Turbocharging 101

I figured you guys should have this i posted it over in my forum and it seems to clear up how a turbo works.

Heres an essay i wrote for college this should help you out with how a turbocharger works. Please dont steal my work i took my time to write this out ask me for permission first.

Turbocharging
What if there was a device that can offer you better gas mileage, emissions, compensate for higher altitudes, and yield a 50% power increase. A device that could match the power output of a V-8 in a four cylinder engine and be more efficient than a larger engine. A device that basically powers its self using forms of free energy. Well that device is here and as a matter of fact its been for over 100 years; It’s called the Turbocharger.

A turbocharger is a form of forced induction to get more power out of a vehicle. In any vehicle there are only three ways to increase power, change the cylinder volume, change the fuel flow, or give it more air. A turbocharger gives the vehicle more air which leads to an increase of power. This is the preferred and most cost effective way to achieve more power out of a smaller engine. The turbocharger has an entire process to follow as it increases the engines power and gives the driver a faster vehicle.
The turbocharger itself has two sides one the intake side where the air enters and two the exhaust side where the air leaves. First, you have to understand the design of the turbocharger. To begin the turbo charger has two sets of blades connected to each other so as one spins the other spins as well. Then you have a housing around it to protect the blades. Now
as air from the outside of your car hits the intake blades also known as compression blades it starts to spin the blades as it enters the engine. Then as it leaves the engine through the exhaust side it starts to rapidly spin the exhaust blades then goes out your exhaust. This is the basic concept of how the turbocharger works but there is a lot more to it. As you can see the turbocharger is a very efficient design because as the exhaust gases spin the exhaust blades it in turns makes the intake blades spin just as fast since there connected which compresses more air into the car allowing for a higher air intake called boost. This concept is brilliant because its never ending and it will always stay at the same rate. (Garrett Turbo)
Boost is when you increase the amount of air into your engine over the amount of the engine if it wasn’t turbocharged or naturally aspirated. Normally aspirated engines run at 14.69 pounds per square inch (psi) of air. (Nice, How Turbochargers Work) Turbochargers can add a boost anywhere from 6psi additionally to over 30psi. So if your car is running 10psi boost then the total amount of air pressure going into your car is 24.69psi. Of course high boost numbers cannot be supported if the engine isn’t strong enough which is why boost has to be limited unless the engine has been worked on. If you run a high boost on a stock factory engine you can be guaranteed to blow the engine because it wasn’t built properly for that amount of boost.
What happens to air as it is compressed? Well when air gets compressed it gets hot, hot air is not good for the engine and beats the purpose of putting a turbocharger on in the first place. So this introduces the intercooler. An intercooler basically cools the incoming hot air and then sends cold dense air back to go into the engine. So how exactly can you cool down the air with the intercooler? The intercooler is mounted right in the front center of your car so as you drive
the incoming air hits this block and cools the air passing through the intercooler. So now you have cold dense air entering the engine.
Remember that the compression blades and the exhaust blades are connected well what happens when the exhaust blades spin so fast that it brings in more air then you want in the engine? This is where the turbochargers next component comes in; the wastegate. The wastegate basically relieves the pressure when the exhaust blades spin past a certain preset boost number.(Nice, How Turbochargers Work) As you know if you go to a higher boost number than your engine can handle your going to damage it. So now when the maximum boost number is reached the wastegate will open allowing the air to bypass the exhaust blades stabilizing the intake pressure.

