CHAPTER 4

Air and Fuel Induction

4.1 Introduction
❑ This chapter describes intake systems of engines-how air and fuel are
delivered into the cylinders.

❑ The objective of the intake system is to deliver the proper amount of air
and fuel accurately and equally to all cylinders at the proper time in the
engine cycle. Flow into an engine is pulsed as the intake valves open and
close, but can generally be modeled as quasi-steady state flow.
Con…......
❑ The intake system consists of an intake manifold, a throttle, intake
valves, and either fuel injectors or a carburetor to add fuel.

❑ Fuel injectors can be mounted by the intake valves of each cylinder

(multipoint port injection), at the inlet of the manifold (throttle body
injection), or in the cylinder head (CI engines and modern two-stroke
cycle and some four-stroke cycle SI automobile engines).
4.2 Intake Manifold
❑ The intake manifold is a system designed to deliver air to the engine
through pipes to each cylinder, called runners.

❑ The inside diameter of the runners must be large enough so that a high
flow resistance and the resulting low volumetric efficiency do not occur.

❑ On the other hand, the diameter must be small enough to assure high air
velocity and turbulence, which enhances its capability of carrying fuel
droplets and increases evaporation and air-fuel mixing.
Con…......
❑ The length of a runner and its diameter should be sized together to
equalize, as much as possible, the amount of air and fuel that is
delivered to each separate cylinder.

❑ Some engines have active intake manifolds with the capability of

changing runner length and diameter for different engine speeds.
Con…......
❑ At low speeds, the air is directed through longer, smaller diameter runners
to keep the velocity high and to assure proper mixing of air and fuel.

❑ At high engine speeds, shorter, larger diameter runners are used, which
minimizes flow resistance but still enhances proper mixing.

❑ The amount of air and fuel in one runner length is about the amount that
gets delivered to one cylinder each cycle.
Con…......
❑ To minimize flow resistance, runners should have no sharp bends, and
the interior wall surface should be smooth.

❑ Some intake manifolds are heated to accelerate the evaporation of the

fuel droplets in the air-fuel mixture flow. This is done:
✓ By heating the walls with hot engine coolant flow,
✓ By designing the intake manifold to be in close thermal contact
with the hot exhaust manifold, or sometimes with electrical
heating.
Con…......
❑ On SI engines, air flow rate through the intake manifold is controlled by a
throttle plate (butterfly valve) usually located at the upstream end.

❑ Fuel is added to inlet air somewhere in the intake system-before the

manifold, in the manifold, or directly into each cylinder. The further
upstream the fuel is added, the more time there is to evaporate the fuel
droplets and to get proper mixing of the air and fuel vapor. However, this
also reduces engine volumetric efficiency by displacing incoming air with
fuel vapor.
Con…......
❑ Early fuel addition also makes it more difficult to get good cylinder-to-
cylinder AF consistency because of the asymmetry of the manifold and
different lengths of the runners.

❑ At part throttle there is a lower total pressure in the intake manifold, and this
changes the evaporation rate of the various fuel components. Most of these
problems are reduced or eliminated by using multipoint port fuel injection,
with each cylinder receiving its own individual fuel input.
4.3 Volumetric Efficiency of SI Engines

