How does turbocharger in a car work

These are covered by a snail-shaped housing featuring an inlet port, which the wasted exhaust gases enter at a high pressure. As the air passes through the turbine, the turbine spins and the compressor turns with it, drawing in vast quantities of air which are compressed and passed out of the outlet port. A pipe feeds this compressed air back into the cylinders via an intercooler, which cools the air before it reaches the cylinders.

Turbocharged engines differ from standard engines in that they make use of wasted exhaust gases to pull more air into the intake valve. While naturally-aspirated engines rely on natural air pressure to draw air into the engine, turbos speed up this process, producing power more economically.

Here, we list the main plus points of a turbocharged engine. Turbos produce more power in the same sized engine.

This means that more cars are now fitted with smaller, turbocharged engines, replacing larger and less economical units. Because turbochargers can produce the same power output as larger, naturally-aspirated engines, this paves the way for the use of smaller, lighter and more economical engines. Now, all modern diesel cars are fitted with a turbocharger, improving fuel economy and reducing emissions.

Even on the smallest engines, turbochargers produce more torque, particularly lower down the rev range. This means cars benefit from strong, nippy performance, which is great around town and helps the engine to feel more refined at higher speeds on motorways and A roads. Each piston slides down at the start of its cycle, creating a vacuum.

In a non-turbo engine, known as naturally-aspirated, air rushes in when the intake valve opens, but it can only fill the cylinder at atmospheric pressure. The turbo is powered by the exhaust gases. As exhaust passes through the turbo, it spins one fan, called the turbine. This in turn spins the second fan, called the compressor, which draws in fresh air, pressurizes it, and forces it into the engine.

The difference between atmospheric pressure and the amount of air pressure the turbo provides is known as boost, and is measured in pounds per square inch psi. Cool air is more oxygen-dense, and so it can be mixed with more fuel and still combust properly in the cylinder. If this happens, a valve called a waste gate opens up, diverting some of the exhaust gases away from the turbine.

When you hit the throttle, the engine works harder and creates more exhaust pressure. This spins the turbocharger, which in turn boosts the engine, which in turn receives more fuel — which is why these small-displacement engines can suddenly become a lot thirstier than expected when you drive them hard. This is known as turbo lag. It used to be far more noticeable in older cars, but today, automakers use different methods to help reduce it. Lightweight turbine vanes are used, so it takes less pressure to spin them.

Smaller turbochargers spool up faster and some automakers put two of them on an engine, combining a small one for quick initial boost with a larger one that can provide more power at higher engine speeds. A handful of automakers, including Volvo, use both a mechanically-driven supercharger and exhaust-driven turbocharger together on the engine to achieve this. A turbo can significantly boost an engine's horsepower without significantly increasing its weight, which is the huge benefit that makes turbos so popular!

In this article, we'll learn how a turbocharger increases the power output of an engine while surviving extreme operating conditions. We'll also learn how wastegates, ceramic turbine blades and ball bearings help turbochargers do their job even better.

Turbochargers are a type of forced induction system. They compress the air flowing into the engine see How Car Engines Work for a description of airflow in a normal engine.

The advantage of compressing the air is that it lets the engine squeeze more air into a cylinder, and more air means that more fuel can be added. Therefore, you get more power from each explosion in each cylinder. A turbocharged engine produces more power overall than the same engine without the charging. This can significantly improve the power-to-weight ratio for the engine see How Horsepower Works for details.

The turbine in the turbocharger spins at speeds of up to , rotations per minute rpm -- that's about 30 times faster than most car engines can go.

And since it is hooked up to the exhaust, the temperatures in the turbine are also very high. Keep reading to find out how much more power you can expect from your engine if you add a turbocharger. One of the surest ways to get more power out of an engine is to increase the amount of air and fuel that it can burn.

One way to do this is to add cylinders or make the current cylinders bigger. Sometimes these changes may not be feasible -- a turbo can be a simpler, more compact way to add power, especially for an aftermarket accessory. Turbochargers allow an engine to burn more fuel and air by packing more into the existing cylinders. The typical boost provided by a turbocharger is 6 to 8 pounds per square inch psi. Since normal atmospheric pressure is Therefore, you would expect to get 50 percent more power.

It's not perfectly efficient, so you might get a to percent improvement instead. One cause of the inefficiency comes from the fact that the power to spin the turbine is not free.

Having a turbine in the exhaust flow increases the restriction in the exhaust. This means that on the exhaust stroke, the engine has to push against a higher back-pressure.

This subtracts a little bit of power from the cylinders that are firing at the same time. The turbocharger is bolted to the exhaust manifold of the engine. The exhaust from the cylinders spins the turbine , which works like a gas turbine engine. The turbine is connected by a shaft to the compressor , which is located between the air filter and the intake manifold. The compressor pressurizes the air going into the pistons. The exhaust from the cylinders passes through the turbine blades , causing the turbine to spin.

The more exhaust that goes through the blades, the faster they spin. On the other end of the shaft that the turbine is attached to, the compressor pumps air into the cylinders. The compressor is a type of centrifugal pump -- it draws air in at the center of its blades and flings it outward as it spins.

In order to handle speeds of up to , rpm, the turbine shaft has to be supported very carefully. Most bearings would explode at speeds like this, so most turbochargers use a fluid bearing. This type of bearing supports the shaft on a thin layer of oil that is constantly pumped around the shaft.

This serves two purposes: It cools the shaft and some of the other turbocharger parts, and it allows the shaft to spin without much friction.

There are many tradeoffs involved in designing a turbocharger for an engine.