internal combustion engine with pistons that are all relatively horizontal. ... The radial engine is an internal combustion engine configuration in which the cylinders point outward from a central crankshaft like the spokes on a wheel. ... Fairbanks-Morse opposed piston diesel engines on the submarine USS Pampanito. ... Napier Deltic powered British Rail Class 55 Alycidon, at the National Railway Museum, York, UK The term Deltic (meaning in the form of the Greek letter Delta) is used to refer to both the opposed piston high speed diesel engine designed and produced by Napier & Son, and the locomotives produced... This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ...

In steam engines and internal combustion engines valves are required to allow the entry and exit of gasses at the correct time in the piston's cycle. These are worked by cams or cranks driven by the shaft of the engine. Early designs used the D slide valve but this has been largely superseded by Piston valve or Poppet valve designs. The D Slide Valve was a form of rectilinear slide valve for use in rotative steam engines invented by William Murdoch and patented in 1799. ... Piston valve in a brass instrument A piston valve is a device used to control the motion of a fluid along a tube or pipe by means of the linear motion of a piston within a chamber or cylinder. ... A poppet valve is a valve consisting of a hole, usually round or oval, and a tapered plug, usually a disk shape on the end of a shaft also called a valve stem. ...

Internal combustion engines operate through a sequence of strokes which admit and remove gases to and from the cylinder. These operations are repeated cyclically and an engine is said to be 2-stroke, 4-stroke or 6-stroke depending on the number of strokes it takes to complete a cycle. The two-stroke cycle of an internal combustion engine differs from the more common four-stroke cycle by completing the same four processes (intake, compression, power, exhaust) in only two strokes of the piston rather than four. ... Today Internal combustion engines in cars, trucks, motorcycles, construction machinery and many others, most commonly use a four-stroke cycle. ... A six stroke engine is an automobile engine in which the piston of the engine move up and down an additional time for each injection of fuel. ...

In some steam engines the cylinders may be of varying size with the smallest bore cylinder working the highest pressure steam. This is then fed through one or more, increasingly larger bore cylinders successively, to extract power from the steam at increasingly lower pressures. These engines are called Compound engines. // The term steam engine may also refer to an entire railroad steam locomotive. ...

Other modern non internal combustion types

Reciprocating engines that are powered by compressed air, steam or other hot gasses are still used in some applications such as to drive many modern torpedoes or as pollution free motive power.

The Spanish designed Aircar uses compressed air stored in a cylinder to drive a reciprocating engine in a pollution free urban vehicle. ^[1]

In torpedoes the gas, like that produced by high test peroxide or Otto fuel II, is pressurised without the need of combustion and therefore oxygen. This allows propulsion under water for considerable periods of time and over significant distances. e.g. see Mark 46 torpedo. High test peroxide or HTP is a high (85 to 98 percent) concentration solution of hydrogen peroxide. ... Otto fuel II is a monopropellant used to drive torpedoes and other weapon systems. ... General Name, symbol, number oxygen, O, 8 Chemical series nonmetals, chalcogens Group, period, block 16, 2, p Appearance colorless (gas) pale blue (liquid) Standard atomic weight 15. ... A French Lynx helicopter carrying a mk46 torpedo Designed to attack high-performance submarines, the Mark 46 torpedo is the backbone of the U.S. Navys lightweight ASW torpedo inventory, and is the current NATO standard. ...

In most applications of steam power today, the piston engine has been replaced by the more efficient turbine. A Siemens steam turbine with the case opened. ...

History

The earliest known example of rotary to reciprocating motion is a waterwheel-powered pump engineered by Al-Jazari in the 13th century.^[2] The rotary motion of the waterwheel was converted into a reciprocating action to drive a pair of piston pumps. An overshot water wheel standing 42 feet high powers the Old Mill at Berry College in Rome, Georgia A water wheel (also waterwheel, Norse mill, Persian wheel or noria) is a hydropower system; a system for extracting power from a flow of water. ... This article is about a mechanical device. ... Diagram from The Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices by al-Jazari. ...