❑ There will be a certain engine speed at which the volumetric efficiency is

maximum, decreasing at both higher and lower speeds. There are many
physical and operating variables that shape this curve.
Con………
Fuel
✓ In a naturally aspirated engine, volumetric efficiency will always be less
than 100% because fuel is also being added and the volume of fuel vapor
will displace some incoming air.
✓ The type of fuel and how and when it is added will determine how much
the volumetric efficiency is affected.
Con………
Fuel
✓ Systems with carburetors or throttle body injection add fuel early in the
intake flow and generally have lower overall volumetric efficiency. This
is because the fuel will immediately start to evaporate and fuel vapor will
displace incoming air.
✓ Multipoint injectors which add fuel at the intake valve ports will have
better efficiency because no air is displaced until after the intake
manifold.
Con………
Fuel
✓ Those engines that inject fuel directly into the cylinders after the intake
valve is closed will experience no volumetric efficiency loss due to fuel
evaporation.
✓ Manifolds with late fuel addition can be designed to further increase
efficiency by having larger diameter runners. High velocity and
turbulence to promote evaporation are not needed. They can also be
operated cooler, which results in a denser inlet air flow.
Con………
Heat Transfer-High Temperature
✓ All intake systems are hotter than the surrounding air temperature and will
consequently heat the incoming air. This lowers the density of the air, which
reduces volumetric efficiency.
✓ Intake manifolds for carbureted systems or throttle body injection systems are
purposely heated to enhance fuel evaporation.
✓ At lower engine speeds, the air flow rate is slower and the air remains in the
intake system for a longer time. It thus gets heated to higher temperatures at low
speeds, which lowers the volumetric efficiency curve at the low-speed end.
Con………
Valve Overlap
✓ At TDC at the end of the exhaust stroke and the beginning of the intake
stroke, both intake and exhaust valves are open simultaneously for a brief
moment. When this happens, some exhaust gas can get pushed through the
open intake valve back into the intake system.
✓ The exhaust then gets carried back into the cylinder with the intake air-
fuel charge, displacing some of the incoming air and lowering volumetric
efficiency. This problem is greatest at low engine speeds, when the real
time of valve overlap is greater.
Con………
Fluid Friction Losses
✓ Air moving through any flow passage or past any flow restriction undergoes a
pressure drop. For this reason, the pressure of the air entering the cylinders is
less than the surrounding atmospheric air pressure, and the amount of air
entering the cylinder is subsequently reduced. The viscous flow friction that
affects the air as it passes through the air filter, carburetor, throttle plate, intake
manifold, and intake valve reduces the volumetric efficiency of the engine
intake system. Viscous drag, which causes the pressure loss, increases with the
square of flow velocity. This results in decreasing the efficiency on the high-
speed end of the curve.
Con………
Fluid Friction Losses
✓ Much development work has been done to reduce pressure losses in air
intake systems. Smooth walls in the intake manifold, the avoidance of
sharp corners and bends, elimination of the carburetor.
✓ One of the greatest flow restrictions is the flow through the intake valve.
To reduce this restriction, the intake valve flow area has been increased by
building multivalve engines having two or even three intake valves per
cylinder.
Con………
Exhaust Residual
✓ During the exhaust stroke, not all of the exhaust gases get pushed out of
the cylinder by the piston, a small residual being trapped in the clearance
volume. The amount of this residual depends on the compression ratio,
and somewhat on the location of the valves and valve overlap. In addition
to displacing some incoming air, this exhaust gas residual interacts with
the air in other ways. When the very hot gas mixes with the incoming air it
heats the air, lowers the air density, and decreases volumetric efficiency.
Con………
EGR
✓ In all modern automobile engines and in many other engines, some
exhaust gas is recycled (EGR) into the intake system to dilute the
incoming air. This reduces combustion temperatures in the engine, which
results in less nitrogen oxides in the exhaust.
✓ Not only does this exhaust gas displace some incoming air, but it also
heats the incoming air and lowers its density. Both of these interactions
lower the volumetric efficiency of the engine.
4.4 Intake Valves
✓ Intake valves of most IC engines are poppet valves that are spring loaded
closed and pushed open at the proper cycle time by the engine camshaft.

✓ Ideally, they would open and close almost instantaneously at the proper
times. This is impossible in a mechanical system, and slower openings and
closings are necessary to avoid wear, noise, and chatter. The lobes on a
camshaft are designed to give quick but smooth opening and closing without
bounce at the mechanical interface.
Con………
✓ The distance which a valve opens (dimension I) is called valve lift and is
generally on the order of a few millimeters to more than a centimeter depending
on the engine size, usually about 5 to 10mm for automobile engines.
Con………
✓ The angle of the valve surface at the interface with the valve seat is generally
designed to give minimum flow restriction. As air flows around corners, the
stream lines separate from the surface, and the actual cross-sectional area of flow
is less than the flow passage area. The ratio of the actual flow area to the flow
passage area is called the valve discharge coefficient:

The passage area of flow is:

Con………
✓ Shape and angle of valve surfaces are sometimes designed to give special mass
flow patterns to improve overall engine efficiency.

