Category: automobiles

What will be the source of energy for vehicles 50 years from now? — AW, Karachi, Pakistan

When the earth’s petroleum supply has been depleted to point where it becomes too precious and expensive to burn, electric vehicles will probably take over. While it’s possible to synthesize chemical fuels, I don’t think it will be worth the trouble. The bigger question is where the electricity needed to charge the batteries will come from. I’ll bet on solar power. Right now, electric cars don’t save fossil fuels or keep the air significantly cleaner because the electricity those cars use is obtained by burning fossil fuels. But the electric cars of the future will probably obtain their electric power from the sun. Nuclear fission and fusion are also possibilities, but fission power has its drawbacks and its not clear when or even if fusion power will be available.

Why are there pistons in an engine? — T, Enola, PA

The pistons in a gasoline engine compress the fuel and air mixture before ignition and then extract energy from the burned gases after ignition. When the engine is operating, each piston travels in and out of a cylinder with one closed end many times a second. The piston makes four different strokes during its travels. In the first or “intake” stroke, the piston travels away from the closed end of the cylinder and draws the fuel and air mixture into the cylinder through an opened valve. During the second or “compression” stroke, the piston travels toward the closed end of the cylinder and compresses the fuel and air mixture to high pressure, density, and temperature. The spark plug now ignites the fuel and air mixture and it burns. During the third or “power” stroke, the piston travels away from the closed end of the cylinder and the expanding gases do work on the piston, providing it with the energy that propels the car forward. During the fourth or “exhaust” stroke, the piston travels toward the closed end of the cylinder and pushes the burned gases out of the cylinder through another opened valve.

How does an internal combustion engine work? — RT, Kitchener, Ontario

An internal combustion engine burns a mixture of fuel and air in an enclosed space. This space is formed by a cylinder that’s sealed at one end and a piston that slides in and out of that cylinder. Two or more valves allow the fuel and air to enter the cylinder and for the gases that form when the fuel and air burn to leave the cylinder. As the piston slides in and out of the cylinder, the enclosed space within the cylinder changes its volume. The engine uses this changing volume to extract energy from the burning mixture.

The process begins when the engine pulls the piston out of the cylinder, expanding the enclosed space and allowing fuel and air to flow into that space through a valve. This motion is called the intake stroke. Next, the engine squeezes the fuel and air mixture tightly together by pushing the piston into the cylinder in what is called the compression stroke. At the end of the compression stroke, with the fuel and air mixture squeezed as tightly as possible, the spark plug at the sealed end of the cylinder fires and ignites the mixture. The hot burning fuel has an enormous pressure and it pushes the piston strongly out of the cylinder. This power stroke is what provides power to the car that’s attached to the engine. Finally, the engine squeezes the burned gas out of the cylinder through another valve in the exhaust stroke. These four strokes repeat over and over again to power the car. To provide more steady power, and to make sure that there is enough energy to carry the piston through the intake, compression, and exhaust strokes, most internal combustion engines have at least four cylinders (and pistons). That way, there is always at least one cylinder going through the power stroke and it can carry the other cylinders through the non-power strokes.

How does a steam engine work? — MP, New Fairfield, CT

Like the internal combustion engines used in automobiles, a steam engine is a type of heat engine—a device that diverts some of the heat flowing from a hotter object to a colder object and that turns that heat into useful work. The fraction of heat that can be converted to work is governed by the laws of thermodynamics and increases with the temperature difference between the hotter and colder objects. In the case of the steam engine, the hotter the steam and the colder the outside air, the more efficient the engine is at converting heat into work.

A typical steam engine has a piston that moves back and forth inside a cylinder. Hot, high-pressure steam is produced in a boiler and this steam enters the cylinder through a valve. Once inside the cylinder, the steam pushes outward on every surface, including the piston. The steam pushes the piston out of the cylinder, doing mechanical work on the piston and allowing that piston to do mechanical work on machinery attached to it. The expanding steam transfers some of its thermal energy to this machinery, so the steam becomes cooler as the machinery operates.

But before the piston actually leaves the steam engine’s cylinder, the valve stops the flow of steam and opens the cylinder to the outside air. The piston can then reenter the cylinder easily. In many cases, steam is allowed to enter the other end of the cylinder so that the steam pushes the piston back to its original position. Once the piston is back at its starting point, the valve again admits high-pressure steam to the cylinder and the whole cycle repeats. Overall, heat is flowing from the hot boiler to the cool outside air and some of that heat is being converted into mechanical work by the moving piston.

