Internal combustion engine cooling

Internal combustion engine cooling uses either air or a liquid to remove the waste heat from an internal combustion engine. For small or special purpose engines, air cooling makes for a lightweight and relatively simple system. The more complex circulating liquid-cooled engines also ultimately reject waste heat to the air, but circulating liquid improves heat transfer from internal parts of the engine. Engines for watercraft may use open-loop cooling, but air and surface vehicles must recirculate a fixed volume of liquid.

Heat engines generate mechanical power by extracting energy from heat flows, much as a water wheel extracts mechanical power from a flow of mass falling through a distance. Engines are inefficient, so more heat energy enters the engine than comes out as mechanical power; the difference is waste heat which must be removed. Internal combustion engines remove waste heat through cool intake air, hot exhaust gases, and explicit engine cooling.

Engines with higher efficiency have more energy leave as mechanical motion and less as waste heat. Some waste heat is essential: it guides heat through the engine, much as a water wheel works only if there is some exit velocity (energy) in the waste water to carry it away and make room for more water. Thus, all heat engines need cooling to operate.

Cooling is also needed because high temperatures damage engine materials and lubricants. Cooling becomes more important in when the climate becomes very hot. Internal-combustion engines burn fuel hotter than the melting temperature of engine materials, and hot enough to set fire to lubricants. Engine cooling removes energy fast enough to keep temperatures low so the engine can survive.

Some high-efficiency engines run without explicit cooling and with only incidental heat loss, a design called adiabatic. Such engines can achieve high efficiency but compromise power output, duty cycle, engine weight, durability, and emissions.

Most internal combustion engines are fluid cooled using either air (a gaseous fluid) or a liquid coolant run through a heat exchanger (radiator) cooled by air. Marine engines and some stationary engines have ready access to a large volume of water at a suitable temperature. The water may be used directly to cool the engine, but often has sediment, which can clog coolant passages, or chemicals, such as salt, that can chemically damage the engine. Thus, engine coolant may be run through a heat exchanger that is cooled by the body of water.

...
Wikipedia