Engines: An Introduction [Paperback]

John L. Lumley (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0521644895 | ISBN-13: 978-0521644891 | Publication Date: June 28, 1999

The internal combustion engine that powers the modern automobile has changed very little from its initial design of some eighty years ago. Unlike many high tech advances, engine design still depends on an understanding of basic fluid mechanics and thermodynamics. This text offers a fresh approach to the study of engines, with an emphasis on design and on fluid dynamics. Professor Lumley, a renowned fluid dynamicist, provides a lucid explanation of how air and fuel are mixed, how they get into the engine, what happens to them there, and how they get out again. Particular attention is given to the complex issue of pollution. Every chapter includes numerous illustrations and examples and concludes with homework problems. Examples are taken from the early days of engine design, as well as the latest designs, such as stratified charge gasoline direct injection engines. It is intended that the text be used in conjunction with the Stanford Engine Simulation Program (ESP). This user-friendly, interactive software tool answers a significant need not addressed by other texts on engines. Aimed at undergraduate and first-year graduate students, the book will also appeal to hobbyists and car buffs who will appreciate the wealth of illustrations of classic, racing, and modern engines.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"A delight to read and will be enjoyed equally by students and automobile enthusiasts. It is an essential addition to any engineering library, and to the bookshelves of automotive engineers as well as serious car hobbyists." Applied Mechanics Reviews

Book Description

This text offers a fresh approach to the study of engines, with an emphasis on design and on fluid dynamics. Professor Lumley, a renowned fluid dynamicist, explains how air and fuel are mixed, how they get into the engine, what happens to them there, and how they get out again. Particular attention is given to pollution. Every chapter includes numerous illustrations, examples, and homework problems. The text can be used in conjunction with the Stanford Engine Simulation Program (ESP), a user-friendly, interactive software tool that answers a significant need unaddressed by other texts. Aimed at undergraduate and first-year graduate students, the book will also appeal to car buffs who will appreciate the illustrations of classic, racing, and modern engines.

Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press (June 28, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0521644895
• ISBN-13: 978-0521644891
• Product Dimensions: 9.9 x 6.9 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #868,837 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good for beginners, good for advanced users, July 13, 2000

By 

"sonicsander" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Engines: An Introduction (Paperback)

The book begins very simple so beginners can use it. It is not a book a non-techical can easily read. I was looking for some theory about manifold design and the book gave me a good impression of the available methods. A disadvantage of the book is that it refers to ESP software developed at Stanford university. It is meant for instructural purposes but it is not downloadable from the Stanford university site. Overall I think the book is good due to the up-todate examples.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best as a textbook, but still interesting otherwise, October 4, 2005

By 

misterbeets "misterbeets" (Safe Harbor, MD USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Engines: An Introduction (Paperback)

This slim volume is for engineering students, complete with end-of-chapter problems, but is nonetheless readable, or at least skimmable, from cover to cover for those with an interest in engines. The writing is concise but not dry, with the author recounting his personal experiences with ruined VW engines. It has a sense of history, considering the 3.4L Jaguar engine first used in 1948 sufficiently modern to use as a benchmark to measure the late-Nineties Daihatsu against.
Some later sections run to several pages of calculations, so you won't read everything, but you'll still get a good qualitative understanding due to the author's own command of the subject.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Superb, January 2, 2011

By 

Broadmeadow (Austin, TX) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Engines: An Introduction (Paperback)

This book makes me wish there were a six star or that I'd never given a 5 star to any other product. Lumley goes into very good detail about how to calculate various aspects of engine performance. Then he gives simpler rules of thumb one can use instead. He'll commonly show how those rules of thumb compare to that empirical data both noting how well they compare but then show where they fall short.

This book seems as if it might belong in a sophmore class for engineers pursuing a degree related to automobile engine design or in an upper division class for engineers pursuing other lines of work. Just a superb book. I've flags marking equations on about every other page. His writing is clear, concise and simple. An example of the simple language which does not become simplistic is:

"When the flow velocity through an orifice reaches the local speed of sound, a change in the pressure downstream of the orifice can no longer be communicated to the flow upstream of the orifice."

I suspect that even graduate engine designers could use the equations in Lumley's book for estimation of performance. A designer of intake ports, for example, might use such empirical rules of an engine's "breathing" in order to sketch characteristics only turning to more detailed calculations and simulations when certain that a design fell within realistic bounds.

As a software engineer I find this book invaluable in creating the sort of basic simulation which is close enough without cutting corners too much. A simple example is the fact that the speed of sound only rises 1 meter/second from 0% to 100% humidity while a change in temperature has a broader range of change. To reduce the complexity of the calculations, he removes the consideration of of humidity. Even if travelling from a rain forest to a desert salt flat, the difference isn't worth considering except in the most rigorous calculations. The number and kine of examples like this are to numerous to consider in this short review.