✓ Intake valves offer the greatest restriction to incoming air in most engines. This is
especially true at higher engine speeds. Various empirical formulas can be found
in technical engine literatures for sizing intake valves.
Con………
✓ Equation giving the minimum intake valve area necessary for a modern
engine can be given in the form of:

✓ Ai is the total inlet valve area for one cylinder, whether it has one, two, or three
intake valves.
Con………
✓ On many newer engines with overhead valves, there is often not enough wall
space in the combustion chambers to fit the spark plug and exhaust valve and still
have room for an intake valve large enough to satisfy the equation. For this
reason, most engines are now built with more than one intake valve per cylinder.
Two or three smaller intake valves give more flow area and less flow resistance
than one larger valve.

✓ At the same time, these two or three intake valves, along with usually two exhaust
valves, can be better fit into a given cylinder head size with enough clearance to
maintain the required structural strength.
Con………
✓ Multiple valves require a greater complexity of design with more camshafts and
mechanical linkages. It is often necessary to have specially shaped cylinder heads
and recessed piston faces just to avoid valve-to-valve or valve-to-piston contact.

Figure: For each cylinder, the flow area of the intake valve(s) is generally about 10 percent greater
than the flow area of the exhaust valve(s).
Con………
✓ Intake valves normally start to open somewhere between 10° and 25° bTDC and
should be totally open by TDC to get maximum flow during the intake stroke.

✓ Intake valves normally finish closing about 40°-50° aBDC for engines operating
on an Otto cycle.

✓ In most engines valve timing is set for one engine speed, with losses occurring at
any lower speed or higher speed.

✓ Various ways of obtaining variable valve timing are being developed for
automobile engines. These allow intake valve opening and closing to change with
engine speed, giving better flow efficiency over a range of speeds.
Con………
Example Problem 4-1

A 2.8-liter four-cylinder square engine (bore = stroke) with two intake valves per
cylinder is designed to have a maximum speed of 7500 RPM. Intake temperature is
60°C. Calculate:

(a) Intake valve area, (b) diameter of intake valves and (c) valve lift
4.5 Fuel Injectors
✓ Fuel injectors are nozzles that inject a spray of fuel into the intake air. They are
normally controlled electronically, but mechanically controlled injectors which are
cam actuated also exist.

✓ A metered amount of fuel is trapped in the nozzle end of the injector, and a high
pressure is applied to it, usually by a mechanical compression process of some
kind. At the proper time, the nozzle is opened and the fuel is sprayed into the
surrounding air.
Con…………
✓ Most modern automobile SI engines have multipoint port fuel injectors. In this
type of system, one or more injectors are mounted by the intake valve(s) of each
cylinder. They spray fuel into the region directly behind the intake valve,
sometimes directly onto the back of the valve face.

✓ High liquid spray velocity is necessary to assure evaporation and mixing with the
air. Because injection starts before the intake valve is open, there is a momentary
pause in the air flow, and the air velocity does not promote the needed mixing and
evaporation enhancement.
Con…………
✓ Each cylinder has its own injector or set of injectors which give a fairly constant
fuel input cycle-to-cycle and cylinder-to-cylinder, depending on the manufactured
quality of the injector parts.

✓ Because little or no air-fuel mixing occurs in most of the intake manifold, high
velocity is not as important, and larger diameter runners with less pressure loss
can be used. There is also no displacement of incoming air with fuel vapor in the
manifold.
Con…………
✓ Some systems have a single fuel pump (common rail) supplying all cylinders or a
bank of cylinders. The fuel can be supplied at high pressure with the injectors only
acting as a metering device.

✓ Some systems supply the fuel to the injectors at low pressure, and the injector
must then increase the pressure and meter the flow.

✓ Other systems have a fuel pump for each cylinder, with the pump sometimes built
as a single unit with the injector.
Con…………
✓ The amount of fuel injected each cycle and injection pressure are controlled by the EMS.
Injection pressure is generally on the order of 200 to 300 kPa absolute, but can be much
higher.
✓ Engine operating conditions and information from sensors in the engine and exhaust
system are used to continuously adjust AF and injection pressure.
✓ The amount of fuel injected for each cycle can be adjusted by injection time, which is on
the order of 1.5 to 10ms.
✓ The duration of injection is determined by feedback from engine and exhaust sensors.
Sensing the amount of oxygen in the exhaust is one of the more important feedbacks in
adjusting injection duration for proper air-fuel ratio. Other feedback parameters include
engine speed, temperatures, air flow rate, and throttle position.
4.6 Carburetors
✓ For several decades, carburetors were used on most SI engines as the means of
adding fuel to the intake air.

