What would happen if the flywheel is not used in an IC Engine?

[Benjamin_harsh]

Homework Statement

What would happen if flywheel is not installed to IC Engine?

Relevant Equations

What would happen if flywheel is not installed to IC Engine?

What would happen if flywheel is not installed to IC Engine? Does it have serious consequences?

 

[BvU]

An ICE has a compression stage, for which a certain amount of inertia (or other source of work) is essential.
How much depends on a lot of factors: e.g. number of cylinders, 2-stroke/4-stroke, balancing, ... .

I don't think modern cars have big flywheels like the one below any more

Wikipedia: A 1920s John Deere tractor with the spoked flywheel on the engine. The large moment of inertia of the flywheel smooths the operation of the tractor

PS you can google too !

 

[Benjamin_harsh]

I don't think modern cars have big flywheels like the one below any more

So can we experience huge mileage change?

 

[BvU]

No. A flywheel is not a source of energy but a buffer. Smoothness of operation is the keyword.

 

[jbriggs444]

Wikipedia: A 1920s John Deere tractor with the spoked flywheel on the engine. The large moment of inertia of the flywheel smooths the operation of the tractor

The pictured tractor appears to be a model D. That model used a two cylinder engine presumably running on the standard four stroke cycle. I would expect a side-by-side vertical arrangement. (Google didn't say). One piston would be on the exhaust stroke while the other was on the compression stroke. You would want flywheel energy to drive that.

Those old tractor engines could really lug down to low speeds - putt... putt... putt... putt.

Edit: @as clarified by @hmmm27, it is horizontal side by side, 180 degrees out of synch. So you would have power/compression, exhaust/power, intake/exhaust, compression/intake and repeat for a more syncopated putt putt.

 

[hmmm27]

An engine will run quite happily without a flywheel... right up to the point when - for whatever reason - a cylinder doesn't produce enough power to turn the crankshaft enough to set up the next combustion stroke. Then it stops.

On a car in motion, you could remove the flywheel and, if there's a misfire, the momentum of the car feeds back through the drivetrain to keep the crankshaft turning.

Which will turn your drivetrain into scrap metal after awhile, from torque vibration.

So, flywheel.

I wonder if anybody's tried a non-circular gear pair, to smooth things out.

 

[OCR]

I would expect a side-by-side vertical arrangement.

Looks like a horizontal arrangement .

And. . . here .
.

 

[OCR]

- putt... putt... putt... putt.

AKA. . . Johnny Poppers . . .

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