The Two-Stroke Internal Combustion Engine Paul Petrous (PID: A42025675) Overview: An internal combustion engine is an engine in which

the combustion of a fuel occurs with an oxidizer in a combustion chamber that is an integral part of the working fluid flow circuit. In other words, an internal combustor engine converts gasoline into motion. One of the common internal combustion engines is a two-stroke internal combustion engine. A two-stroke engine completes a power cycle in only one crankshaft revolution and with two strokes, or up and down movements, of the piston. Two-stroke internal combustion engines are used in small utility or recreational applications such as jet skis, dirt bikes, mopeds, chainsaws, etc. It is much smaller than a four-stroke internal combustion engine which is usually used in the automotive industry. The two-stroke engine has a very basic construction. It does not have valves so they can be very light which makes it very beneficial in handheld utility tools. The reason it doesnt need valves is because the piston acts as a valve that blocks and unblocks the transfer ports between the intake and the exhaust. Another feature that is good for handheld utility tools is that a two-stroke engine can work in any orientation. This is beneficial because it will not have any problems with oil flow Figure 1: General Cycle of a Two-Stroke Engine regardless of which way the engine is turned. In a two-stroke internal combustion engine, the spark plug fires once every revolution which makes a two-stroke engine much more powerful than a four-stroke engine. The power-to-weight ratio is extremely greater than that of a four-stroke engine because of how light weight and because a four stroke engine only fires once every other revolution. The reason that two-stroke engines are not used in automobiles is because the parts wear down a lot faster than a four-stroke engine, the oil used for a two-stroke engine is expensive, they cause a lot more pollution during the combustion process, and they are not fuel efficient (2). It is very easy to understand how a two-stroke combustion engine operates. When the piston is located at the top of the two-stroke engine, an air-fuel mixture enters the crankcase through a reed valve that is located between the air-fuel intake and the crankcase. This air-fuel mixture is trapped there because the piston is blocking the transfer port. While the piston is located at the top of the two-stroke engine, an old air-fuel mixture is compressed and ignited by a spark plug firing. This air-fuel ignition causes the piston to move downward. As the piston is pushed downward, it begins to cover the intake port and forces the reed valve to close which prevents more new fuel mixture into the crankcase. While this is happening, the transfer port is uncovered and the pressurized fuel mixture flows into the cylinder. This fuel mixture pushes the burned fuel out of the cylinder. The momentum in the crankcase drives the piston back towards the top of the cylinder. As the piston returns to the top, a vacuum is created in the crankcase causing the reed

valve to reopen and bring in a fresh air-fuel mixture. Once the piston reaches the top of the cylinder, the spark plug fires again and repeats this process all over again. The major components of two-stroke engines are tuned so that the ideal airflow results. The intake and exhaust tubes need to also be tuned to give better flow than a straight tube. The shape of the piston can be seen in Figure 1 and is shaped that way to prevent the exhaust flow from flowing back into the crankcase and mixing with the new air-fuel mixture.

CEARUN Constant Pressure Analysis: Cearun is a website run by NASA which helps people better understand chemical species formation from a chemical equilibrium point of view. The air-fuel mixture that I chose to study in the use of a two-stroke internal combustion engine is a propane and atmospheric air mixture. After collecting the data I formed a graph that showed the relationship between the mole fraction of NO, CO, CO2, and H2O vs. the equivalence ratio. As you can see in Figure 2, there is a lot of H2O formed after combustion to a 0.180000 propane-air mixture. There is also a lot of 0.160000 carbon dioxide (CO2) formed which is expected. There is not a lot of carbon 0.140000 NO Mole monoxide (CO) when the equivalence is Fraction 0.120000 low but as the equivalence starts to reach 1, a lot more CO is formed. The 0.100000 CO Mole Fraction equivalence ratio did not have much of a 0.080000 factor in the creation of nitric oxide (NO). CO2 Mole This is valuable information because when 0.060000 Fraction choosing an air-fuel mixture to use in a 0.040000 two-stroke combustion engine, you need to H2O 0.020000 make sure that the equivalence ratio is low Mole Fraction to reduce the poisonous emissions that are 0.000000 found in Carbon Monoxide. The ideal 0.5 0.7 0.9 1.1 1.3 Equivalence Ratio equivalence ratio would be about 1. This would allow a lot of CO2 to form and also Figure 2: Mole Fractions vs. Equivalence Ratio keep formation of CO to a minimum. Another thing that I compared was the final temperature of the air/fuel mixture at each equivalence ratio. When the equivalence ratio was at 0.6, the final equilibrium temperature was 1700.23K. This formed a hyperbola with the highest temperature being at 2315.88K. When the equilibrium ratio was at 1.2 was 2208.3K. Having a higher temperature will help reduce the ignition delay so an equivalence ratio of about 1 would be the ideal propane-atmospheric mixture to use in a two-stroke engine.

