How does a petrol car engine and a diesel car engine work?
This is actually 2 questions but there is only one main difference in the two types of engine, namely the method of ignition of the fuel. We are talking in both cases about internal combustion engines. This means something (fuel) burns inside a chamber. For something to burn you need oxygen and a means of ignition (setting fire to the fuel). Let’s talk about a standard petrol engine: A mixture of air and petrol is blown into a cylindrical chamber. A piston moves to compress the mixture. A spark from a spark plug is set off at the moment the mixture is most compressed. The mixture ignites and explodes ( the amount of gas produced by the almost instantaneous burning of the fuel is much greater than the amount of gas that was there before ignition. Only some fuels are therefore suitable.) So the piston is forced back. This motion is converted to rotational motion in much the same way as the downward force of a cyclist’s foot is converted into rotational motion. There is more than one cyli
