GATOT SETYONO, ST, MT / INTERNAL COMBUSTION ENGINE

Lecture VI

COMBUSTION CHAMBER DESIGN PRINSIPLES

The basic requirements of a good combustion chamber can be achieved by the following
design principles:
1. To achieve high volumetric efficiency the largest possible inlet valve should be
accommodated with ample (banyak/luas) clearance round the valve heads.

2. To prevent detonation, the length or flame travel from the sparking plug to the farthest
point in the combustion space should be as short as possible. This consideration
involves: - the location of the sparking plug,
- the position of the valves and
- shape of the combustion chamber.

The consideration of the length of the flame also dedicates (memberikan) that bore of
the cylinder should be small. SI engines are therefore generally limited up to 100 mm
bore of cylinder. There is no such limit on CI engines.

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3. Again, to reduce the possibility of detonation there should not be a hot surface in the
end of gas region. Exhaust valve being a very hot surface should not be in the end gas
region. It means that the exhaust valve should be nearer the sparking plug. It would
also avoid surface ignition.

hot

hot

4. Because of the hot surface it presents, the exhaust valve should be kept small, but to
compensate for this high lift should be employed.

Charge
(air+fuel Exhaust gas

high lift

5. Short combustion time is the primary consideration in all SI combustion chamber

designs. This is achieved by creating the highest flame front velocity through the
creation of correct amount of turbulence. Proper turbulence may be created by suitable
positioning of inlet valve and design of inlet passage and streamlining of combustion
chamber. The other of producing turbulence is by ‘squish’ (pengkabutan). Turbulence
created by squish is better as it does not adversely (buruk) affect the volumetric
efficiency.

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6. The shape of the chamber should be such that the largest mass of the charge burnt
towards the end of combustion.

the end of combustion

7. To ensure high thermal efficiency and satisfactory initial combustion conditions the
heat flow should be minimum in the zone around spark plug. For minimum heat flow
the surface-volume ratio (A/V) should be least. A hemispherical shape provides
minimum surface-volume ratio. A lower surface-volume ratio also gives less air
pollution.

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8. In the end gas region surface-volume ratio should be large so that there is a good
cooling in the ‘detonation zone’. In other word ‘quench space’ should be formed in the
end gas region.

9. In order to be able to extend the mixture range as far as possible on the weak side and
more especially on reduced load, it is essential that the sparking plug shall be so
positioned that it will be scoured (digosok) of any residual exhaust products by the
incoming charge.
10. The exhaust valve head should be well cooled by a high velocity water stream around
it as it is the hottest region of the combustion chamber.
11. There should be sufficient cooling of the sparking plug points by high velocity water
stream around it to avoid pre-ignition effects at the larger throttle openings. A slight
pocketing of the plug greatly increase electrode life and decreases fouling.

12. There should be good scavenging of the exhaust gases.

13. Thickness of the walls must be uniform for uniform expansion.

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14. On manufacturing grounds, it is desirable to employ a plain flat topped piston.

15. To achieve maximum thermal efficiency for a given grade of fuel the highest possible
compression ratio must be employed. It means the working should be near the
borderline of detonation but detonation or rough working should not occur under all
running conditions.

HISTORITICAL REVIEW OF COMBUSTION CHAMBER DESIGNS

1. T-Head Combustion chamber.

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In the earliest engines T-head design shown in figure was used. Ford utilized this design
in his famous model ‘T’ introduced in 1908. The T-head design had the disadvantages of
(a) having two camshafts;
(b) being very prone (cenderung) to detonation, as the distance across the combustion
chamber was long. There was violent detonation even at a compression ratio of 4.
This was also because the average octane number of petrol available was 45-50.
2. L-head or Side Valve Combustion Chamber.
In the period 1910-30 the side valve engine was most commonly used in petrol engines. In
the side valve engines, valves are placed side by side and are in the block. A side valve
engine has an advantaged both from a manufacturing and maintenance point of view. It is
easy to enclose and lubricate the valve mechanism, and the detachable (dapat diepas)
head can be removed for decarbonizing without disturbing either the valve gear or the
main pipe work. The side valve design also affords a neat (simple) and compact layout.
In this original form, however it gave a poor performance because of following
main defects:
(a) lack of turbulence as the air had to take two right angle turns to enter the
cylinder and in doing so lost much of its initial velocity.
(b) extremely prone (cenderung) to detonation due to large flame length and slow
combustion process due to lack of turbulence.
(c) extremely sensitive to ignition timing due to slow combustion process.
Due to these defects side valve engines could not employ as high compression
ratio as contemporary overhead valve engines and hence compete with them in power or
economy. The popularity of side valve engine was, therefore, varying and it would have
been completely superseded by the overhead valve engine but for the intensive research
and development done by Ricardo into both the mechanism of detonation and the
influence of turbulence which culminated in the design of a new head known as “turbulent
head” for side valve engines. It gave performance as good as any overhead valve design
and was universally adopted.
Ricardo turbulent head side valve design
Ricardo turbulent head design (19l9) is shown in Figure 12 below. The main
objectives of this design were to obtain fast flame speed and reduce knock. In the Ricardo
design the main body of the combustion chamber was concentrated over the valves,
leaving a slightly restricted passage communicating with the cylinder. Thus, additional
turbulence was created during the compression stroke as the gases were forced back again
through the passage.

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Figure 12. Ricardo turbulent combustion chamber

By varying the throat area of the passage it was possible to achieve any desired degree of
general turbulence within the main body of the combustion chamber. The design also
ensured a more homogeneous mixture by scouring away the layer of stagnant gas clinging
to the chamber walls. Both these factors contribute to the increase of flame speed. This
considerably improved the performance and at the same time rendered the engine
relatively insensitive to the timing of the spark. In fact, the turbulence increased with
increase of engine speed at such a rate that a fixed time of ignition could be used on full
load almost throughout the whole speed range.
The Ricardo design reduced the tendency to knock b shortening the length of
effective flame travel by bringing that portion of the head which lay over the farther side
of the piston into as close a contact as possible with the piston crown, forming a quench
space. Thus there was left at top dead centre only a very thin layer of gas (about 2.5 mm
thick) entrapped between the relatively cool piston and till cooler head. This thin lamina
lost its heat rapidly because of large surrounding surfaces which avoided detonation .i any
case the detonation of gas trapped in the quench volume would have no impact due to its
very small mass.
Another design feature which reduced the length of flame travel was placing the
sparking lug in the centre of the effective combustion space, but with a slight bias towards
the hot exhaust valve.

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Figure Modern Ricardo head-turbulent-head side valve design.

A modern Ricardo head is shown in above figure
At the time the turbulent head was developed the average octane number of the
petrol available was 45-50 and the incidence of detonation limited the compression ratio
to about 4. The turbulent head allowed it to be raised to about 4.8:1, thus permitting a very
substantial increase in power output and efficiency. As the octane number of petrol
improved the compression ratio was increased until, by about 1935, it had reached nearly
6:1. At this ratio of compression the normal speed of burning increased so much that
relatively little turbulence was required to give the optimum rate of pressure rise (2 to 2.5
kgf/cm2 per degree of crank angle).

Figure ….Overhead valve combustion chamber designs.

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Figure …. F-head combustion chambers

Figure …An F-head combustion chamber (Roils Royce)

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