This brings us into the next component similar in working to the wastegate. Every drive next to a car and when he shifted heard a “swoosh†or “pisst†sound. Well this is the infamous signature of a turbo called the blow of valve. The blow of valve serves almost the same purpose but only relieves the pressure of the turbo when the throttle is released. Basically, a car resets itself when you change gears so when you shift from first gear doing around three thousand revolutions per minute (rpm) and go into second you drop to one-thousand rpm. So the blow of valve eliminates all the air in the turbocharging system to start over again which is why you hear that sound. (Garrett Turbo)
You have a fully functional turbocharged system that will work flawlessly mechanically. The next step is to tune your car to the new amount of air being compressed into the engine with electronics. As more air gets compressed into the engine it uses more fuel to burn in the cylinders giving you more power. So this leads to the fuel/air controller which monitors and modifies the new amount of air and regulates the new fuel consumption in the engine. Now we also have the boost controller this unit keeps the car running at a certain amount of boost that you designate. The boost can always be changed with the boost controller for a higher or lower amount of boost.
Now why would anyone want to turbocharge their car and invest this money for there engine? Well for power of course the only reason people put these things on there cars are so they can go faster and faster. Wrong, this is a common misconception that people associate with turbocharging. A turbocharger does not just give you more power it is also better for your car. For starters the turbocharger helps increase fuel mileage which is a big concern in today’s world with rising fuel costs. It also decreases emissions because it reuses the exhaust gases your car throws away which means less pollutants. “Today’s turbocharged diesel engines produce 50% less NOx and CO2 emissions than conventional engines.â€Â(Honeywell Turbo “Turbo Benefitsâ€Â) Also a turbocharged car is preferred in places of high altitudes because at higher altitudes there is less air pressure and your car would struggle more so they add turbochargers to equal out this deficiency. Also with turbocharging you see the rise of four cylinder engines because it gives better performance, emissions, and fuel economy with a turbocharger. So this leads to less weight in the car for a better ride so why go with more engine then you need.(Markus Let's get small: why carry around more engine than you need?â€Â)
Although there are many advantages to the turbocharger there are also disadvantages. The first one is having too much boost:

With air being pumped into the cylinders under pressure by the turbocharger, and then being further compressed by the piston there is more danger of knock. Knocking happens because as you compress air, the temperature of the air increases. The temperature may increase enough to ignite the fuel before the spark plug fires. Cars with turbochargers often need to run on higher octane fuel to avoid knock. If the boost pressure is really high, the compression ratio of the engine may have to be reduced to avoid knocking. (Nice, How Turbochargers Work)

As you can see if you have to much boost as talked about before it can severely damage your vehicles engine. Now the second reason is turbo lag. A turbo does not kick in right away because it doesn’t start to spin till around 2500rpm when the exhaust gases start to have enough power to spin the exhaust blades to create boost. This is turbo lag where it will take the car a bit to get up to speed to give you the turbos performance then when it gets up to speed. Although these are disadvantages if you do turbo your car the right way you can avoid these disadvantages all together.
The turbocharger also has a competitor the supercharger. The supercharger runs off the same concept to bring in more air into the cylinders but does it in another way. The supercharger is basically added to your cars belt drive system which allows the supercharger to be spinning as soon as you start your car which means no lag and instantaneous power.(Harris “How superchargers Workâ€Â) But with everything there is a downfall and the supercharger robs power from the car that it creates because it is connected to the cars belt system. This is why Turbocharging is still the leading forced induction method for its use of free energy.
In today’s world turbocharging is rapidly growing and being installed into cars. Most car manufactures have realized the advantages of turbocharging and are now instituting all there vehicles with them. Manufactures such as Mitsubishi, Audi, and BMW are all very large into turbocharging there vehicles for advantages of smaller engines, enhanced performance, and efficiency. Who knows maybe in the near future we may have a combination of a supercharger and turbocharger called a twincharger in a vehicle. This is what Volkswagen is attempting on there golf gt’s in Europe to a very huge success especially with the numbers there talking about.
A 1.4 liter engine with 168 horsepower and 177 foot pounds of torque. Zero to sixty-two in 7.9 seconds with a top speed of 136mph. To top it all off it gets 30 miles to the gallon city and 48 miles to the gallon highway(Phoenix “The turbo-and supercharged carâ€Â). In china there is actually a tax for larger engines which is why in China there is a huge demand for turbocharged cars in the country.(Webb “Demand for turbocharging grows in Chinaâ€Â) As Christopher Sawyer stated “Is Less More?†he talks about the rise of the four cylinder engines and how there taking over due to turbocharging and getting better efficiency and power than six or more cylinders. As you see turbocharging can be the answer to a lot of questions troubling us such as global warming and fossil fuel shortages. Could cars like these possibly the future?

 

hahaha not the whole paper i dont care if you use some or change it about a bit there

 

lmao sounds good bro but i dont think you'll go to jail for it just kicked outta college haha