✓ Carburetors are still found on a few automobiles, but the vast majority of car
engines use simpler, better controlled, more flexible fuel injector systems.
Con…………
✓ The Figure shows that the basic carburetor is a
venturi tube (A) mounted with a throttle plate (B)
(butterfly valve) and a capillary tube to input fuel
(C). It is usually mounted on the upstream end of
the intake manifold, with all air entering the
engine passing first through this venturi tube. Most
of the time, there will be an air filter mounted
directly on the upstream side of the carburetor.
Other main parts of the carburetor are the fuel
reservoir (D), main metering needle valve (E), idle
speed adjustment (F), idle valve (G), and choke
(H).
Con…………
✓ As air enters the engine due to the pressure differential between the surrounding
atmospheric air and the partial vacuum in the cylinders during intake strokes, it is
accelerated to high velocity in the throat of the venturi. By Bernoulli’s principle,
this causes the pressure in the throat P2 to be reduced to a value less than the
surrounding pressure P1, which is about one atmosphere. The pressure above the
fuel in the fuel reservoir is equal to atmospheric pressure as the reservoir is vented
to the surroundings (P3 = P1 > P2).There is, therefore, a pressure differential
through the fuel supply capillary tube, and this forces fuel flow into the venturi
throat.
Con…………
✓ From gas dynamics, the air flow through a venturi throat can be written:

✓ The pressure differential in the air will be:

✓ Where P1 and P2 are as shown in Fig.

Con…………
Pressure differential through the fuel capillary tube will be:

❑ The second term in the above equation is the hydraulic head between the fuel
reservoir and throat. The elevation h is built into a carburetor to avoid fuel leaking
out when the vehicle is parked on a slop. Values of h are typically 1 to 2cm.
Con…………
Liquid fuel flow through a capillary tube is:

The air-fuel ratio supplied by the carburetor can be obtained:

With:
Con…………
If the air velocity through the carburetor throat is increased by increasing the engine
speed, a maximum flow rate will be reached when sonic velocity occurs. This will
happen when:

Using the value of k = 1.4 because of the lower temperature of the air through the
carburetor, the above equation is reduced to:
Con…………
Maximum air flow through the carburetor will then be:

At standard conditions:

Using k = 1.4, the square root term in the above equation is equal to 0.5787, and the
equation can be reduced to:
Con…………

❑ The equations can be used to size the carburetor throat needed for an engine. It
can then be used to establish the cross-sectional area of the fuel capillary tube Ac
relative to other parameters.

❑ Fortunately it is found that, once the diameters of the carburetor throat and fuel
capillary tube are established, carburetors can be built that will give correct air-
fuel mixtures over a large range of operating conditions. These include starting,
WOT, cruise, and sudden deceleration.
Con…………

Example Problem 4-2

A six-cylinder, 3.6-liter SI engine is designed to have a maximum speed of 6000RPM.

At this speed the volumetric efficiency of the engine is 0.92. The engine will be
equipped with a two-barrel carburetor, one barrel for low speeds and both barrels for
high speed. Gasoline density can be considered to be 750kg/m3. Calculate:
(a) Throat diameters for the carburetor (assume discharge coefficient CDc = 0.94)
(b) Fuel capillary tube diameters (assume discharge coefficient CDc = 0.74)
4.7 Supercharging and Turbocharging

❑ Superchargers and turbochargers are compressors mounted in the intake system

and used to raise the pressure of the incoming air. This results in more air and fuel
entering each cylinder during each cycle.

❑ This added air and fuel creates more power during combustion, and the net power
output of the engine is increased. Pressure increase can be anywhere from 20 to
250 kPa, with most engines on the lower end of this scale.
4.7.1 Supercharger

❑ Superchargers are mechanically driven directly off the engine crankshaft. They are
generally positive displacement compressors running at speeds about the same as
engine speed. The power to drive the compressor is a parasitic load on the engine
output, and this is one of the major disadvantages compared to a turbocharger.

❑ Other disadvantages include higher cost, greater weight, and noise. A major
advantage of a supercharger is very quick response to throttle changes. Being
mechanically linked to the crankshaft, any engine speed change is immediately
transferred to the compressor.
Con…………

❑ For added engine output power, it is desirable to have the higher input air pressure
supplied by the supercharger. However, the supercharger also raises the inlet air
temperature by compressive heating. This is undesirable in SI engines.

