ACTUAL CYCLES

Introduction
In actual engine operation the following losses occur, due to which actual cycle efficiency is
much lower than the air standard efficiency :
1. Dissociation losses
2. Losses due to variation of specific heats with temperature
3. Time losses
4. Losses due to incomplete combustion
5. Direct heat losses
6. Exhaust blowdown losses
7. Pumping losses.
If losses due to variable specific heats and dissociation are subtracted from the “air
standard cycle”, we get “fuel-air cycle analysis”.
Furthermore, if other losses are further subtracted from “fuel-air cycle analysis” we
can very closely approximate the “actual cycle”.
Causes of Deviation of Actual Cycles from Fuel-Air Cycles
Important causes of deviation of actual cycles from fuel-air cycles are :
1. The progressive combustion rather than the instantaneous combustion.
2. The heat transfer to and from the working medium during compression and expansion.
3. Loss of work on the expansion stroke due to early opening of the exhaust valve, and
exhaust blow down.
4. Gas leakage, fluid friction etc.
Real Fuel-Air Engine Cycles
The actual cycle which an I.C. engine experiences is not a thermodynamic cycle, in a true
sense. An ideal air-standard thermodynamic cycle occurs on a closed system of constant composition.
This is not what actually happens in an I.C. engine, and for this reason air-standard
analysis gives, at best, only approximation to actual conditions and outputs.
Major differences are listed below :
1. Real engines operate on an open cycle with changing composition. Not only does the inlet
gas composition differ from what exits, but often the mass flow rate is not the same.
— During combustion, total mass remains about the same but molar quantity changes.
— There is a loss of mass during the cycle due to crevice flow and blowby past the pistons. Most of the
crevice flow is temporary loss of mass from the cylinder, but becauseit is greatest at the start of power
stroke some output work is lost during expansion.
Blowby can decrease the amount of mass in the cylinders by as much as 1% during
compression and combustion.
2. Air-standard analysis treats the fluid flow through the entire engine as air and approximates air as an
ideal gas. In a real engine inlet flow may be all air, or it may be mixed up with 7%
fuel, either gaseous or as liquid droplets, or both.
— In air-standard analysis, even if all fluid in a engine cycle were air, some error would
be introduced by assuming it to be an ideal gas with constant specific heats. At the low
pressures of inlet and exhaust, air can accurately be treated as an ideal gas, but at the
higher pressures during combustion, air will deviate from ideal gas behaviour. A more
serious error is introduced by assuming constant specific heats for the analysis. Specific heats of a gas
have a fairly strong dependency on temperature and can vary as
much as 30% in the temperature range of an engine.
3. During the cycle of a real engine there are heat losses which are neglected in air-standard
analysis.
— Loss of heat during combustion lowers actual peak temperature and pressure from
what is predicted. The actual power stroke, therefore, starts at a lower pressure, and
work output during expansion is decreased.
— Heat transfer continues during expansion, and this lowers the temperature and pressure below the ideal
isentropic process towards the end of the power stroke. The result
of heat transfer is a lower indicated thermal efficiency than predicted by air standard
analysis.
— Heat transfer is also present during compression, which deviates the process from
isentropic. However, this is less than during the expansion stroke due to the lower
temperatures at this time.
4. Combustion requires a short but finite time to occur, and heat addition is not instantaneous at T.D.C.
— S.I. and C.I. engines generally have combustion efficiencies of about 95% and 98%
respectively.
5. The blowdown process requires a finite real time and a finite cycle time, and does not
occur at constant volume as in air-standard analysis. For this reason, the exhaust valve must
open 40° to 60° before B.D.C., and output work at the latter end of expansion is lost.
6. The intake valve, in an actual engine, is not closed until after B.D.C. at the end of the
intake stroke. Because of the flow restriction of the valve, air is still entering the cylinder at
B.D.C., and volumetric efficiency would be lower if the valve is closed here. Because of this, however,
actual compression does not start at B.D.C. but only after the inlet valve closes. With ignition
then occuring before T.D.C., temperature and pressure rise before combustion is less than predicted by
air-standard cycles.
7. Engine valves require a finite time to actuate.
Difference between Real Cycle and Fuel-Air Cycle
Assuming cycle to consist of compression and expansion strokes only, the differences between a real
cycle and its equivalent fuel-air cycle are due to following factors :
1. Time losses (Including combustion loss)
2. Direct heat loss
3. Exhaust blowdown loss
4. Pumping loss
5. Rubbing friction loss.

1. Time losses :
Time losses may be burning time loss and spark timings loss.
(a) Burning time loss
The burning time loss or merely time loss is defined as the loss of power due to time
required for mixing the fuel with air and for complete combustion.
N In theoretical cycles the burning is assumed to be instantaneous, whereas in actual
cycles the burning process is completed in a finite interval of time. The time required
depends upon :
(i) Fuel-air ratio ;
(ii) Fuel chemical structure and its ignition temperature ;
(iii) The flame velocity and the distance from the ignition point to the opposite side of the
combustion chamber.
The time required for combustion is such that under all circumstances some increase
in volume takes place. The time interval between the passage of spark and completion
of flame travel across the charge is approximately 40° crank rotation.
Fig shows the losses between real cycle and its equivalent fuel-air cycle.

— The effect of finite time being required for combustion is that the maximum pressure is not produced
when the volume is minimum, as is expected. It is produced
sometime after T.D.C. The pressure therefore rises in the first part of the working
stroke from b to c, as shown in Fig. 4.16. The point 3 represents the maximum
pressure had the combustion been instantaneous.
— The difference in area of actual cycle and fuel-air cycle shows the loss of power (the
hatched-area).

