Talk:Internal combustion engine

Graph Colours
Hi,
 * could the colours on the graph at the bottom of the page be changed? it's rather hard to distinguish the lines.

Fuel systems?
Seems to me this article is missing any discussion of carburettors, turbochargers, superchargers, fuel injection and so forth. There's no fuel going into our ICs! WolfKeeper

question about compression ratios
I have a question:

When you press on the accelerator pedal of a petrol engine, you open the throttle and allow more fuel/air mixture to enter each cylinder. Therefor the harder the acclerator is pushed, the more volume enters the cylinder; and thus the compression is increased, yes?

The average compression ratio of a petrol engine is about 10, but is that at full throttle. Is the compression much less when the engine is idling?

On the other hand a diesel engine is only controlled by how much fuel is injected, so the compression ratio is always about 20.

However it gets much more confusing when a turbo is added =(

The compression ratio remains the same no matter what the throttle setting is but the compression pressure varies with throttle settings. Usually on petrol engines with 10 to 1 compression ratio the open full throttle cranking start speed (1000RPM) is about 150 to 220 PSI but at part throttle it could be as low as 40 PSI. malbeare 20/5/2007

Swashplate Engine?
No mention of the swashplate configuration is listed in the current article (31 July 2007). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swashplate_engine Swashplate Engine

Sentence fragment in introduction
Hello, I am not a regular contributor to wikipedia, so forgive any buffoonish errors I make in the following.

In revision 413119031, user Twexcom removed the clause "the ICE delivers an excellent power-to-weight ratio with few disadvantages" from the sentence "Powered by an energy-dense fuel (which is very frequently petrol, a liquid derived from fossil fuels), the ICE delivers an excellent power-to-weight ratio with few disadvantages."

It seems clear that this was an attempt to remove the potentially controversial claim that internal combustion engines have "few disadvantages," but what remains is the fragment "Powered by an energy dense fuel."

I considered simply adding "...the ICE delivers an excellent power-to-weight ratio," but given that this error has persisted for nearly two years, and that even this reduced version of the sentence contains the value-laden word "excellent," I decided to post to the talk page and let the wiki natives decide how to proceed.

Thanks for all y'all do.

Possible COI from Colin Garner, Thermodynamics Expert and Motor Engineer at Perkins
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Internal_combustion_engine&oldid=920303500 introduced a postulation that internal combustion engines are not heat engines, without a citation, or an explanation which is readable to someone who has not continued education beyond secondary school. Erkin Alp Güney 20:15, 10 October 2019 (UTC)


 * I already reverted it 2 days ago. Unknown if it was really Colin Garner or somebody just using his name. Either way, he needs more evidence to go against Carnot's very well accepted theory of heat engines.  Stepho  talk 22:03, 10 October 2019 (UTC)


 * The editor with the long name is, I suspect, merely quoting Professor Garner. He, or it may be she, doesn't need more evidence: they need only to make clear that internal combustion engines are not necessarily subject to the constraints of the Carnot cycle, simply because they are not cyclic: oxygen and fuel enter; water and carbon dioxide leave. See Fuel cell 86.130.154.27 (talk) 23:46, 18 May 2020 (UTC)


 * A citation: on page 172 of 'Engineering Thermodynamics' by Spalding and Cole, London, 1958 we find:


 * 'the internal-combustion engine cannot be classed as a heat engine. Matter flows continuously into and out of an internal-combustion engine'


 * The authors' wry follow-up, in an end note on page 358, is:


 * 'Many people have become used to calling internal-combustion engines "heat engines"; they become upset when told they must stop.'


 * 86.130.154.27 (talk) 15:01, 19 May 2020 (UTC)


 * If you believe that that is the case then you may need to consider rewriting the article Heat engine which believes otherwise. 86.146.209.237 (talk) 18:24, 12 July 2020 (UTC)

Isaac de Rivaz
The article on the Internal Combustion engine cites Étienne Lenoir (1860) and Nicolaus Otto (1876) as THE INVENTORS of the Internal combustion engine. However, the internal combustion engine was invented much earlier by Isaac de Rivaz (1806). And that engine was very modern with electric ignition (AND HYDROGEN fuel). This facts in your article somehow went almost completely hidden. I think it is not only unfair but slightly dishonest too. Regards 27.32.23.226 (talk) 09:06, 3 June 2021 (UTC)


 * As always on Wikipedia, please provide reliable references to back up your claims.
 * I did a quick search and found that Wikipedia has some information at De Rivaz engine. This says that the engine required manual operation for many operations such as opening and closing valves and triggering the spark. To me, this makes it a fore-runner of the internal combustion engine but not quite an ICE yet. Certainly it should be mentioned in this article as at least a fore-runner.
 * Please beware that calling fellow volunteers dishonest is not a good way to have a conversation. For myself, I had never heard of him and hence there was no thought of including or excluding him. But I'm glad that I now know of him.  Stepho  talk  10:37, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

Fossil fuel wording
"ICEs are typically powered by fossil fuels like natural gas or petroleum products such as gasoline, diesel fuel or fuel oil."

The sentence structure makes it sound like there are two typical types of fuel: fossil fuels (e.g. natural gas) and petroleum products (e.g. gasoline, diesel fuel, or fuel oil). Is there a better way to word it, so that the sentence structure makes it clear that natural gas and petroleum products are both fossil fuels? I can't think of one. 175.39.61.121 (talk) 01:35, 15 September 2022 (UTC)


 * How about "ICEs are typically powered by hydrocarbon-based fuels like natural gas, gasoline, diesel or ethanol." This would naturally include synthetic fuels. We might possibly add hydrogen in as well, which is not a hydrocarbon, by adding a follow-up sentence "Hydrogen is sometimes used as an alternative to hydrocarbons."  Stepho  talk 04:40, 15 September 2022 (UTC)