Internal Combustion Engines

That this work is placed on the market at all is due principally to the lack of satisfactory, compact reference books treating on the subject in question.

There are many excellent books of reference which treat the subject from a theoretical standpoint and deal largely with the growth and development of the internal-combustion engine. Many of these books, however, have not been brought down to date and, while beyond reproach as exponents of theory, fall far short in the matter of present practice and modern design. It would be well to supplement the use of this book with any one of several works on the gas engine, in order that the mathematical side of the subject may not be slighted. Works by Clerk, Hutton, and Donkin are particularly available along these lines.

A complete knowledge of thermodynamics is invaluable for the perfect understanding of the theory of internal-combustion engines, one of the best text-books on this subject being "Thermodynamics, Heat Motors and Refrigerating Machines," by De Volson Wood.

However, it has been the aim of this work to eliminate, as far as practicable, the more involved mathematical formulas and to confine the matter contained to the more practical and applied phase of the subject. In the chapter on "Compression" several thermodynamic formulas have been used to prove the relation of the compression to the thermal efficiency; these formulas, however, have no immediate bearing, except in a general way, on the problems of actual design and operation, but the formula PVn= C, by far the most important formula used in the actual designing, is found and derived in this chapter, and its discussion is taken up in the following chapter on "The Indicator Card."