How does external combustion engine work

See our data use policy for details. Let your search flow Search. What is a perspective? External Combustion Engine An external combustion engine is a heat engine where an internal working fluid is heated by combustion of an external source, through the engine wall or a heat exchanger. Legacy NID Legacy VID An external heat engine EHE refers to any engine that receives its heat from a source other than the fluid that makes the engine work.

The most common type of EHE is the external combustion engine, which is used in many power plant designs. External heat engines are generally steam engines, and they differ from internal combustion engines in that the heat source is separate from the fluid that does work. This is different from internal combustion, like in a car engine, where the gasoline ignites inside a piston , does work, and then is expelled. All external combustion engines are external heat engines.

There are EHEs, like solar thermal power plants , nuclear power plants , and geothermal power plants , that are not external combustion engines. Despite this, external heat engines, like nuclear reactors , are sometimes referred to as external combustion engines.

External combustion engines are the most common form of external heat engines, because of their use in power plants. An external combustion engine is unique from other EHEs because it requires a fuel to undergo combustion to create the heat that is used for work. The engine then partially converts the energy from the combustion to work. The engine consists of a fixed cylinder and a moving piston. The expanding combustion gases push the piston, which in turn rotates the crankshaft.

There are two kinds of internal combustion engines currently in production: the spark ignition gasoline engine and the compression ignition diesel engine. Most of these are four-stroke cycle engines, meaning four piston strokes are needed to complete a cycle. The cycle includes four distinct processes: intake, compression, combustion and power stroke, and exhaust.