Power and fuel economy
The MAN S80ME-C7 low speed diesel engines use 155 gram fuel per kWh for an overall energy conversion efficiency of 54.4%, which is the highest conversion of fuel into power by any internal or external combustion engine. Diesel engines are more efficient than gasoline (petrol) engines of the same power, resulting in lower fuel consumption. A common margin is 40% more miles per gallon for an efficient turbodiesel. For example, the current model Škoda Octavia, using Volkswagen Group engines, has a combined Euro rating of 6.2 L/100 km (38 miles per US gallon, 16 km/L) for the 102 bhp (76 kW) petrol engine and 4.4 L/100 km (54 mpg) for the 105 bhp (78 kW) diesel engine. However, such a comparison doesn't take into account that diesel fuel is denser and contains about 15% more energy by volume. Although the calorific value of the fuel is slightly lower at 45.3 MJ/kg (megajoules per kilogram) than petrol at 45.8 MJ/kg, liquid diesel fuel is significantly denser than liquid petrol. This is important because volume of fuel, in addition to mass, is an important consideration in mobile applications. No vehicle has an unlimited volume available for fuel storage.
Adjusting the numbers to account for the energy density of diesel fuel, the overall energy efficiency is still about 20% greater for the diesel version.
While higher compression ratio is helpful in raising efficiency, diesel engines are much more efficient than gasoline (petrol) engines when at low power and at engine idle. Unlike the petrol engine, diesels lack a butterfly valve (throttle) in the inlet system, which closes at idle. This creates parasitic loss and destruction of availability on the incoming air, reducing the efficiency of petrol engines at idle. In many applications, such as marine, agriculture, and railways, diesels are left idling unattended for many hours or sometimes days. These advantages are especially attractive in locomotives.
Weight can be an issue, since diesel engines are typically heavier than petrol engines of similar power output. This is essentially because the diesel must operate at lower engine speeds. Even more than that, the high weight of a diesel is mandated by the need to make parts stronger to resist the higher operating pressure from the high compression ratio of the engine, as well as the large amounts of torque generated to the crankshaft. In many instances, diesel engines are also heavier as a result of their intended benefits. Diesels have historically been known for their long lives and reliability, which are important in industrial applications such as the diesel is often used for. The stronger parts last longer than lighter parts, albeit making the average diesel have a poorer power-to-weight ratio. For most industrial or nautical applications, reliability is considered more important than light weight and high power. Diesel fuel is injected just before the power stroke. As a result of this, the fuel cannot burn completely unless it has a sufficient amount of oxygen. This can result in incomplete combustion and black smoke in the exhaust if more fuel is injected than there is air for it the be burned by. Modern engines with electronic fuel delivery can adjust the timing and amount of fuel delivery (by changing the duration of the injection pulse), and so operate with less waste of fuel. In a mechanical system, the injection timing and duration must be set to be efficient at the anticipated operating rpm and load, and so the settings are less than ideal when the engine is running at any other RPM than what it is timed for. The electronic injection can "sense" engine revs, load, even boost and temperature, and continuously alter the timing to match the situation. In the petrol engine, air and fuel are mixed for the entire compression stroke, ensuring complete mixing even at higher engine speeds.
Diesel engines usually have longer stroke lengths to achieve the necessary compression ratios. As a result piston and connecting rods are heavier and more force must be transmitted through the connecting rods and crankshaft to change the momentum of the piston. This is another reason that a diesel engine must be stronger for the same power output.
Yet it is this build quality that has allowed some enthusiasts to acquire significant power increases with turbocharged engines through fairly simple and inexpensive modifications. A petrol engine of similar size cannot put out a comparable power increase without extensive alterations because the stock components would not be able to withstand the higher stresses placed upon them. Since a diesel engine is already built to withstand higher levels of stress, it makes an ideal candidate for performance tuning with little expense. However, it should be said that any modification that raises the amount of fuel and air put through a diesel engine will increase its operating temperature which will reduce its life and increase service requirements. These are issues with newer, lighter, high performance diesel engines which are not "overbuilt" to the degree of older engines and are being pushed to provide greater power in smaller engines. The addition of a turbocharger or supercharger to the engine greatly assists in increasing fuel economy and power output, mitigating the fuel-air intake speed limit mentioned above for a given engine displacement. Boost pressures can be higher on diesels than petrol engines, due to the latter's susceptibility to knock, and the higher compression ratio allows a diesel engine to be more efficient than a comparable spark ignition engine. Because the burned gases are expanded further in a diesel engine cylinder, the exhaust gas is cooler, meaning turbochargers require less cooling, and can be more reliable, than on spark-ignition engines.
