1

Internal Combustion Engine Laboratory Case study

Group 7

Ho Szu Jie
Chin Choon Ming
Raveena Menon
Siow Yea Ying
Kalananthni

School of Engineering
Taylors University
Malaysia
25 April 2014





















Date of experiment : 25
th
April2014
Report due date:23th May2014
Report submission date: 23
th
May 2014
Checked by: Dr. Lim Chin Hong
Item/marks
Format/10
Abstract and
Introduction/10

Figures and Diagrams/15
Materials and Method/10
Results & Discussion/45
References/10
Total
2

Table of Content

Abstract ........................................................................................................................................... 3
Introduction ..................................................................................................................................... 3
Materials ......................................................................................................................................... 6
Apparatus ........................................................................................................................................ 6
Diagram........................................................................................................................................... 6
Method ............................................................................................................................................ 8
Procedure ........................................................................................................................................ 9
Results and Discussion ................................................................................................................. 11
Conclusion .................................................................................................................................... 17
Reference ...................................................................................................................................... 17

























3

Abstract

This experiment is designed to build the understanding and the working principle of an
internal combustion engine (ICE). Thus, the experiment is divided into three different parts. In
part 1, the familiarization of the components of a heat engine was conducted. The type of
engine, number of cylinders, engine bore size and the piston stroke was identified. Part 2 would
be the estimation of the gear ratio of a gear box where the rotation at the driveshaft and the
quantity of petrol used was calculated and part 3 would be to calculate the efficiency and the
performance of the engine. To identify the gear ratio, a Digital Laser Photo Tachometer was used
and for the temperature calculation on the efficiency of the engine a thermometer and a
multimeter was used. Based on the results obtained it is seen that in section one the engine
specification shows that it is a spark ignition internal combustion engine with four inline
cylinders. Besides that, the engine also has four pistons and an engine bore size of 3.25 X 10
-3
m
2

.As for section two, an average gear ratio at first gear was calculated to be 0.468. Finally for
section 3, based on the heat transfer the efficiency of the engines was found to be 0.34%.
Introduction
The main objective of this experiment would be to understand the working principle of an
engine and its components. Thus, in order to meet the objectives, a test rig experiment was
designed. Test rig is normally done to asses the performance of mechanical equipment. This test
rig would enable us to observe and identify the basic components in an internal combustion
engine, to recognize and conclude detailed engine components, to come up with a method of
estimating the gear box ratio and lastly to design an experiment and conduct assess the
combustion efficiency for the test rig.
An engine is a mechanical device that consumes fuel and converts chemical energy to a
mechanical motion. The common engines used would be combustion engines. These engines are
divided into internal combustion engines and external combustion engine, but the common
engines used now days would be the internal combustion engines. An external combustion
engine uses an external source through an engine wall to create combustion to heat up an internal
working fluid. The expansion of the fluid will cause the motion in the mechanical system and
the fluid used in the engine will be compressed, cooled and recycled. [1] As for the internal
4

combustion engine the engine that uses an oxidizer (air) to burn its fuel in a combustion
chamber. The theory behind this engine is that when the combustion inside the engines happens
it will cause an expansion of high pressure and high temperature which would then apply direct
force into the components in the engine such as the turbine or piston and with that mechanical
energy is produced. [2] There are approximately 17 different components in an ICE engine, some
of the components include camshaft, combustion chamber, piston ring, crankshaft, valve, spark
plug, piston cylinder and oil plan.
Currently, there are many types of ICE engines in the market, thus to identify the type of
engines there are several information that is needed to be gather. Fuel type, cylinder
arrangement, number of cylinder, ignition method and cooling system are the information
required for the engine identification. The first identification would be fuel type, there are only
two type of fuel used in car engines which is gasoline and diesel. However, recent development
has discovered other fuel source such as ethanol, .methanol, propane and natural gas. The second
information would be cylinder arrangement. The arrangement of the cylinder would indicate the
type of cylinder used. For example if the cylinder is arranged in two rows side by side with a
V shape it would indicate it is a V engine. Besides the V engine there are other existing
engines such as Straight/Inline, V Type, Boxer, Rotary Wankel, Oppose Cylinder, Oppose
Piston and W type engines. [3]The third information would be the number of cylinder. There is
around 3 to 12 number of cylinder used in a car engines. The amount of cylinders used in the
engine would determine the engine power. Fourthly, would be ignition type. Basically, there are
only two types ignition method which is compression-ignited by compressing air or spark-
ignited with a spark plug .Normally, diesel engines uses compression ignition and gasoline
engine uses spark ignition. Spark ignition uses a spark plug to ignite the combustion in the
cylinder which would give a high voltage electrical discharge between two electrodes and ignite
the air fuel mixture.[4] As for compression-ignited engine it uses a self ignition whereby the air
fuel mixture is ignited using high air compression. Lastly, would be the cooling system used in
the engine. It is very important to maintain the temperature of engine as excessive heat can
destroy the engine. The type of cooling system used would be either air cooled or liquid cooled.
The liquid cooled system uses water pump to circulate the water around the engine.
Further more, internal combustion engines also has two different type of engine cycle,
four stroke engine and two stroke engine cycle. Four stroke would start with the intake stroke
5