❑ If the temperature at the start of the compression stroke is higher, all temperatures
in the rest of the cycle will also be higher. Often, this will cause self-ignition and
knocking problems during combustion.

❑ To avoid this, many superchargers are equipped with an aftercooler that cools the
compressed air back to a lower temperature.
4.7.2 Turbocharger

❑ The compressor of a turbocharger is powered by a turbine mounted in the exhaust

flow of the engine. The advantage of this is that none of the engine shaft output is
used to drive the compressor, and only waste energy in the exhaust is used.

❑ However, the turbine in the exhaust flow causes a more restricted flow, resulting
in a slightly higher pressure at the cylinder exhaust port. This reduces the engine
power output very slightly. Turbocharged engines generally have lower specific
fuel consumption rates. They produce more power, while the friction power lost
remains about the same.
Con…………

❑ A disadvantage of turbochargers is turbo lag, which occurs with a sudden throttle

change. When the throttle is quickly opened to accelerate an automobile, the
turbocharger will not respond quite as quickly as a supercharger.

❑ The isentropic efficiency of a compressor is defined as:

Con…………
❑ The turbine driving the compressor has an isentropic efficiency defined as:
Con…………

❑ The pulsing nature of the exhaust flow reduces this efficiency to less than steady-
state flow values. There is a mechanical efficiency between the turbine and
compressor:

The overall efficiency of the turbocharger can then be considered:

Values of overall efficiency range from 70% to 90%.

Con…………
Example Problem 4-3

A six-cylinder, 4.8 liter, supercharged engine operating at 3500 RPM has an overall
volumetric efficiency of 158%. The supercharger has an isentropic efficiency of 92%
and a mechanical efficiency in its link with the engine of 87%. It is desired that air be
delivered to the cylinders at 65°C and 180kPa, while ambient conditions are 23°C and
98 kPa. Calculate:
(a) Amount of aftercooling needed
(b) Engine power lost to run supercharger
4.8 Stratified Charge Engines and Dual-fuel Engines

❑ While many SI engines are designed to have a homogeneous air-fuel mixture

throughout the combustion chamber, some modern stratified charge engines are
designed to have a different air-fuel ratio at different locations within the
combustion chamber. A rich mixture that ignites readily is desired around the
spark plug, while the major volume of the combustion chamber is filled with a
very lean mixture that gives good fuel economy.

❑ Special intake systems are necessary to supply this non-homogeneous mixture.

Combinations of multiple valves and multiple fuel injectors, along with flexible
valve and injection timing, are used to accomplish the desired results.
Con…………
❑ For various technical and financial reasons, some engines are designed to operate
using a combination of two fuels. For instance, in some third-world countries
dual-fuel engines are used because of the high cost of diesel fuel. Large CI
engines are run on a combination of methane and diesel oil
4.9 Intake For CI Engines

❑ Fuel is added late in the compression stroke, starting somewhere around 20°
bTDC. Injectors mounted in the cylinder head inject directly into the combustion
chamber, where self-ignition occurs due to the high temperature of the air caused
by compressive heating.

❑ It takes a short period of time for the fuel to evaporate, mix with the air, and then
self-ignite, so combustion starts shortly bTDC. At this time fuel is still being
injected, which keeps combustion occurring well into the power stroke.
Con…………
❑ Injection pressures of 200 to 2000 atmospheres are common, with average fuel
droplet size generally decreasing with increasing pressure. Orifice hole size of
injectors is typically in the range of 0.2 to 1.0mm diameter.

❑ The total mass of fuel injected into one cylinder during one cycle is:
Con…………
Pressure differential is about equal to injection pressure:

❑ Fuel velocity leaving the injector can be as high as 250 m/sec. However, viscous
drag and evaporation reduce this very quickly. For optimum fuel viscosity and
spray penetration, it is important to have fuel at the correct temperature.
Con…………
Example Problem 4-4

An automobile has a 3.2 liter, five-cylinder, four-stroke cycle diesel engine operating
at 2400RPM. Fuel injection occurs from 20 bTDC to 5 aTDC. The engine has a
volumetric efficiency of 0.95 and operates with fuel equivalence ratio of 0.80. Light
diesel fuel is used. Calculate:

(a) Time for one injection

(b) Fuel flow rate through an injector
Thank you!