Engines Word
Engines Word
motors
A. Types and functions of engines and motors
The term engine usually refers to petrol engines, diesel engines
and jet engines (or jets). In engineering,motor usually means
electric motor — but in general language, ‘motor’ can also
refer to petrol and diesel engines. Engines and motors power
(or drive) machines by generating rotary motion — for A jet engine
example, to drive wheels. In jet engines, compressors and
turbines rotate to generate thrust — pushing force, produced
by forcing air from the back of the engine at high velocity.
As an engine produces a couple — rotary force — the moving parts of the machine it is driving will produce resistance,
due to friction and other forces. As a result, torque (twisting force) is exerted on the output shaft of the engine. Torque
— calculated as a turning moment, in newton metres — is therefore a measure of how much rotational force an engine
can exert. The rate at which an engine can work to exert torque is the power of the engine, measured in watts.
Although engineers normally calculate engine power in watts, the power of vehicle engines is often given in brake
horsepower (bhp). This is the power of an engine’s output shaft measured in horsepower (hp) — a historic
measurement of power
A. Internal combustion engines
Petrol and diesel engines are internal combustion engines. This means they are driven by the combustion (burning) of
fuel in enclosed, sealed spaces called combustion chambers. In petrol and diesel engines, the combustion chambers are
cylinders surrounded by a cylinder block and closed at the top by a cylinder head. Each cylinder contains a piston. The
number of piston cylinders in an engine varies — engines in small motorcycles have only one, while sports car engines may
have twelve.
Fuel is supplied to each cylinder from a tank. In most engines, the flow of fuel is generated by a pump, which forces it
— at high pressure — through fuel injectors. These vaporize the fuel, allowing it to mix with air. Using this mixture
(of fuel and air), most engines function as four-stroke engines. This means they work on a cycle of four stages — or
four strokes. A stroke is an upward or downward movement of a piston.
Task 1. Complete the text about diesel engines using words from A and B opposite.
Diesel engines differ from (1).............................................engines in one key respect: they are not fitted with a
(2)............................, in each cylinder to ignite the fuel. This is because when a (3) ...................... ......... of diesel and
air is compressed inside a hot (4) ........................................, it will explode spontaneously, without the need for a spark
to provide (5) .....................................................................A diesel engine must therefore work in a way which
prevents the diesel from exploding before the piston is at the top of the cylinder. To achieve this, the engine takes in
only air during the (6) ............................... stage of the cycle. Therefore, during the (7)..............................stage, only
air — and not an air—fuel mixture — is pressurized. It is only at that last instant, when full compression has occurred,
that the (8)................................above each cylinder forces vaporized diesel into the combustion chamber, where it
ignites.
Diesel engines operate at lower speeds than petrol engines, making them less suitable for high-speed applications.
However they are more able to (9) heavy vehicles, as they can produce greater amounts of (10) than petrol
engines.
One cylinder of a four-stroke internal combustion engine
brakes used to slow down and stop rotary motion, usually by friction
in disc brakes, a pair of brake pads is pressed against the sides of a
metal brake disc which is fixed to the shaft
- in drum brakes, brake pads are pressed against the inside of a hollow
cylinder called a drum