Engine Efficiency

Ever since the invention of the internal combustion engine, scientists and engineers have worked to increase its efficiency. As it stands now, the average internal combustion automobile engine only converts roughly 20% of its energy into useful motivational power. Most of the rest is expended through heat loss in various locations.

The cooling system in an automobile is used to remove heat from all the moving parts so that they can still

function properly without melting, seizing, or overheating. If an engine was ideal, it would release no heat because all of its energy would be converted into the power transferred to the wheels, but no such engine exists in reality. With all the many moving parts that must remain in contact with one another (in order to maintain compression and prevent various other leaks), friction is inevitable and thus, so is heat. Therefore, the cooling system in the car is exceedingly important.

The way it works is basically a simple matter of heat transfer. Water cooled vehicles use a combination of air

and liquid cooling mechanisms, routing coolant hoses past the hotter parts of the engine so that heat can transfer from the engine parts into the coolant, which then goes back into the radiator to be cooled off by the incoming air. Air cooled vehicles typically have large fans installed strategically on the engine and heat dissipating fins on the heads.

What may come as a surprise to some is that the heater in the cab of your car is actually a part of the car's

cooling system. Heat that is removed from the engine is simply piped into the cab so that the driver doesn't freeze to death in the middle of winter. The removal of this heat draws colder air into the engine compartment...

... middle of paper ...

... rather have clean air, myself...

Conclusion

It may seem as though there are no significant benefits to the inefficiencies of internal combustion engines. After all,

they waste fuel, resources and money; they pollute the environment and create potential health risks; and to some people, too much can go wrong with them to ever make them worth trying to understand.

I, however, will always stand by my love of the painstakingly choreographed dance that takes place within a

combustion engine; all the parts working in time to create a glorious, gas-guzzling, ozone depleting, peace disturbing chunk of steel, rubber, glass and aluminum that can go 0-60 in a matter of mere seconds. And I would like to hear anyone curse the inefficient heat loss of their engine when it is pumping 70° air into a -40° cab at 6 a.m. in the middle of Fairbanks' frigid winter.