The reciprocating engine developed much later as the steam engine during the 18th century, followed by the Stirling engine and internal combustion engine in the 19th century. Today the most common form of reciprocating engine is the internal combustion engine running on the combustion of petrol, diesel or natural gas and used to power motor vehicles. // The term steam engine may also refer to an entire railroad steam locomotive. ... Cut away diagram of a Rhombic Drive Beta Stirling Engine Design Pink - Hot cylinder wall Dark Grey - Cold cylinder wall (with coolant inlet and outlet pipes in Yellow) Dark Green - Thermal insulation separating the two cylinder ends Light Green - Displacer piston Dark Blue - Power piston Light Blue - Flywheels Not Shown... The internal combustion engine is an engine in which the combustion of fuel and an oxidizer (typically air) occurs in a confined space called a combustion chamber. ... Gasoline, as it is known in North America, or petrol, in many Commonwealth countries (sometimes also called motor spirit) is a petroleum-derived liquid mixture consisting primarily of hydrocarbons, used as fuel in internal combustion engines. ... This article is about the fuel. ... LPG might be an initialism or abbreviation for: Liquified petroleum gas Laboratoire de Planetologie, Grenoble, France Literary Press Group of Canada Landwirtschaftliche Produktionsgenossenschaft (German, obsolete/historical) Long period grating This page concerning a three-letter acronym or abbreviation is a disambiguation page â€” a navigational aid which lists other pages that...

One of the most advanced reciprocating engines ever made was the 28-cylinder, 3,500 hp (2610 kW) Pratt & Whitney R-4360 "Wasp Major" radial engine which powered the last generation of large piston-engined planes before the jet engine and turboprop took over from 1944 onward. Pratt & Whitney Wasp Major (sectioned) The Pratt & Whitney R-4360 Wasp Major was a large radial piston aircraft engine designed and built during World War II. It was the last of the Wasp family and the culmination of its makers piston engine technology, but the war was over before...

Notes

Ahmad Y. al Hassan (born 1925) Chevalier of the Legion dâ€™Honneur: Historian of Islamic and Arabic science and technology. ...