With a diesel, boost pressure is essentially unlimited. It is literally possible to run as much boost as the engine will physically stand before breaking apart.
The increased fuel economy of the diesel engine over the petrol engine means that the diesel produces less carbon dioxide (CO2) per unit distance. Recently, advances in production and changes in the political climate have increased the availability and awareness of biodiesel, an alternative to petroleum-derived diesel fuel with a much lower net-sum emission of CO2, due to the absorption of CO2 by plants used to produce the fuel. Although concerns are now being raised as to the negative effect this is having on the world food supply, as the growing of crops specifically for biofuels takes up land that could be used for food crops and uses water that could be used by both humans and animals. The use of waste vegetable oil, sawmill waste from managed forests in Finland funded by Nokia venture capital, and the development of the production of vegetable oil from algae, demonstrate great promise in providing feed stocks for sustainable biodiesel, that are not in competition with food production.
Diesel engines have lower power output than equivalent size petrol engine because its speed is limited by the time required for combustion. A combination of improved mechanical technology (such as multi-stage injectors which fire a short "pilot charges" of fuel into the cylinder to warm the combustion chamber before delivering the main fuel charge), higher injection pressures that have improved the atomisation of fuel into smaller droplets, and electronic control (which can adjust the timing and length of the injection process to optimise it for all speeds and temperatures), have mostly mitigated these problems in the latest generation of common-rail designs, while greatly improving engine efficiency. Poor power and narrow torque bands have been addressed by superchargers, turbochargers, (especially variable geometry turbochargers), intercoolers, and a large efficiency increase from about 35% for IDI to 45% for the latest engines in the last 15 years.
Even though diesel engines have a theoretical fuel efficiency of 75%, in practice it is less. Engines in large diesel trucks, buses, and newer diesel cars can achieve peak efficiencies around 45%, and could reach 55% efficiency in the near future. However, average efficiency over a driving cycle is lower than peak efficiency. For example, it might be 37% for an engine with a peak efficiency of 44%.
Emissions
Diesel engines produce very little carbon monoxide as they burn the fuel in excess air even at full load, at which point the quantity of fuel injected per cycle is still about 50% lean of stoichiometric. However, they can produce black soot (or more specifically diesel particulate matter) from their exhaust, which consists of unburned carbon compounds. This is caused by local low temperatures where the fuel is not fully atomized. These local low temperatures occur at the cylinder walls and at the outside of large droplets of fuel. At these areas where it is relatively cold, the mixture is rich (contrary to the overall mixture which is lean). The rich mixture has less air to burn and some of the fuel turns into a carbon deposit. Modern car engines use a diesel particulate filter (DPF) to capture carbon particles and then intermittently burn them using extra fuel injected into the engine.
The full load limit of a diesel engine in normal service is defined by the "black smoke limit". Beyond which point the fuel cannot be completely combusted, as the "black smoke limit" is still considerably lean of stoichiometric. It is possible to obtain more power by exceeding it, but the resultant inefficient combustion means that the extra power comes at the price of reduced combustion efficiency, high fuel consumption and dense clouds of smoke. This is only done in specialized applications (such as tractor pulling competitions) where these disadvantages are of little concern.
Likewise, when starting from cold, the engine's combustion efficiency is reduced because the cold engine block draws heat out of the cylinder in the compression stroke. The result is that fuel is not combusted fully, resulting in blue and white smoke and lower power outputs until the engine has warmed through. This is especially the case with indirect injection engines, which are less thermally efficient. With electronic injection, the timing and length of the injection sequence can be altered to compensate for this. Older engines with mechanical injection can have mechanical and hydraulic governor control to alter the timing, and multi-phase electrically controlled glow plugs, that stay on for a period after start-up to ensure clean combustion—the plugs are automatically switched to a lower power to prevent their burning out.
