7 Performance characteristics of supercharged

engines

7.1 Load response and acceleration behavior

The air ow through the engine is nearly independent of the load and strictly determined by the
engine speed in a naturally aspirated diesel engine. With this characteristic it exhibits the best
possible load response behavior. Its power and torque increase only depend on the rate of increase
in the amount of fuel injected if injection timing and combustion efciency are considered
nearly constant and the speed change is small in comparison to the change in the amount of fuel
injected.
The exhaust gas turbocharged gasoline engine represents the opposite, i.e., the worst case.
In gasoline engines with external mixture formation, load is controlled by mixture quantity,
which is controlled by throttling the amount of mixture aspirated. Therefore, at low load, low
pressures (down to 0.5 bar) occur in the complete manifold system downstream of the throttle,
and the speed of the turbocharger drops signicantly due to the low amount of exhaust gas
supplied.
The entire process used to achieve full load, i.e., full torque, as fast as possible in this engine
is very complex and especially time-consuming. By opening the throttle, the pressure in the intake
system downstream of it has to be raised to ambient pressure, and in parallel the amount of fuel
injected has to be increased.
In the course of this process, the amount of exhaust gas and its temperature also rise, increasing
the turbine power of the exhaust gas turbocharger. The chargers rotating assembly is accelerated
and the boost pressure increased. After that, the process accelerates progressively, since the turbine
power increases faster then the required compressor power. As can be seen, the complete process
cannot occur in a very short period of time.
Figure 7.1 shows an example. From an initial vehicle velocity of 40 km/h, i.e., low part load,
full load is applied. First, the intake manifold is lled to ambient pressure. This process takes about
0.2 s the same would be the case in a naturally aspirated gasoline engine. In the case of the exhaust
gas turbocharged engine, subsequently the exponential boost pressure buildup just described occurs,
in this extreme case taking another 5 s.
For the same vehicle, Fig. 7.2 shows a transient engine acceleration from an initial operating
point which approximately corresponds to ambient pressure in the intake manifold. It can be seen
that, without rst having to ll the intake system and with a higher baseline exhaust gas energy, the
boost pressure buildup occurs much faster, i.e., in about 0.6 s.
Engines with mechanically powered and xed coupled chargers react like naturally aspirated
diesel engines; if a clutch between charger and engine is included in the layout, the pressure buildup
also depends on the clutch characteristic.