项目一 汽车底盘概述及维修基本知识.doc

Chapter 2 Chapter 2 Engine PAGE 11 PAGE PAGE 10 Chapter 2 Engine Unit 1 Four-stage Engine Operation There are various types of engines such as electric motors, stream engines and internal combustion engines. However, the internal combustion engine seems to be the most commonly used in the automotive field. According to the fuel energy used, internal combustion engines are further divided into gasoline engines and diesel engines. The internal combustion engine, as its name indicates, burns fuel within the cylinders and converts the expanding force of the combustion into rotary force used to propel the vehicle. The actions taking place in the engine cylinder can be classified into four stages, or stroke. The “stroke” refers to piston movement?—?a stroke occurs when the piston moves from one limiting position to the other. The upper limit of piston movement is called TDC (top dead center). The lower limit of the piston movement is called BDC (bottom dead center). A stroke is the movement from TDC to BDC or from BDC to TDC. In other words, the piston completes a stroke, each time it changes its direction of motion, as shown in Figure 2-1. Figure 2-1 Four-stroke Engine Almost all cars currently use the so-called four-stroke cycle engine to convert gasoline into motion. The four-stroke approach is also known as the Otto cycle, in honor of Nicolaus Otto, who invented it in 1867. The four strokes are intake stroke, compression stroke, power stroke and exhaust stroke, as shown in Figure 2-2. Figure 2-2 The Operation of a Four-stroke Cycle Engine Intake stroke. The piston is connected to the crankshaft by a connecting rod. On the intake stroke, the piston moves down from the TDC to the BDC as the crankshaft revolves. This downward movement of the piston creates a vacuum, a difference in pressure in the space above the piston. The intake valve opens automatically as or slightly before the piston starts down, therefore, the air fuel mixture pushed by the atmospher