新概念汽车实用英语U8.ppt

Car Engine 1. Internal Combustion Almost all cars currently use what is called a four-stroke combustion cycle to convert gasoline into motion. The four-stroke approach is also known as the Otto cycle, in honor of Nikolaus Otto, who invented it in 1867. The four strokes are: * Car Engine 1) Intake stroke; 2) Compression stroke; 3) Combustion stroke; 4) Exhaust stroke. A device called piston is connected to the crankshaft by a connecting rod. Heres what happens as the engine goes through its cycle: * Car Engine (1) The piston starts at the top, the intake valve opens, and the piston moves down to let the engine take in a cylinder-full of air and gasoline. This is the intake stroke. Only the tiniest drop of gasoline needs to be mixed into the air for this to work. * Car Engine (2) Then the piston moves back up to compress this fuel/air mixture. Compression makes the explosion more powerful. (3) When the piston reaches the top of its stroke, the spark plug emits a spark to ignite the gasoline. The gasoline charge in the cylinder explodes, driving the piston down. * Car Engine (4) Once the piston hits the bottom of its stroke, the exhaust valve opens and the exhaust leaves the cylinder to go out the tailpipe. Now the engine is ready for the next cycle, so it intakes another charge of air and gasoline. * Car Engine Notice that the motion that comes out of an internal combustion engine is rotational. In an engine the linear motion of the pistons is converted into rotational motion by the crankshaft. The rotational motion is nice because we plan to turn the cars wheels with it anyway. * Car Engine The core of the engine is the cylinder, with the piston moving up and down inside the cylinder. The engine described above has one cylinder, but most cars have more than one cylinder. In a multi-cylinder engine, the cylinders usually are arranged in one of three ways: in-line, V or flat. * Car Engine Different configurations have different