FACTORS AFFECTING

PERFORMANCE OF IC ENGINES
NAME: M O H A M M A D H A M Z A AW A N

SECTION: ‘A’

R E G I S T R AT I O N N O : 17PWMEC4279

S U B M I T T E D TO : E N G R . N AV E E D U L L A H
INTRODUCTION:
• With a growing demand on transportation, IC engines have gained a lot of
importance in automobile industry.
• It is therefore necessary to produce efficient and economical engines.
• While developing an IC engine, it is required to take in all consideration all the
parameters affecting the engine’s design and performance.
• There are enormous parameters and so it is difficult to account all of them here. We
will account only the important ones.
• This presentation will be a brief overview of some of the important phenomenons
that greatly decide the thermal efficiency of any IC engine.
OBJECTIVE:
• We will try to understand the performance parameters in the evaluation of IC
engine’s performance.
• We will define some of the important terms in IC engines such as knocking and delay
periods, etc.
• We will also see how we can generally rate the fuels used in both the SI engines and
CI engines.
• In the end, we will also see some other parameters that are generally taken into
consideration when designing SI and CI engines.
IMPORTANT FACTORS:
• Following are the two important factors that effect the thermal efficiency of both type
of IC engines i.e. SI Engines and CI Engines:
1. Compression Ratio
2. Fuel Rating

• We will explain both of the above two points in both types of Engines i.e.
I. Petrol Engine or the SI Engines,
II. Diesel Engines or the CI Engine.
IMPORTANT TERMS:
• Normal Combustions:
A combustion process which is initiated solely by a timed spark and in which
the flame front moves completely across the combustion chamber in a uniform manner
at a normal velocity.
• Abnormal Combustion:
A combustion process in which a flame front may be started by hot
combustion chamber surfaces either prior to or after spark ignition, or a process in
which some part of all of the charge may be consumed at extremely high rates.
SI ENGINES (PETROL ENGINES):
1. COMPRESSION RATIO
• A graph of air standard thermal efficiency against
compression ratio is shown in the figure given.
• It is evident that if a petrol-air mixture is
compressed sufficiently, it will ignite
spontaneously.
• This suggests one limit to the combustion
chamber if controlled combustion is to be
obtained from spark ignition.
1. COMPRESSION RATIO (CONTINUED)
• After the combustion has commenced normally, the unburnt gas, compressed by the
advancing flame fronts, is raised in temperature and may reach the point of self-
ignition. This produces an uncontrolled combustion and its occurrence may be heard
as a knocking sound.
• Knocking (also knock, detonation, spark knock, pinging or pinking) in spark
ignition internal combustion engines occurs when combustion of some of the air/fuel
mixture in the cylinder does not result from propagation of the flame front ignited by
the spark plug, but one or more pockets of air/fuel mixture explode outside the
envelope of the normal combustion front.
• One of the result of knock is that local hot spots can be created which remain at a
sufficiently high temperature to ignite the next charge before the spark occurs, also
called the pre-ignition.
• The result is a noisy, overheated, and inefficient engines, and perhaps eventual
mechanical failure.
1. COMPRESSION RATIO (CONTINUED)

• The pressure/crank angle diagram for is shown

with a maximum pressure occurring at 10-20
degree after top dead centre(TDC), and a rate of
pressure rise of 1.38 bar per degree of crank
angle, compression ratio of 8/1.
• The spark occurs at point S on the normal
compression curve, but there is a delay period
between the occurrence of the spark and a
noticeable departure of pressure curve from that
of the normal compression. Also known as the
time delay.
• So we can draw the general conclusion that the
compression ratio of the SI Engines should be
kept low so as to reduce the phenomenon of
knocking.
2. FUEL RATING:
• The compression ratio which can be utilized depends on the fuel to be used and a
scale has been developed against which knock tendency of a fuel can be rated.
• This rating is given as an Octane Number. The fuel under test is compared with a
mixture of iso-octane(high rating) and normal heptane (low rating), by volume.
• The octane number of the fuel is the percentage of octane number in the reference
mixture which knocks under the same conditions as the fuel.
• High-octane fuels can be obtained either by refining techniques, or by more cheap way
of using anti-knock additives, such as tetraethyl lead.
• Unfortunalty, this additive was later proved to be harmful to health and so the use of
unleaded fuel and adjusting engines for the use of unleaded fuel has been encouraged
ever since.
2. FUEL RATING (CONTINUED):
• Fuels have been developed which have a higher anti-knock rating iso-octane and this
has led to an extension of the octane scale.
• Aviation conditions of operation lead to another scale which gives a better indication
of the detonation characteristics; this is the performance number(PN).
• The relationship between octane number(ON), above 100 and performance is given
by:

• So a better fuel rating will ultimately help in increasing the thermal efficiency of the SI
Engines as a fuel with better fuel rating will ultimately have better anti-knocking
properties.
CI ENGINES (DIESEL ENGINES):
1. COMPRESSION RATIO
• The effect of compression ratio in CI engine is
somewhat simpler than in the SI engine.
• The normal range of compression ratios is 13/1
to 17/1 but may be anything up to 25/1. The
efficiency of the cycle increases with higher
values of compression ratio and the limit is a
mechanical one imposed by the high pressures
developed in the cylinder.
• The combustible mixture in the SI engine is
formed before compression, but with the CI
engine, this mixture has to be formed after
compression and after injection begins. This leads
to greater delay periods in CI engines.
1. COMPRESSION RATIO (CONTINUED)

• As shown in the figure in the last slide, the delay period is the main factor which
needs to be considered.
• The long delay periods means more combustible mixture has had time to form, and
so more charge will be involved in the initial combustion.
• Furthermore, as the speed increases, the rate of pressure rise also increases.
• All of this leads to initial rapid combustion that can give rise to rough running and a
characteristic noise called diesel knock.
• So, in general, we should take high compression ratios with low speeds in CI engines
as compared to the SI engines so as to reduce the effect of knocking.
2. FUEL RATING:
• It has been stated that the delay period depends on the nature of the fuel.
• A fuel with a short delay period, or high ignitability, is required.
• The ignitability of a fuel oil is indicated by its cetane number.
• The procedure for obtaining it is similar to that for obtaining the octane number of
petrol.
• Reference mixtures of cetane (high ignitability), and α-methyl-nephethalene (low
ignitability), are used, and the mixture is made by volume.
• The ignitability of the test fuel is quoted as the percentage of cetane in the reference
mixture which has the same ignitability.
• And so as we need more high-speed engines, we would need to used higher cetane
numbers.
OTHER PARAMETERS:
• The following table shows some other parameter that are generally used to increase
the performance of SI engines and CI engines:
Parameters SI Engines CI Engines

Self-Ignition Temperature High Low

Ignition Lag High Low

Internal Temperature Less High

Internal Pressure Less High

Wall Temperature Less High

Speed High Low

Size Less High

CONCLUSION:
• Different performance parameters were studied for both the types of IC engines i.e.
the SI engines and the CI engines.
• We saw an important factor affecting the performance of the SI and the CI engines
and that is the phenomenon of knocking.
• We also studied how we can generally devise fuel ratings for petrol and diesel
engines.
• In the end, we devised a table which gave us the summary of all the basic parameters
affecting the performance of SI and the CI engines.