2. New trends of designing an engine are well known as downsizing.

What is its definition and what are the procedures to achieve the design.

Introduction

'There's no replacement for displacement' has been a catchphrase for big engine lovers for decades. In the modern era of fuel efficiency and CO2 concerns there needs to be a better way. The engine power installed in modern passenger cars engines is higher than ever in order to meet the increasingly demanding desires of the customer for heavier (more luxurious, larger and safer) vehicles with exciting driving performance. Delivering this power using a large engine means that almost all of the time the engine is operating at a tiny fraction of its maximum power and is therefore very inefficient. 'Downsizing' is the term given to installing a small engine in a vehicle but meeting the performance aspirations of the driver by designing the engine to operate at extremely high powers when needed. The most common approach to achieving this is through turbo charging and/or supercharging the engine. Both techniques compress the air entering the engine, allowing more fuel to be burnt and therefore more power to be generated. Most of the time though, the engine behaves as a normal small engine and therefore delivers improved fuel economy. Downsizing is now an established trend, with all vehicle manufacturers offering some degree of downsized engine or working to deliver them. It is a very important development since it can be employed on all vehicles to deliver impressive fuel savings at modest additional cost using established manufacturing techniques and abundant materials. Currently, automobile production in the European Union (EU) is split evenly between gasoline and diesel powered vehicles. Many are predicting, though, that the trend will shift to favour gasoline engines in the future.

Advantages

Some are even predicting that the market will move to 60% gasoline and 40% diesel within the next ten years. One reason for this shift is the cost of diesel when compared to gasoline. For example, diesel fuel in Germany in the past was priced 20% less than gasoline. However, the current price of diesel is within 10% of gasoline, and the two are expected to become even closer in the country. In the UK, diesel is actually more expensive than gasoline. In addition, diesel emissions standards in the EU will continue to become stricter in the future with the introduction of EURO 5 and EURO6 standards. The additional cost that will need to be added to diesel power train systems, and passed on to the customer, to allow them to be compliant with the regulations will quickly erode any cost advantage that diesel may have at the pumps. Because of these two reasons, it is expected that the market in Europe will shift towards smaller gasoline engines. It is not just Europe, though, that is considering downsizing their gasoline engines. The US market is also moving toward downsized gasoline direct injection or direct injection and turbocharged engines to improve fuel economy and to reduce emissions. When an engine is downsized the power output is also reduced, which will affected the overall engine performance and will affect the customer satisfaction with the automobile. However, when downsizing is combined with boosting technologies either supercharging or turbo charging the performance issues can be overcome because boosting allows more air to be pumped into the engine. More air and fuel means that the engine has more power. Turbo charging is not a new technology. However, in the past it had limited use on gasoline engines because of knock. Knock occurs in an engine when the compressed air and fuel mixture combust prematurely in the engine cylinder. To overcome this problem, direct injection is used. Due to improvements in engine and controls technology, fuel can now be sprayed directly into the combustion chamber. It no longer has to be mixed upstream and compressed together with the air. As a result, gasoline direct injection turbocharged engines can run with higher levels of turbo boost and higher compression ratios before knock becomes a problem. Over 95% of diesel engines are already boosted. Manufacturers have learned much from implementing diesel turbo charging. They are beginning to apply advanced boosting technologies to gasoline engines, and it is estimated that over 50% of gasoline power trains will be boosted by2015.It is estimated that the standard engine price will increase by 20% when gasoline downsizing is combined with boosting. However, these technologies are likely to reduce CO2 emissions in the region of 25% and to improve fuel economy by 20% making downsized gasoline engines an important step for future automobile production

Challenges

The evolution of the engines themselves requires new bearing materials. Lightweight engine parts, for instance, result in greater deformation of the connecting rod and engine block in operation and this, in turn, puts further loading on the bearings. Also, in order to reduce friction, bearing diameters and widths have been gradually reduced in new engine families. The huge increase in cylinder combustion pressures in today's turbocharged (or occasionally, supercharged) engines, coinciding with the increasing flexing of the connecting rod and engine block caused by weight reducing measures (as seen when discussing bearings, above) also puts much higher demands on head gaskets than before. Firstly, the environment in which it must operate is much more aggressive, demanding high performance materials that can withstand higher temperatures, but at the same time there is also a conflicting requirement for flexibility. Higher combustion temperatures naturally lead to higher exhaust temperatures, especially on turbocharged petrol cars that can already exceed 1.000 degrees C in some conditions. Exhaust systems need sealed joint faces at several points from the exhaust manifold gasket downwards, due to a number of exhaust gas after treatment devices and sensors being incorporated.

Ford Focus 1.0 Litre Eco Boost

Figure 1: Ford Focus 1.0 Litre Eco Boost All manufacturers are having a look at downsizing their engines in the interests of reducing CO2 emissions, but a 3-cylinder, 1-litre engine in a Ford Focus sounds a bit extreme, especially when people are used to 1.6 or 2.0-litre capacities in a Focus. Ford has gone down the route of turbo charging the smaller engine to achieve more power and torque, and the result is much better than anyone could have imagined.

The Ford Focus 1-litre Eco Boost is a highly impressive car and it shows that petrol engines are now a viable alternative to diesels. The car is incredibly quiet, refined and smooth. It has good performance, its good to drive, and its comfortable. Its also a practical five-door, five-seat family hatchback. It has excellent official economy and emissions figures of 56.5 mpg and 114g/km CO2.