The Development History Of Cylinders

The cylinder principle originated from the cannon.
In 1680, Dutch scientist Hoynes was inspired by the principle of the cannon and thought, wouldn't it be great if the powerful force of the cannonball could be used to drive other machines? At first, he still used gunpowder as a burning explosive, changed the cannonball into a "piston", used the cannon barrel as a "cylinder", and opened a one-way valve. He injected gunpowder into the cylinder. When the gunpowder was ignited, the gunpowder exploded and burned violently, pushing the piston upward and generating power. At the same time, the huge pressure of the explosion gas also pushed open the one-way valve and discharged the exhaust gas. Then, the residual exhaust gas in the cylinder gradually cooled down, the air pressure became lower, and the atmospheric pressure outside the cylinder pushed the piston downward to prepare for the next explosion. Of course, due to the long stroke and low efficiency, he did not succeed in the end. However, it was Hoynes who first proposed the idea of ​​the "internal combustion engine", and later generations invented the engine for automobiles on this basis.
Early cars used single-cylinder engines
When the car pioneers Karl Benz and Daimler designed and manufactured cars, they coincidentally used only one-cylinder engines. Just as we think that a car cannot use two or more engines, it is estimated that people at that time would not imagine that there would be engines with two or more cylinders. However, it is different now. Let's not talk about developed countries. If you look at domestic car advertisements, you will find that many manufacturers always talk about the number and arrangement of engine cylinders. Those who sell mini cars strongly boast that their cars use four-cylinder engines instead of three-cylinder engines. Those who use V6 engines must make the V-shaped engine eye-catching. Advertising has indeed played a great effect. Many car fans have agreed with the concepts of "4 cylinders are better than 3 cylinders", "6 cylinders are better than 4 cylinders", "V-type is better than inline", and "V-type engines are advanced engines". Nearly 20 types of domestic cars are equipped with V6 or V8 engines.
The crankshaft of a single-cylinder engine can only produce combustion work once every two rotations, so its sound does not sound continuous and smooth. You will know it by listening to the sound of a small-displacement motorcycle. The most unacceptable thing is that its operation is extremely unstable, the speed fluctuates greatly, and the shape of the single-cylinder engine is not suitable for installation in cars. For this reason, single-cylinder engines are no longer seen on cars, and two-cylinder engines are also hard to find, at least three-cylinder engines. Domestically produced Huali vans, old Xiali cars, Geely Haoqing, Alto, and Flyer are all equipped with three-cylinder engines.
Three-cylinder engines are mostly used on micro cars below 1 liter, and 1 to 2 liter engines generally use 4-cylinder or 5-cylinder engines. Most engines above 2 liters are 6-cylinder, and the majority of engines above 4 liters use 8 cylinders.
Under the same displacement, increasing the number of cylinders can increase the engine speed, thereby increasing the engine's output power. In addition, increasing the number of cylinders can make the engine run more smoothly, making its output torque and output power more stable. Increasing the number of cylinders can make the car easier to start and have better acceleration responsiveness. In order to improve the performance of the car, the number of cylinders must be increased. Therefore, the number of cylinders of high-performance cars such as luxury cars, sports cars, and racing cars are all above 6 cylinders, and the most have reached 16 cylinders.
However, the increase in the number of cylinders cannot be unlimited. Because as the number of cylinders increases, the number of engine parts also increases proportionally, which makes the engine structure complex, reduces the reliability of the engine, increases the weight of the engine, increases the manufacturing cost and operating costs, increases fuel consumption, and makes the engine larger. Therefore, the number of cylinders in a car engine is a suitable choice made after weighing various pros and cons based on the purpose and performance requirements of the engine.
In-line engine (line engine), all its cylinders are arranged side by side in a plane, its cylinder block and crankshaft structure are simple, and it uses a cylinder head, which has low manufacturing cost, high stability, good low-speed torque characteristics, low fuel consumption, compact size, and wide application. Its disadvantage is low power. "In-line" can be represented by l, followed by the number of cylinders is the engine code, and the main types of engines on cars are l3, l4, l5, and l6.