Four Stroke

Engines
Engine Cycles

At the end of this lecture, you will have an

understanding of the four stroke engine
and the sequence of operations.
 Engine Cycles
 The basic requirements for the operation of a diesel
engine are as follows:
 Supply of charge air
 Compression of air supplied to raise its temperature
sufficiently high to ignite the fuel
 Injection of fuel oil
 Expansion of hot and high pressure gases which force
out the piston against the load on the crankshaft
 Expulsion of products of combustion
 Engine Cycles
 The above stages of operation can be performed in two
strokes of a piston or four strokes of piston.
 Marine engines operate on two stroke cycle (mainly
main engines) as well as on four stroke cycle (auxiliary
engines).
Four Stroke Cycle
 When the basic operations of a
diesel engine described earlier are
performed within four strokes of a
piston which are completed in two
revolutions of a crankshaft it said
to be working on a four stroke
cycle. The four strokes of this
cycle are called as
 Suction stroke (Induction stroke)
 Compression stroke
 Power stroke (Expansion stroke)
 Exhaust stroke
Four Stroke Cycle
 Suction stroke – During this stroke piston is moving
downwards and pressure inside cylinder drops below
atmospheric pressure. Atmospheric air is sucked inside the
cylinder through an open air inlet valve. The air admission is
stopped when the inlet valve closes. The cylinder pressure is
about 0.85 to 0.95 bar i.e. just below atmospheric pressure. (in
case of a naturally aspirated engine.)
 Compression stroke – During this stroke the piston is
moving upwards from BDC to TDC and with air inlet valve
and exhaust valve both being closed air is compressed inside
the cylinder. The air is compressed to 32 – 45 bar pressure and
its temperature rises to 600 to 7000C. The fuel is injected at
the end of the compression stroke as a finely atomised spray.
Four Stroke Cycle
 This atomised fuel spray mixes with compressed scavenge air
having high temperature and is ignited. When fuel injection
coincides with peak air temperature inside the cylinder the
optimum conditions for fuel injection and its ignition are met.
The pressure inside cylinder rises to 60 – 80 bar depending on
load and hence fuel rack position.The temperatures near the
flame front are 1600 – 20000C.
 Power (Expansion) stroke – During this stroke piston is
pushed down from TDC to BDC by expansion of gases and
linear motion of piston is converted into rotary motion of
crankshaft by connecting rod. At the end of expansion stroke
the pressure inside the cylinder is about 3.5 to 5 bar and the
temperature is in the range of 750 to 9000 C.
Four Stroke Cycle
 Exhaust stroke – When piston is nearing BDC, the exhaust
valve opens and the exhaust gases escape to atmosphere as
their pressure is more than atmospheric pressure in the
exhaust manifold. The exhaust gases are expelled and the
piston starts moving upwards towards TDC. The pressure of
the gases now decrease further to 1.1 to 1.2 bar with
temperatures about 430 – 5000 C. Before piston reaches TDC
the air inlet valve opens and when piston starts moving down
from TDC the suction stroke begins again and next cycle
begins.
Four Stroke Cycle

The four stroke cycle can be

diagrammatically represented
as shown.
Four Stroke Cycle
Four stroke cycle – Valve Overlap
 When piston travels down during suction stroke air rushes
into the cylinder. When piston of 4 stroke cycle engine
reaches bottom of its stroke and starts moving up on
compression stroke, air continues to enter the cylinder but
only for a moment. To take advantage of this the inlet valve is
set to close a little after the the piston has started moving up
from BDC on its compression stroke.
 The inlet valve is opened a short time before the piston
reaches the TDC while traveling up during exhaust stroke and
before the exhaust valve is fully closed. This period during
which both i.e. inlet and exhaust valve are open is known as
overlap. This ensures that inlet valve is wide open by the time
piston begins its suction stroke which enables the piston to
draw air immediately.
Four stroke cycle – Valve Overlap
 This technique improves scavenging process and usually
brings up volumetric efficiency up to 80 to 90 %.
 In naturally aspirated engines valve overlap is about 30 – 500
and in case of turbocharged engines it is about 120 – 1400.
 The large overlap period in the turbocharged engines allows
the exhaust gases to be expelled from the cylinder except for
the small amount of exhaust gases that mix with incoming air.
 During this period large amount of air passes through the
inlet valve, the cylinder, the exhaust valve, cooling the parts
in the process. This cooling helps to reduce thermal stresses
in these parts.
Typical valve timings of four stroke engine
Typical valve timings for four stroke, medium speed engine

Naturally aspirated Turbocharged

Inlet Valve opens upto 200 before TDC upto 800 before TDC
0 0
Inlet Valve closes upto 25 after BDC upto 45 after BDC
Open period 200 + 1800 + 250 = 2250 800 + 1800 + 450 = 3050

Exhaust valve opens upto 450 before BDC upto 500 before BDC
Exhaust valve closes upto 200 after TDC upto 600 after TDC
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Open period 45 + 180 + 20 = 245 50 + 180 + 60 = 290

Note : The valve timings vary considerably in different makes of engine. To

some extent differences depend on engine speed & degree of turbocharging.