References

See also

Categories: Engine technology | Piston engines | Mechanical engineering Image File history File links Download high resolution version (870x844, 71 KB) Rombic Drive Beta Type Stirling Design - Screenshot von meinem eignen Design. ... Image File history File links Download high resolution version (870x844, 71 KB) Rombic Drive Beta Type Stirling Design - Screenshot von meinem eignen Design. ... Cut away diagram of a Rhombic Drive Beta Stirling Engine Design Pink - Hot cylinder wall, Dark grey - Cold cylinder wall (with coolant inlet and outlet pipes in Yellow), Dark Green - Thermal insulation separating the two cylinder ends, Light Green - Displacer piston, Dark Blue - Power piston, Light Blue - Flywheels, Not Shown... // The term steam engine may also refer to an entire railroad steam locomotive. ... Cut away diagram of a Rhombic Drive Beta Stirling Engine Design Pink - Hot cylinder wall Dark Grey - Cold cylinder wall (with coolant inlet and outlet pipes in Yellow) Dark Green - Thermal insulation separating the two cylinder ends Light Green - Displacer piston Dark Blue - Power piston Light Blue - Flywheels Not Shown... The internal combustion engine is an engine in which the combustion of fuel and an oxidizer (typically air) occurs in a confined space called a combustion chamber. ... The four-stroke cycle of an internal combustion engine is the cycle most commonly used for automotive and industrial purposes today ( cars and trucks, generators, etc). ... The Diesel cycle is the combustion process of a type of reciprocating internal combustion engine, in which the fuel is ignited by the heat generated in first compressing air in the combustion chamber, into which is then injected the fuel, as opposed to it being ignited by a spark plug... Engine configuration is an engineering term for the layout of the major components of an internal combustion engine. ... Engine balance is the design, construction and tuning of an engine to run smoothly. ... Torsional vibration is vibration of an object, commonly a shaft, along its axis of rotation. ... Look up top dead center in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... A heat engine is a physical or theoretical device that converts thermal energy to mechanical output. ... Thermodynamics (from the Greek Î¸ÎµÏÎ¼Î·, therme, meaning heat and Î´Ï…Î½Î±Î¼Î¹Ï‚, dynamis, meaning power) is a branch of physics that studies the effects of changes in temperature, pressure, and volume on physical systems at the macroscopic scale by analyzing the collective motion of their particles using statistics. ... A pistonless rotary engine is an internal combustion engine that does not use pistons in the way a reciprocating engine does, but instead uses one or more rotors, sometimes called rotary pistons. ... Heat engines have been known since antiquity but were only made into useful devices at the time of the industrial revolution in the eighteenth century. ... A heat engine is a physical or theoretical device that converts thermal energy to mechanical output. ... A thermodynamic cycle is a series of thermodynamic processes which returns a system to its initial state. ... A thermodynamic cycle is a series of thermodynamic processes which returns a system to its initial state. ... A stroke is a single action of certain engines. ... The Crower six-stroke engine or Crower Cycle is a concept under development by Bruce Crower. ... Today Internal combustion engines in cars, trucks, motorcycles, construction machinery and many others, most commonly use a four-stroke cycle. ... A One-stroke cycle is a two-stroke cycle that uses a double acting piston; and thus both strokes are powered, and each stroke is half of two two-stroke cycles. ... The Scuderi Split Cycle Engine design is a rethink of the conventional four-stroke Otto cycle internal combustion engine conceived by Carmelo J. Scuderi (1925-2002). ... A six stroke engine is an automobile engine in which the piston of the engine move up and down an additional time for each injection of fuel. ... The two-stroke cycle of an internal combustion engine differs from the more common four-stroke cycle by completing the same four processes (intake, compression, power, exhaust) in only two strokes of the piston rather than four. ... A pistonless rotary engine is an internal combustion engine that does not use pistons in the way a reciprocating engine does, but instead uses one or more rotors, sometimes called rotary pistons. ... The Britalus rotary engine was invented in 1982 by Kenneth W. Porter, P.E., M.S.A.E, of King County, Washington. ... A combustion chamber is part of an engine in which fuel is burned. ... Controlled Combustion Engine (CCE) is a type of internal combustion engine designed by Brad Howell-Smith in 1995. ... A Pratt and Whitney turbofan engine for the F-15 Eagle is tested at Robins Air Force Base, Georgia, USA. The tunnel behind the engine muffles noise and allows exhaust to escape. ... An orbital engine is a type of internal combustion engine, featuring rotary rather than reciprocating motion of its internal parts. ... Components of a typical, four stroke cycle, DOHC piston engine. ... The Quasiturbine or Qurbine engine is a proposed pistonless rotary engine using a four-sided rhomboid rotor whose sides are hinged at the vertices. ... A cold (un-ignited) rocket engine test at NASA A rocket engine is a reaction engine that can be used for spacecraft propulsion as well as terrestrial uses, such as missiles. