Air-Standard Diesel Cycle

Air-Standard Diesel Cycle The air-standard Diesel cycle is an ideal cycle that assumes the heat addition occurs during a constant-pressure process that starts with the piston at top dead center. The Diesel cycle is shown on pv and Ts diagrams. The cycle consists of four internally reversible processes in series. The first process from state 1 to state 2 is the same as in the Otto cycle: an isentropic compression. Heat is not transferred to the working fluid at constant volume as in the Otto cycle, however. In the Diesel cycle, heat is transferred to the working fluid at constant pressure. Process 23 also makes up the first part of the power stroke. The isentropic expansion from state 3 to state 4 is the remainder of the power stroke. As in the Otto cycle, the cycle is completed by constant-volume Process 41 in which heat is rejected from the air while the piston is at bottom dead center. This process replaces the exhaust and intake processes of the actual engine.

Since the air-standard Diesel cycle is composed of internally reversible processes, areas on the Ts and pv diagrams of Fig. 9.5 can be interpreted as heat and work, respectively. On the Ts diagram, area 23ab2 represents the heat added per unit of mass and area 14ab1 is the heat rejected per unit of mass. On the pv diagram, area 12ab1 is the work input per unit of mass during the compression process. Area 234 ba2 is the work done per unit of mass as the piston moves from top dead center to bottom dead center. The enclosed area of each figure is the net work output, which equals the net heat added.

CYCLE ANALYSIS. In the Diesel cycle the heat addition takes place at constant pressure. Accordingly, Process 23 involves both work and heat. The work is given by

The heat added in Process 23 can be found by applying the closed system energy balance

solving for the heat transfer

where the specific enthalpy is introduced to simplify the expression. As in the Otto cycle, the heat rejected in Process 41 is given by

The thermal efficiency is the ratio of the net work of the cycle to the heat added

EFFECT OF COMPRESSION RATIO ON PERFORMANCE. As for the Otto cycle, the thermal efficiency of the Diesel cycle increases with increasing compression ratio. This can be brought out simply using a cold air-standard analysis. On a cold air-standard basis, the thermal efficiency of the Diesel cycle can be expressed as

where r is the compression ratio and rc the cutoff ratio. The derivation is left as an exercise. This relationship is shown in Fig. 9.6 for k =1.4. Equation 9.13 for the Diesel cycle differs from Eq. 9.8 for the Otto cycle only by the term in brackets, which for rc >1 is greater than unity. Thus, when the compression ratio is the same, the thermal efficiency of the cold air-standard Diesel cycle would be less than that of the cold air-standard Otto cycle.

EXAMPLE9.2 Analyzing the Diesel Cycle

At the beginning of the compression process o an air-standard Diesel cycle operating with a compression ratio of 18, the temperature is 300 K and the pressure is 0.1 MPa. The cutoff ratio fo the cycle is 2. Determine (a) the temperature and pressureat the end of each process of the cycle, (b) the thermal efficiency, (c) the mean effective pressure, in MPa.

SOLUTION
Known: An air-standard Diesel cycle is executed with specified conditions at the beginning of the compression stroke. The compression and cutoff ratios are given. Find: Determine the temperature and pressure at the end of each process, the thermal efficiency, and mean effective pressure.

Assumptions: 1. The air in the pistoncylinder assembly is the closed system. 2. The compression and expansion processes are adiabatic. 3. All processes are internally reversible. 4. The air is modeled as an ideal gas. 5. Kinetic and potential energy effects are negligible

Analysis: (a)The analysis begins by determining properties at each principal state of the cycle. With T1 =300 K, u1 =214.07 kJ/kg , use equation of state

PV mRT Pv RT P1v1 RT1

And

v1 18 v2

For the isentropic compression process 12 get p2, T2 and hence u2

pv cons tan t
k

Pv cons tan t
k

v4

r v3 rc

we get u4 =664.3 kJ/kg and T4 =887.7 K. The pressure at state 4 can be found using the isentropic relationship \or the ideal gas equation of state applied at states 1 and 4. With V4 =V1, the ideal gas equation of state gives