(b) Spark timing loss

After generation of spark in the cylinder, a definite time is required to start the burning of
fuel. The effect of this is that maximum pressure is not reached at T.D.C. and it reaches late in the
expansion stroke. The time at which burning starts varies by varying the angle of advance (spark
advance).
(i) If the spark is given at T.D.C., the maximum pressure is low due to expansion of gases.
(ii) If the spark is advanced by 40° to start combustion at T.D.C., the combustion takes
place at T.D.C. But the heat loss and the exhaust loss may be higher and again work
obtained is not optimum.
In the above two cases, the work area is less, and, therefore, power developed per cycle and
efficiency are lower.
Thus for getting maximum work output, a moderate spark advance of 15° to 25° is the
best.
Incomplete combustion losses
— The loss due to incomplete combustion is included in time loss. It is not possible to get
homogeneous fuel-air mixture inside the engine cylinder as fuel, air and residual gases
are present in the engine cylinder before the start of ignition. There may be excess
oxygen in one part and excess fuel in another part of the cylinder. Therefore, incomplete combustion takes
places in the region of excess fuel, and CO and O2 both will
appear in the exhaust gases.
— It is observed that energy release in S.I. engine is only about 95 per cent of the energy
release when complete combustion would take place with near stoichiometric fuel-air
ratio. In actual engine, energy release is about 90 to 93 per cent of fuel energy input.
— It is always preferable to use a lean mixture to eliminate fuel waste, while a rich
mixture is required to utilize all the oxygen. Slightly lean mixtures give maximum
efficiency, but too lean mixture will burn slowly, increase burning loss or may not
burn causing total fuel loss. In rich mixture some fuel is definitely wasted as adequate
amount of oxygen is not available. The flame speed in rich mixture is low and causes
burning time loss leading to lowering of efficiency.
2. Direct heat loss :
When combustion of fuel takes place followed by the expansion stroke, the flow of heat
takes place from cylinder gases through the cylinder walls and cylinder head into the
water jacket or cooling fins. A part of heat enters the piston head and flows to the
cylinder wall through the piston rings and is carried away by the engine oil which
splashes underside of the piston.
The loss of heat which takes place during combustion has the maximum effect, while
that lost before the end of the expansion stroke has little effect, since it can do very
small amount of useful work.
During combustion and expansion, about 15% of the total heat is lost. Out of this,
however, much is lost too late in the cycle to have done any useful work.
N In case all heat loss is recovered, about 20 per cent of it may appear as useful work.
3. Exhaust blowdown loss :
At the end of exhaust stroke, the cylinder pressure is about 7 bar. If the exhaust valve is
opened at B.D.C., the piston has to do work against high cylinder pressure costing part of the
exhaust stroke. When the exhaust valve is opened too early entire part of the expansion stroke is
lost. Thus, best compromise is that exhaust valve be opened 40° to 70° before B.D.C., thereby,
reducing the cylinder pressure to halfway to atmosphere before the start of the exhaust stroke.

4. Pumping losses :
The pumping loss is due to pumping gas from low inlet pressure to higher exhaust
pressure.
The pumping loss increases at part throttle because throttling causes reduction in
suction pressure.
Pumping loss increases with increase in speed.
5. Rubbing friction loss :
The rubbing friction losses are caused due to :
(i) Friction between pistion and cylinder walls ;
(ii) Friction in various bearings ;
(iii) Friction in auxiliary equipment such as pumps and fans.
— The piston friction increases rapidly with engine speed and to small extent by increases in m.e.p.
— The bearing and auxiliary friction also increase with engine speed.
The engine efficiency is maximum at full load and reduces with the decrease in load. It is
due to the fact that direct heat loss, pumping loss and rubbing friction loss increase at lower loads.

Comparison of Operations and Working Media for ‘Air cycle’, ‘Fuel-air Cycle’
and ‘Actual Cycle’ of S.I. Engines
1. Air cycle :
The working medium is air throughout the cycle. It is assumed to be an ideal gas with
constant properties.
The working medium does not leave the system, and performs cyclic processes.
There are not inlet and exhaust strokes.
The compression and expansion processes are isentropic.
The heat addition and rejection are instantaneous at T.D.C. and B.D.C. respectively, at
constant volume.
2. Fuel-air cycle :
The cylinder gases contain fuel, air, water vapour and residual gases.
The fuel-air ratio changes during the operation of the engine which changes the relative
amounts of CO
2, water vapour etc.
The variations in the values of specific heat and with temperature, the effects of
dissociation, and the variations in the number of molecules before and after combustion
are considered.
Besides taking the above factors into consideration, the following assumptions are commonly made for
the operation:
(i) No chemical change prior to combustion.
(ii) Charge is always in equilibrium after combustion.
(iii) Compression and expansion processes are frictionless, adiabatic.
(iv) Fuel completely vaporised and mixed with air.
(v) Burning takes place instantaneously, at constant volume, at T.D.C.
The fuel air cycle gives a very good estimate of the actual engine with regards to efficiency,
power output, peak pressure, exhaust temperature etc.

3. Actual cycle :
The working substance is a mixture of air and fuel vapour, with the products of
combustion left from the previous cycle.
The working substance undergoes change in the chemical composition.
Variation in specific heats take place. Also the temperature and composition changes
due to residual gases occur.
 The combustion is progressive rather than instantaneous.
Heat transfer to and from the working medium to the cylinder walls take place.
Exhaust blowdown losses i.e. loss of work due to early opening of the exhaust valves
take place.
Gas leakage and fluid friction are present.