Heat Engine Definition

What is a Heat Engine and How Does it Work?

Have you ever thought, what is an engine or a heat engine? A heat engine is nothing but a device that converts the chemical energy of a fuel into mechanical work. At the initial stage, the fuel of your engine gets combusted into the engine cylinder, where chemical energy of the fuel gets converted into thermal energy. Then, your automotive engine uses this thermal energy to produce mechanical work. 

                      

Your vehicle’s fuel could be naturally obtained petroleum like diesel, petrol, octane, and gas, which are combustible. Generally, the use of fuel varies from engine to engine according to design.  Now a day, automakers are trying to bring innovative fuel solution to meet future fuel challenges. They have progressed a lot with biodiesel, bioethanol, and biobutanol. At the present situation, these fuels are too much costly than natural fuels due to lack of resources. By making resources available for such alternative fuels, automotive industries can add a great value to their productions.

Now a day, you may find hydrogen fuel cell as another alternative fuel solution to natural fuels. Practically, the calorific value of hydrogen is 60,000 KJ/kg, where calorific values of diesel and petrol are 42,000 KJ/kg and 55,000 KJ/kg accordingly. However, hydrogen is cheaper than natural other alternative fuel resources. Otherwise, it can easily be separated from water to bring it to usable condition for an engine. Thus, it can be a great solution to our future automotive fuel demands.