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... The Toroidal engine design is a form of internal combustion engine that features pistons that rotate within a toroidal space. ... The trochilic engine is composed of two mirror image gull wing segments intermeshed and rotating about a common central axis. ... The Twingle engine is a small-capacity two-stroke gasoline engine. ... Wankel Engine in Deutsches Museum Munich, Germany The Wankel rotary engine is a type of internal combustion engine, invented by German engineer Felix Wankel, which uses a rotor instead of reciprocating pistons. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... The D Slide Valve was a form of rectilinear slide valve for use in rotative steam engines invented by William Murdoch and patented in 1799. ... Internal combustion engines using either four-stroke or two-stroke cycle with spark ignition and compression ignition, use poppet valves to allow air to flow through the cylinder head cylinder and exhaust gases out. ... Left side of a Ford Cologne V6 engine, clearly showing a (rusty) cast iron exhaust manifold - three exhaust ports into one pipe. ... In automotive engineering, an engine is referred to as multi-valve (or multivalve) when each cylinder has more than two valves. ... Piston valve in a brass instrument A piston valve is a device used to control the motion of a fluid along a tube or pipe by means of the linear motion of a piston within a chamber or cylinder. ... A poppet valve is a valve consisting of a hole, usually round or oval, and a tapered plug, usually a disk shape on the end of a shaft also called a valve stem. ... Figure 1: A de Laval nozzle, showing approximate flow velocity increasing from green to red in the direction of flow The main type of rocket engine nozzles used in modern rocket engines is the de Laval nozzle which is used to expand and accelerate the combustion gases, from burning propellants... piston engine Bristol Perseus The sleeve valve is a type of valve mechanism for piston engines which have traditionally relied on the more common poppet valve. ... For the American composer, see Walter Piston. ... The Bourke engine was designed by Russell Bourke in the late 1930s, who endeavored to improve upon the Otto cycle engine. ... This page is a candidate for speedy deletion, because: not an article, just links to pictures If you disagree with its speedy deletion, please explain why on its talk page or at Wikipedia:Speedy deletions. ... The hydraulic cylinders on this excavator control the machines linkages. ... Fairbanks-Morse opposed piston diesel engines on the submarine USS Pampanito. ... The radial engine is an internal combustion engine configuration in which the cylinders point outward from a central crankshaft like the spokes on a wheel. ... This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ... A single cylinder engine, colloquially known as a one-lunger, is an engine configuration consisting of just one cylinder. ... The Stelzer engine is a diesel engine design proposed by Frank Stelzer. ... Usually found in 4 and 6 cylinder configurations, the straight engine (often designed as inline engine) is an internal-combustion engine with all cylinders aligned in one row, with no or only minimal offset. ... This article is about rotation as a movement of a physical body. ... In Euclidean geometry, an arc is a closed segment of a differentiable curve in the two-dimensional plane; for example, a circular arc is a segment of a circle. ... The motion of a non-offset piston connected to a crank through a connecting rod (as would be found in internal combustion engines), can be expressed through several mathematical equations. ... For other uses, see CAM. Animation showing rotating cams and cam followers producing reciprocating motion. ... piston (top) and connecting rod from typical automotive engine (scale is in centimetres) Components of a typical, four stroke cycle, DOHC piston engine. ... Crankshaft (red), pistons (gray) in their cylinders (blue), and flywheel (black) Continental engine marine crankshafts, 1942 Components of a typical, four stroke cycle, DOHC piston engine. ... The parallel motion was a mechanical linkage invented by James Watt in 1784 for his double-acting steam engine. ... The Peaucellier-Lipkin linkage (or Peaucellier-Lipkin cell), invented in 1864, was the first linkage capable of transforming rotary motion into perfect straight-line motion. ... In a piston engine, a piston rod joins a piston to a connecting rod. ... The primary claimed benefit of the revolving cylinder, axial piston engine is that a 4-cycle, reciprocating piston engine can be achieved without the need for a complex and expensive valve train. ... Cut away diagram of a Rhombic Drive Beta Stirling Engine Design Pink - Hot cylinder wall, Dark grey - Cold cylinder wall (with coolant inlet and outlet pipes in Yellow), Dark Green - Thermal insulation separating the two cylinder ends, Light Green - Displacer piston, Dark Blue - Power piston, Light Blue - Flywheels, Not Shown... The Scotch Yoke is a mechanism for converting the horizontal motion of a slider into rotational motion or vice-versa. ... The swashplate is the device that translates the pilots (or autopilots) commands via the helicopter flight controls into motion of the main rotor blades. ... Almen A-4 barrel engine The swashplate engine is a type of reciprocating engine that replaces the common crankshaft with a circulate plate. ... Watts Linkage The Watts linkage was invented by James Watt (1736--1819) to constrain the movement of a piston in a steam engine to move in a straight line. ... The Toroidal engine design is a form of internal combustion engine that features pistons that rotate within a toroidal space. ... The trochilic engine is composed of two mirror image gull wing segments intermeshed and rotating about a common central axis. ...

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