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Compression: We start out with air at ambient conditions - often just outside air drawn into the engine. In preparation for adding heat to the air, we compress it by moving the piston down the cylinder. It is in this part of the cycle that we contribute work to the air. In the ideal Diesel cycle, this compression is considered to be isentropic.
It is at this stage that we set the volumetric compression ratio, r which is the ratio of the volume of the working fluid before the compression process to its volume after.
Piston: moving from top dead center to bottom dead center.
Combustion: Next, heat is added to the air by fuel combustion. This process begins just as the piston leaves its bottom dead center position. Because the piston is moving during this part of the cycle, we say that the heat addition is isochoric, like the cooling process. Piston: starts at bottom dead center, begins moving up.
Expansion: In the Diesel cycle, fuel is burned to heat compressed air and the hot gas expands forcing the piston to travel up in the cylinder. It is in this phase that the cycle contributes its useful work, rotating the automobile's crankshaft. We make the ideal assumption that this stage in an ideal Diesel cycle is isentropic.
Cooling: Next, the expanded air is cooled down to ambient conditions. In an actual automobile engine, this corresponds to exhausting the air from the engine to the environment and replacing it with fresh air. Since this happens when the piston is at the top dead center position in the cycle and is not moving, we say this process is isochoric (no change in volume).
We the most common working fluid for a Diesel cycle is air, since it is the cheapest thing in which to burn gasoline. We can choose air as our working fluid as air by selecting it as the substance in the meter window of any stuff.
Combustion Process (HTG1) Here we assume that the heating (which takes place just after the piston leaves the bottom dead center position) occurs with the piston moving under constant pressure, so it is isobaric. Here, we also assume the heat added (Q) to be 1800 kJ. Pre-Expansion (S3) No necessary specifications here. Expansion Process (EXP1) Since we are analyzing an ideal Diesel cycle, we assume that the expansion is isentropic. If we knew how much heat loss occurred in the expansion and the work it produced, we might be able to specify those here instead to model a non-ideal expansion process. Exhaust (Post-Expansion) (S4) No necessary specifications here. This is where we release the used air to the environment. Cooling Process (CLG1) Since the replacement of spent air with fresh air occurs when the piston is at its top dead center position, we assume the cooling process to be isochoric.
We may recall from our Otto cycle design that increasing the compression ratio had the same beneficial effect on efficiency there as it does here for the Diesel cycle. In the Otto cycle, the limitation was that extremely high pressures developed in the cycle as we increase the compression ratio. In the Diesel cycle, however, we are not adding all our heat to the cycle while the piston is stuck at the position providing the smallest volume, so the extremely high pressures we saw in the Otto cycle do not develop as quickly. The figure below illustrates.