How do certain mufflers provide more horsepower?

A muffler’s job is to control the flow of exhaust from the cylinders to the outside air, so that the abrupt fluctuations in pressure created by the opening cylinders are smoothed away by the time the exhaust leaves the car’s tail pipe. The pressure fluctuations create sound and, by smoothing them away, the muffler quiets the engine. But the easiest ways to smooth away the pressure fluctuations also impede the flow of exhaust from the cylinders. The result is that some exhaust is trapped in the cylinders and interferes with the operation of the engine. The car’s gas mileage drops. A good muffler smoothes out exhaust pressure without impeding its flow and without reducing gas mileage.

How does a nitrous kit on a car make it go faster?

According to David Ingham, a nitrous kit is a system that injects nitrous oxide into the air intake. This technique was developed during WWII as a way to obtain short bursts of extra power from gasoline engines. Keith Spillman points out that the nitrous oxide is injected as a dense liquid so that it greatly increases the number of oxygen atoms inside the cylinder at the moment the fuel ignites. Since nitrous oxide breaks down into nitrogen and oxygen at high temperatures, it supports combustion and allows more fuel to burn during each engine cycle. The engine thus produces more power. The liquid nitrous oxide also provides an “intercooling” effect when it evaporates—it cools the gases in the cylinder prior to compression so that there is less possibility of knocking.

How does using better spark plugs make your car run more efficiently? Is it worth paying extra for those spark plugs? Would it improve your car’s performance?

According to several readers of this web site, there is a difference between standard and high performance spark plugs. The high performance spark plugs produce a more intense spark and ignite the fuel and air mixture more reliably than standard plugs. That would indicate that igniting the fuel and air mixture at just the right moment isn’t as straightforward as it seems. If the plugs don’t fire reliably and don’t light the gasoline at exactly the right moment every single time the cylinder is supposed to fire, the car’s efficiency will suffer.

In modern car alarm systems, people can start the engine with a push of a button from a remote. How is this done?

This question has a long answer, because there’s lots going on. First, there is a radio transmission from the key chain to the car when you push the button. That transmission is carefully encoded so that no one else can trigger your car (the car’s receiver checks for the proper authorization code when it receives the radio transmission). I won’t describe the transmission/reception process in detail, because that’s a whole story in its self. The receiver than activates the car’s electric system, which was cut off when the driver last turned off the car. The electric system is now ready to provide sparks at the proper moments when the engine turns. Finally, the receiver starts the engine turning by activating the starter motor. An electromagnetic solenoid (a coil of wire with a piece of iron inside) pushes the starter motor or a gear from the starter motor against the car’s flywheel (a huge gear attached to the engine’s crankshaft) and power is supplied to the starter motor. The motor begins turning and it turns the engine. The electric system provides sparks and the engine starts up.

I’ve heard about a car (I think some type of Ferrari) that has a clutch-less manual transmission.

According to Bryan Tiedemann, Ferarri makes a computer-shifted manual transmission. It begins with a standard manual transmission (gears, input/output shafts, synchronizers) that’s similar to that of many “stick-shift” cars of today. However, instead of having a driver-controlled clutch and shift lever, a computer regulates the actual mechanical clutch movement and it also shifts gears via servos and motors. The driver uses a “shift paddle” on the steering wheel to shift, and the computer does the actual shifting. The automatically controlled manual is better than a normal automatic because manual transmissions give better performance than automatics and no energy is lost as heat in hydraulic couplings.

I’ve heard of people using moonshine as fuel for cars and pick up trucks. Is that possible and, if it is, how well does it work?

Yes, it’s probably possible. Moonshine (and any distilled spirits) is a mixture of ethanol (ethyl alcohol) and water. Depending on how picky you are during the distilling process, the water content may be as low as 10% (you can’t do better by distilling because 4.4% water and 95.6% ethanol form an azeotrope—a low boiling point mixture blend that can’t be separated by distilling). Ethanol burns nicely and should make a pretty good fuel. Obviously, the less water the better, because water doesn’t burn and may impede the combustion of ethanol. Ethanol is often included in gasoline to reduce exhaust emissions, but only at about the 10% level. Unfortunately, ethanol is also more corrosive than normal gasoline, so people worry about it damaging their engines.