Particles of the size normally called PM10 (particles of 10 micrometres or smaller) have been implicated in health problems, especially in cities. Some modern diesel engines feature diesel particulate filters, which catch the black soot and when saturated are automatically regenerated by burning the particles. Other problems associated with the exhaust gases (nitrogen oxides, sulfur oxides) can be mitigated with further investment and equipment; some diesel cars now have catalytic converters in the exhaust.
All diesel engine exhaust emissions can be significantly reduced by using biodiesel fuel. Oxides of nitrogen do increase from a vehicle using biodiesel, but they too can be reduced to levels below that of fossil fuel diesel, by changing fuel injection timing.
Power and torque
For commercial uses requiring towing, load carrying and other tractive tasks, diesel engines tend to have better torque characteristics. Diesel engines tend to have their torque peak quite low in their speed range (usually between 1600 and 2000 rpm for a small-capacity unit, lower for a larger engine used in a truck). This provides smoother control over heavy loads when starting from rest, and, crucially, allows the diesel engine to be given higher loads at low speeds than a petrol engine, making them much more economical for these applications. This characteristic is not so desirable in private cars, so most modern diesels used in such vehicles use electronic control, variable geometry turbochargers and shorter piston strokes to achieve a wider spread of torque over the engine's speed range, typically peaking at around 2500–3000 rpm.
While diesel engines tend to have more torque at lower engine speeds than petrol engines, diesel engines tend to have a narrower power band than petrol engines. Naturally-aspirated diesels tend to lack power and torque at the top of their speed range. This narrow band is a reason why a vehicle such as a truck may have a gearbox with as many as 18 or more gears, to allow the engine's power to be used effectively at all speeds. Turbochargers tend to improve power at high engine speeds; superchargers improve power at lower speeds; and variable geometry turbochargers improve the engine's performance equally by flattening the torque curve.
Noise
The characteristic noise of a diesel engine is variably called diesel clatter, diesel nailing, or diesel knock. Diesel clatter is caused largely by the diesel combustion process, the sudden ignition of the diesel fuel when injected into the combustion chamber causes a pressure wave. Engine designers can reduce diesel clatter through: indirect injection; pilot or pre-injection; injection timing; injection rate; compression ratio; turbo boost; and exhaust gas recirculation (EGR). Common rail diesel injection systems permit multiple pre-injections as an aid to noise reduction. Diesel fuels with a higher cetane rating modify the combustion process and reduce diesel clatter. CN (Cetane number) can be raised by distilling higher quality crude oil, or by using a cetane improving additive. Some oil companies market high cetane or premium diesel. Biodiesel has a higher cetane number than petrodiesel, typically 55CN for 100% biodiesel.[citation needed]
A combination of improved mechanical technology such as multi-stage injectors which fire a short "pilot charges" of fuel into the cylinder to initiate combustion before delivering the main fuel charge, higher injection pressures that have improved the atomisation of fuel into smaller droplets, and electronic control (which can adjust the timing and length of the injection process to optimise it for all speeds and temperatures), have mostly mitigated these problems in the latest generation of common-rail designs, while improving engine efficiency.
Reliability
The lack of an electrical ignition system greatly improves the reliability. The high durability of a diesel engine is also due to its overbuilt nature (see above), a benefit that is magnified by the lower rotating speeds in diesels. Diesel fuel is a better lubricant than petrol so is less harmful to the oil film on piston rings and cylinder bores; it is routine for diesel engines to cover 250,000 miles (400,000 km) or more without a rebuild.
Due to the greater compression force required and the increased weight of the stronger components, starting a diesel engine is harder. More torque is required to push the engine through compression.
Either an electrical starter or an air start system is used to start the engine turning. On large engines, pre-lubrication and slow turning of an engine, as well as heating, are required to minimize the amount of engine damage during initial start-up and running. Some smaller military diesels can be started with an explosive cartridge, called a Coffman starter, which provides the extra power required to get the machine turning. In the past, Caterpillar and John Deere used a small petrol pony motor in their tractors to start the primary diesel motor. The pony motor heated the diesel to aid in ignition and used a small clutch and transmission to spin up the diesel engine. Even more unusual was an International Harvester design in which the diesel motor had its own carburetor and ignition system, and started on petrol. Once warmed up, the operator moved two levers to switch the motor to diesel operation, and work could begin. These engines had very complex cylinder heads, with their own petrol combustion chambers, and were vulnerable to expensive damage if special care was not taken (especially in letting the engine cool before turning it off).