汽车发动机如何工作--中英文翻译.docVIP

How Car Engines Work Introduction to How Car Engines Work Have you ever opened the hood of your car and wondered what was going on in there? A car engine can look like a big confusing jumble of metal, tubes and wires to the uninitiated. You might want to know whats going on simply out of curiosity. Or perhaps you are buying a new car, and you hear things like 3.0 liter V-6 and dual overhead cams and tuned port fuel injection. What does all of that mean? If you have ever wondered about this kind of stuff, then read on -- In this article, well discuss the basic idea behind an engine and then go into detail about how all the pieces fit together, what can go wrong and how to increase performance. The purpose of a gasoline car engine is to convert gasoline into motion so that your car can move. Currently the easiest way to create motion from gasoline is to burn the gasoline inside an engine. Therefore, a car engine is an internal combustion engine -- combustion takes place internally. Two things to note: There are different kinds of internal combustion engines. Diesel engines are one form and gas turbine engines are another. See also the articles on HEMI engines, rotary engines and two-stroke engines. Each has its own advantages and disadvantages. There is such a thing as an external combustion engine. A steam engine in old-fashioned trains and steam boats is the best example of an external combustion engine. The fuel (coal, wood, oil, whatever) in a steam engine burns outside the engine to create steam, and the steam creates motion inside the engine. Internal combustion is a lot more efficient (takes less fuel per mile) than external combustion, plus an internal combustion engine is a lot smaller than an equivalent external combustion engine. This explains why we dont see any cars from Ford and GM using steam engines Almost all cars today use a reciprocating internal combustion engine because this engine is: Relatively efficient (compared to an external combustion