Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
An octane rating, or octane number, is a standard measure of a fuel's ability to withstand compression in an internal combustion engine without causing engine knocking.The higher the octane number, the more compression the fuel can withstand before detonating.
A gasoline-fueled internal combustion engine obtains energy from the combustion of gasoline's various hydrocarbons with oxygen from the ambient air, yielding carbon dioxide and water as exhaust. The combustion of octane, a representative species, performs the chemical reaction: 2 C 8 H 18 + 25 O 2 → 16 CO 2 + 18 H 2 O
Octane is a hydrocarbon and also an alkane with the chemical formula C 8 H 18, and the condensed structural formula CH 3 (CH 2) 6 CH 3. Octane has many structural isomers that differ by the location of branching in the carbon chain .
A complete set of equations for the combustion of a hydrocarbon in the air, therefore, requires an additional calculation for the distribution of oxygen between the carbon and hydrogen in the fuel. The amount of air required for complete combustion is known as the "theoretical air" or "stoichiometric air". [3]
The combustion of a stoichiometric mixture of fuel and oxidizer (e.g. two moles of hydrogen and one mole of oxygen) in a steel container at 25 °C (77 °F) is initiated by an ignition device and the reactions allowed to complete. When hydrogen and oxygen react during combustion, water vapor is produced.
Lean-burn refers to the burning of fuel with an excess of air in an internal combustion engine.In lean-burn engines the air–fuel ratio may be as lean as 65:1 (by mass). ). The air:fuel ratio needed to stoichiometrically combust gasoline, by contrast, is 14.
Engine knocking is an unwanted process that can occur during high compression ratios in internal combustion engines. In 1926 Graham Edgar added different amounts of n-heptane and 2,2,4-trimethylpentane to gasoline, and discovered that the knocking stopped when 2,2,4-trimethylpentane was added. This work was the origin of the octane rating scale ...
The constant volume adiabatic flame temperature is the temperature that results from a complete combustion process that occurs without any work, heat transfer or changes in kinetic or potential energy. Its temperature is higher than in the constant pressure process because no energy is utilized to change the volume of the system (i.e., generate ...