(induction) where the air and fuel enters the cylinder and the piston moves down followed by the
compression stroke where the upstroke of the cylinder compresses the air and fuel and then the
power stroke which would ignite the compressed mixture and ends with the exhaust stroke
where the waste gasses is removed from the cylinder. Two stroke engine cycles only have two
processes in it. It would start with Power stroke and end with compression stroke. [5]
In this experiment several major components will be highlighted. One of the main
components in this experiment would be the engine. The car engine used in this test rig would be
a Nissan 1.3 L. This engine was produced from the year 1968 to 1983 consisting of 2- valve per
cylinder with an iron block and aluminium head. Other components like gear box, piston and
cylinder was also highlighted in this experiment. Piston is used to transfer the force of expending
gas from the cylinder to the crankshaft. Its range of motion is calculated by using the term
stroke. Each cycle back and forth is called a stroke. [6] The second component focused in this
experiment is the gear box. A gear box uses several gears to change speed and provide torque
conversion. It transfers the energy for one component to another. A gear ratio is used to measure
the circulation of the gear. It will obtain the relationship between the numbers of rotations
between two gears. Lastly, in a car engine very important component would be the cylinder. As
mentioned above different engine would have different number and different arrangement of the
cylinder .A cylinder and piston has a very close relationship. A cylinder contains a piston inside
and is the space where the piston travels and pumps the gas. [7]
In an engine it is important to calculate the efficiency of an engine. Engine efficiency is
based on the fuel consumed versus the force and power produced by the engine. Thus, basically
means the work done by the engine. There are many factors that can affect a combustion engines.
The hypothesis behind the relationship of the compression ratio and the efficiency of the engine
would be that the higher the compression ratio the more efficient the engine is. [3]The formula
used to calculate the engine efficiency would be as follows:

Lastly, there were only two major measuring equipment used in this experiment, the
first equipment would be Digital Laser Photo Tachometer. This equipment Measures the
(1)
6

rotational speed using a powerful LED with a visible light beam at the driveshaft. The second
equipment would be a multimeter. A multimeter has the ability to measure several different
function units such as voltage, resistance and current. However, in this experiment the multi-
meter was used to measure the temperature of the engine and exhaust.
Materials
1. Petrol
2. Coolant Water
Apparatus
1. 1.3L Nissan Engine
2. Digital Laser Photo Tachometer
3. Mercury Thermometer
4. Measuring ruler
5. Multi-meter
6. Stopwatch
Diagram
Figure 1: Spark plugs




Spark plugs
7










Figure 2: Bore size and Stroke length









Figure 3: The driveshaft







Figure 4: The dashboard


Bore size
Stroke length
From the engine (input
gear)
Oil Press
(kg/cm
2
)
RPM meter
Ampere (A)
Temperature ( )
White strip
8








Figure 5: Exhaust with multi-meter

Method
Section A
This part is carried out to familiarize parts of the engine. Observation of the engine is required to
complete this section.
Section B
This part is carried out to calculate the gear ratio. Gear ratio is also known as the speed ratio.
This gear ratio is basically the relationship between two gears input gear and output gear. The
input gear is usually connected to a power source which transfers the power to the output gear.
The dashboard shows the rpm of the input gear and the shaft is connected to the output gear. By
increasing the rpm, the output torque increases. For this section, both the rpm for the input gear
and the output gear is noted down. With the rpm obtained from both the gears, the gear ratio can
be determined.
Section C
Combustion efficiency is basically how efficiently the fuel is burned during combustion in the
engine. The efficiency is calculated using the following formula:

