Customer Reviews

Engines: An Introduction

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

The book is an excellent source for engineers and students as a technical refresher on engine basics.