CHEMKIN Closed Homogeneous Reactor: In order to understand chemical species formation for a two-stroke engine from a chemical kinetics point of view, we used a program called CHEMKIN. This program helps simulate chemical kinetic problems. CHEMKIN is about to solve multiple reaction combinations to improve the understanding of chemical species, concentration ranges, and gas temperatures. I used this program to understand what would happen during combustion with a propaneatmospheric air mixture. One of the things I was able to discover using CHEMKIN is the ignition delay of a propaneatmospheric air mixture. The ignition delay is the length of time or number of degrees of crankshaft rotation between the beginning of injection and the ignition of the fuel (4). The ignition delay that I obtained by using CHEMKIN was about 0.26ms. During this time, the propane-air mixture increases from a start temperature of 1500K to about 2680K. The pressure is used was 1 atm, and a volume of 1 cm3. The ignition delay may not be the same throughout all two-stroke engines. Playing around with my entered data I was able to see that as the pressure is increased the ignition delay decreases rapidly. There are many other factors that go into determining the ignition delay. Some of these are the cylinder pressure during the upstroke, the ratio of the air-fuel mixture, fuel injection pressure, and the speed of the engine. This is valuable information to observe when designing a two stroke combustion engine. In order to reduce the ignition delay you need to either decrease the size of the cylinder or increase the pressure that the piston creates on the upstroke. This will keep the engine running efficiently. Another key thing that I was able to obtain is the mole fractions during the combustion of the propane-air mixture. The reactant species that is used was 1 C3H8, 2 O2, and 7.52 N2. Once the mixture ignited the mole fraction of propane and atmospheric air was 0. The products that were formed were CO2, CO, and H2O. I was really surprised to see that NO was not formed with my reactants and pressure. The reason I believe NO may not have formed is because it did not have enough time to oxidize. The biggest product created that I investigated was CO. This is caused because there was not enough O2 used in the mixture to create more CO2. I went Figure 3: Mole Fractions back and added another mole of O2 and this reduced the amount of CO that is created during combustion of the propane-air mixture.

References: 1. "About Propane - Characteristics, Properties and Combustion." Propane Properties, Characteristics and Propane Gas Combustion Information. N.p., 2007. Web. 02 Dec. 2013. <http://www.propane101.com/aboutpropane.htm>. 2. Brian, Marshall. "How Two-stroke Engines Work." HowStuffWorks. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 Dec. 2013. <http://science.howstuffworks.com/transport/engines-equipment/two-

stroke.htm>. 3. "CEARUN." CEARUN. N.p., n.d. Web. 03 Dec. 2013. <http://cearun.grc.nasa.gov/>. 4. "Glossary of Terms." Glossary of Terms [E. N.p., 1997. Web. 02 Dec. 2013. <http://www.dieselnet.com/gl-e.html>. 5. "What Is the Difference Between a Two Stroke and Four Stroke Engine?" WiseGEEK. Conjecture Corporation, 2003. Web. 03 Dec. 2013. <http://www.wisegeek.org/what-isthe-difference-between-a-two-stroke-and-four-stroke-engine.htm>.