Exhaust
Multi-meter

(2)
(3)
9


Q = Heat flow
m = Mass
C = Specific heat capacity (

)
= difference in temperature ( )

Water (coolant) is used to cool the system. The temperature used to calculate

would
temperature of inlet and outlet of water and the temperature of the engine. Ambient temperature
and the temperature of the engine are taken down for calculation of

. As for the calculation

of

the temperature of the engine and the exhaust is needed. The flow rate of water was
measured for

. The diameter of exhaust is measured using a ruler. The area of the engine
is also measured.

Procedure
Section 1
A. Type of engine
1. Observed for spark plugs and the usage of petrol.

B. Number of cylinder and cylinder configuration
1. Number of spark plugs was counted.
2. The alignment of spark plugs was observed.


C. Engine bore size
1. The bore was measured using ruler.

D. Piston stroke
1. The piston stroke length is measured using the following formula :
Stroke length = Engine displacement / (bore X bore X 0.7854 X number of cylinders)
10


Section 2: Measuring the Gear ratio
1. The initial amount of fuel was noted down.
2. A strip of adhesive white tape was placed on the driveshaft. This strip would be the
reference point for the digital photo laser tachometer.
3. The gear was switched to 'ON' position.
4. The engine was started. The accelerator was pressed until the end to ensure sufficient fuel
is filled into the engine.
5. The accelerator pedal was brought down to the 'Slow' indicator. The engine was left to
run for a minute before starting the experiment.
6. The experiment is started by pressing the accelerator to 2500 rpm. The rpm was
maintained for a minute. At the same time, rpm of the driveshaft was also measured using
the digital tachometer.
7. At the end of the first minute, the reading of the tachometer was noted down.
8. This was subsequently carried out with increments of 500rpm until it reaches 4500rpm.
The tachometer reading is taken for each increment at 1 minute interval.
9. After 4500rpm, the accelerator pedal was let go to the initial position.
10. The engine was then switched off.
11. The final amount of petrol is noted down.
Section 3: Measuring the combustion efficiency
1. Multi-meter was connected to the exhaust and the engine to measure the temperature.
2. The ambient temperature was noted down.
3. The initial amount of petrol was noted down.
4. The engine was switched on and was let to run for a minute.
5. The water (coolant) was collected in a tub to allow the temperature of the water to be
measured using mercury thermometer.
6. The temperature of the water, exhaust and the engine are noted down simultaneously at
the interval of 1 minute for 5 minutes.
7. After 5 minutes, the engine is switched off.
8. The final amount of petrol was noted down.
11


Results and Discussion

Section I: Engine Specifications
This section was to identify the specification of the engine without disassemble it. Type of
engine was determined to be spark ignition as the spark plugs was installed as shown in Figure 1.
By counting the number of spark plug, the number of cylinders in the engine is determined as 4.
For the configuration of the cylinders, it can be observed by the placement of the spark plug. It is
in-line configuration as shown in Figure 1 as well. Piston stroke for spark ignition engine is 4
strokes which are intake, compression, combustion, and exhaust [2]. Engine bore size is the
cross-sectional area of the cylinders; it can be calculated from the information (1.3 L engine) and
measure approximately the height of the engine. Calculation shown below:

In conclusion, specifications of the engine are tabulated in Table 1.

Table 1: Specification of the 1.3 L Nissan Engine
Specification
Type of Engine Spark Ignition
Number of Engine Cylinders 4
Cylinder configuration In-Line
Engine Bore Size 3.25 X 10
-3
m
2

Piston Stroke 4




(4)
12

Section II: Drive train and gearbox
In this section, the gear ratio of the attached gear box was estimated. The gear ratio of a car is
basically the rotation of the wheel shaft with respect to the speed of rotation on the engine.
Manual transmission cars have multiple gears so they can go a variety of speeds. From this
experiment, the engine rpm was observed and analyzed from the dashboard reading. Whereas,
the wheel shaft rpm was recorded using a tachometer. Throughout the experiment, the gear of the
engine was maintained at first gear.
At the beginning of the experiment for Section 2, the engine was allowed to run for five minutes
before any records were taken down. This was to allow the engine to warm up and reach its
steady state. At a minute interval, the reading on the dashboard and the tachometer was recorded
in the table below;
Table 2: The data observed for section 2
Dashboard (rpm) Shaft (rpm) Gear ratio (shaft/dashboard)
2.5 1.20 0.48
3.0 1.35 0.45
3.5 1.65 0.47
4.0 1.90 0.48
4.5 2.07 0.46

