Wie funktioniert der Druckluftstart eines Motors?
Hallo, viele große und meist alte Dieselmotoren, wie bei Schiffen oder manchen Loks oder auch Traktoren, wurden mit Druckluft gestartet. Wird der einfach in die Zylinder reingelassen und dreht den Motor oder gibt es da speziell eine Steuerung?
This starting form is realized when an electric starter becomes completely unrealistic due to the required starting torque – this is the case with large diesels (ships, some locomotives, energy generation with piston engines).
For this purpose, the motor requires a special control and also valve actuation, and also additional valves for the start process.
By means of compressed air, the piston is set in motion in one or more cylinders, while on the other cylinders, from a critical starting speed, the normal injection process is initiated with compression ignition until these can take over the drive—and then the starting cylinders are switched over to normal operation. For overcoming the dead center, the cylinders are usually actuated with raised valves up to the first revolutions so that no compression force acts and inhibits rotation.
Thanks, there’s a kind of compressed air engine on some engines.
This is something else, namely an independent motor with output shaft. Whether it is realized with a reciprocating piston or rather with a rotating piston, does not matter. You can already find them with low power as a pneumatic screwdriver or impact screwdriver drive, for example. This means that other internal combustion engines (pistons) can also be brought to start speed as “starters” – or even a gas turbine.
Salmon
With an electric starter, you drive the crankshaft with the starter motor. Until the moment he begins to ignite himself.
This means that when the inlet valve rises, the lower piston draws air into the cylinder by means of a vacuum.
With compressed air starters we reverse it. Whenever the inlet valve opens, we leave compressed air. The piston is pressed down and thus the whole motor rotates. One cylinder after another begins to run.
We had such compressed air trailers in the military on a few old trucks. The operator was a little “tricky”. You always had to make sure that the truck had enough pressure when shutting down and the main shut-off valve was locked. This is how the air loss is avoided.
An emergency start was possible by means of a compressed air dispenser vehicle. Because of the higher pressure, however, it also had to be a vehicle with air inlets.
Tellenone
Picture, Berna trucks from the 1950s. In the early 1980s still in use and individually equipped with air pressure ink.
Thank you, did some vehicles have an auxiliary motor for generating compressed air?
I never saw that. The compressed air for the starter was generated with the diesel engine, such as that of the brake system.
But it was conceivable that the fire brigade had, for example, a powerful compressor on a trailer. The LW could of course be pumped up again. Normally, however, several vehicles were in place that could serve as air donors.
Actually, these things were quite reliable.
Tellenone
There are different methods for starting an internal combustion engine with compressed air.
1. In large diesel engines, but also in some piston aircraft engines, compressed air can be started.
Some cylinders of the engine are charged with compressed air during start-up in the ignition sequence, and thus the engine is rotated. The required compressed air is blown into the cylinders via relay valves at the cylinder heads. The control of the relay valves is effected via the start-air distributor, which is mechanically driven by the motor, similar to an ignition distributor.
In the case of smaller engines, the air from the start-air distributor is conducted directly into the cylinders. Depending on the design, either all or only part of the cylinders of a motor are used for starting with compressed air. In order that a rotary movement can occur from the stand, the motor must have at least five cylinders. This ensures that at least one cylinder is always in the working cycle and is not at a dead center.
Two. Air starters are occasionally used in American trucks. These are small compressed air motors which, like an electric starter, rotate the diesel engine to start. The required compressed air is stored in a container specifically provided for this purpose, which is pumped up again when the engine is running.