The gear ratio was calculated using the following equation:






Whereas the average of the gear ratio was calculated using the standard mean equation:

(5)
(6)
13

From the calculations above, the average gear ratio of the specific engines first gear was
calculated to be 0.468.
However, the experimental results were nowhere near accurate. This is because the rpm meter on
the dashboard keeps fluctuating and it was hard to keep it at still to obtain the specific engine
speed.

Section III: Combustion Performance

Combustion performance or combustion efficiency is the measurement of how efficient the fuel
being burned is being utilized by convert the internal energy contained in the fuel into heat
energy to be used in the combustion processes. Combustion efficiency losses carry a big part of
the total efficiency losses. Low combustion efficiency will eventually result in lower
performance of the device. Hence it is vital to increase the combustion efficiency in order to
reduce to cost to run the engine, prevent the wastage of excessive fuel and decrease the air
pollution to the environment as well.
The heat generated from the combustion is equal to the sum of the heat rejected from the cooling
system, Q
cooling,
heat loss due to the convection, Q
conv
and the exhaust heat, Q
exhaust
at steady state.
The equation to calculate the total heat generated from the combustion to the engine manifold is
shown below:
Q
in
= Q
cooling
+ Q
conv
+ Q
exhaust

Heat of the cooling is the heat rejected from the water with the temperature difference of the
outlet temperature and the atmospheric temperature of water. In order to find the heat of the
cooling, mass of the fuel is calculated with the given volume of the fuel. Density of water, at
25C is 997.0479 kg/m
3
and the volume of fuel consumed, V is 0.3 l.

m
fuel
=V---------------------------------------------------------(7)
= 997 kg/m
3
x 0.0003 m
3
= 0.2991 kg

It is assumed that no heat lost to the surrounding from other places besides the engine and the
surrounding air temperature. Hence, the surrounding temperature is 25C.Q is the heat
transferred from the cooling system (kJ), c is the specific heat capacity of water (kJ/kgC)
whereas T is the temperature difference between the water outlet and the surrounding
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(C).Table 1 below shows the temperature of the water output from the water pipe is measured in
every minute for 5 minutes with 5 readings.

Table 3: The temperature of the water outlet

Time (min) Temperature of water output (C)
1 35
2 37
3 38
4 39
5 39

However, only the temperature of the engine at 5
th
minute was taken into consideration because
the first four minutes of the experiment were to allow the system to reach steady state. Therefore,
the temperature of the engine was 39C. Thus, heat of the cooling is calculated as shown below.

Q
cooling
= mcT------------------------------------------------------- (8)
= mc(T
water,out
- T
water,in
)
= 0.3* 4.186* (39-25)
= 17.58 kJ
= 17580 J

The type of convection that occurs along the body of the engine is natural convection. This is
because the air around the engine was not subjected to any external force such as fan, pump or a
mixer. The general formula to calculate the heat transferred due to convection is [8].
Q is the heat transferred per unit time (W), A is the heat transfer of the surface (m
2
), h is the
convective heat transfer coefficient of the process (W/m
2
K) and T is the temperature difference
between surface and the bulk fluid (K or C). Naturally, the convective heat transfer coefficient
for free convection of air is between 5 25 (W/m
2
K) [1]. Whereas the convective heat transfer
coefficient of air is approximately equal to where v is the relative speed
of the object through the air (m/s), which in this case was the speed of air.
During the time of experiment, there was no high velocity air felt. So, the air speed was assumed
to be 1m/s [2].Therefore, the heat transfer coefficient in the experiment is;


15

Since assumed h = 10.45 W/m
2
K, and 5 < 10.45 < 25
The assumption is logical.


Furthermore, the body of the engine was assumed to be rectangular shape as follows;










Figure 6: Dimension of Internal Combustion Engine

The body of the rectangular shaped engine has the dimensions of 0.1m height, 0.38m length and
0.22m width. That makes the total surface area of the engine to be;

It is assumed that no heat lost to the surrounding from other places besides the engine and the
surrounding air temperature is 25C. Then, the temperature of the engine was measured in the
following table.
Table 4: The temperature of the engine measured

Time (min) Temperature of engine (C)
1 45
2 49
3 53
4 56
5 59

But, only the temperature of the engine at 5
th
minute was taken into consideration because the
first four minutes of the experiment were to allow the system to reach steady state. Therefore, the
temperature of the engine was 59C. So, the total heat lost due to convection in the experiment
was;

---------------------------------------------------(9)

0.38m
0.22m
0.1m
16


The energy E in joules (J) is equal to the power P in watts (W), times the time period t in seconds
(s):
J = P (W) t (s)--------------------------------------------(10)
=102.15*5*60 Ws
= 30645 J
Mass flowrate, heat capacity of exhaust gas, and the temperature difference between engine and
exhaust gas needed to be determined first before proceeding to the calculation of Q
exhaust
. Mass
flowrate of the exhaust is calculated by multiplying volume flowrate and density of air while
volume flowrate is having relationships with displacement, RPM, and volumetric efficiency.
Volumetric efficiency is assumed to be at 85%, and air density is 1.2 kg /m
3
at normal
temperature and pressure [9].
To calculate Mass flowrate [9], we use the formula as shown below:

-------------------------(11)

Specific heat of air at 25
o
C is 1.005 kJ/kg.K [10]. To calculate the Q
exhaust
:

--------------------------------------------(12)

= 1639 J

After getting the heat generated from the combustion to the engine manifold, we can now
calculate the combustion efficiency from the equation (8) below:

----------------------------------------------------(13)
Whereas Q
in
is the heat generated from the combustion to the engine manifold (J), Q
HV
is the fuel
caloric value (J/kg) and m
fuel
is the mass of fuel (kg). Using Equation 1 we can get the Q
in.

Heating value of petrol = 48000 kJ/kg [10]


17

Hence, the combustion efficiency is calculated as shown below:
=

= 0.34%


Conclusion

In conclusion, the objective of this case study has been achieved. This experiment is
carried in three sections. Section 1 is carried out by observation while section 2 is carried out by
measuring the number of rotation of the wheel shaft with respect to the number of rotations on
the engine. Section 3 is completed by measuring the temperatures of engine, exhaust, water and
the ambience. From the experiment, it is concluded that the engine is a spark ignition internal
combustion engine with four inline cylinders. The engine has 4 pistons with an engine bore size
of 3.25 X 10
-3
m
2
. The gear ratio is measured to be 0.468 while the efficiency of the engine is
calculated to be 0.34%.

Reference

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P62120 Individual Soldier Power System', U.S. Army Laboratory Command, Adelphi, 1992.
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2014].
[3] A. Penninger, F. Lezsovuts, J. Rohaly and V. Wolff, 'Internal Combustion engine', Technical
University of Budapest, Budapest, 2014.
[4] F. Salazar, INTERNAL COMBUSTION ENGINES, 1st ed. Notre Dame: Department of
Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering University of Notre Dame, 1998, pp. 17-21.
[5] W. W. Pulkrabek, Engineering Fundamentals of the Internal Combustion Engine, 1st ed.
New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 2014, pp. 68, 111-113.
[6] Encyclopedia Britannica, 'piston and cylinder (engineering)', 2014. [Online]. Available:
18

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/461886/piston-and-cylinder. [Accessed: 06
May- 2014].
[7] wiseGEEK, 'What is a Gearbox? (with pictures)', 2014. [Online]. Available:
http://www.wisegeek.org/what-is-a-gearbox.htm. [Accessed: 07- May- 2014].
[8] Engineeringtoolbox.com, 'Convective Heat Transfer', 2014. [Online]. Available:
http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/convective-heat-transfer-d_430.html. [Accessed: 10- May- 2014].
[9] Wiki.sandaysoft.com, 'Wind measurement - CumulusWiki', 2014. [Online]. Available:
http://wiki.sandaysoft.com/a/Wind_measurement. [Accessed: 10- May- 2014].
[10] Engineeringtoolbox.com, 'Fuels - Higher Calorific Values', 2014. [Online]. Available:
http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/fuels-higher-calorific-values-d_169.html. [Accessed: 10- May-
2014].