Compression Ratio Explained (Static & Dynamic) Page 1 sur 10

Compression Ratio Explained (Static & Dynamic) by [ MichaelDelaney ]

(Article ID: 233)
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INTRODUCTION

If you look in the dictionary:

Compression as an adjective means something is squeezed (in this case it's air
and fuel)

Ratio as a noun means something is divided by something else. It is a math

term meaning a quotient.

There are 2 kinds of Compression Ratios (CR):

1. Static

2. Dynamic

The most common one everyone talks about is Static CR.

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1. STATIC CR

1A. DEFINITION

The Static Compression RATIO is defined as the Volume of the Combustion

Chamber when the piston is at the very bottom of it's travel (called "bottom
dead center" or BDC) DIVIDED BY the Volume of the Combustion Chamber
when the piston is at the very top of it's travel (called "top dead center" or
TDC).

Static compression ratio is one factor that affects how completely the air-fuel
mixture is burned, once it has been lit by the sparkplug. If you burn all of the
air:fuel mixture, you make more hp. If there is some leftover unburnt air:fuel
mix after the spark has been lit, you have not gotten all the power you can get
out of the mix that was just added into the cylinder. This completeness of burn
is called THERMODYNAMIC EFFICIENCY (measured in units of energy called
joules, pronounced like "jewels").

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Remember, basically, you increase horsepower by increasing 3 different types

of efficiencies: thermodynamic (relates to burn), volumetric (relates air flow in
and out), and mechanical (relates to weight and friction). Improving
thermodynamic efficiency is one of the 3 major power-gaining methods
available for engine builders.

The relationship between thermodynamic efficiency and static CR is not a

simple, direct, linear, straight-forward 1:1 relationship. In plain english, if you
increase the CR by 1.5 times, it does not mean the burn efficiency (or
completeness of burn) will also increase by 1.5 times. It's a complex direct
exponential and inverse exponential equation that relates static CR to burn
efficiency.

Like anything exponential and inverse in math, there is an initial rapid increase
in thermodynamic efficiency as static CR increases but at some point of CR, the
efficiency levels off and plateaus. In other words, at some point, further
increases in static CR no longer improves or increases the burn efficiency.

1 B. THE PROBLEMS WITH INCREASING STATIC CR

The problem is that as you increase CR, you increase cylinder pressure and
temperature inside the combustion chamber. When air is squeezed hard inside
a closed container like a cylinder, the pressure inside goes up the harder you
squeeze. As pressure builds up, so does temperature. These 2 (high pressure
and temp.) can cause the air -fuel mix to ignite on it's own without a spark
from the plug....this is called detonation. So there is a CR level which will
cause detonation. The value of that level varies with each engine and depends
on combustion chamber's design which limit detonation risk (eg. compact
combustion chambers, low surface-area-to-volume ratio combustion chambers,
more quench or squish area, swirl filling of the air-fuel mix into the chamber,
getting a stratified air fuel mix once the chamber is completely filled, cooling
ability of the engine, etc. ... all of these other chamber design factors reduce
detonation risk and speeds up the burn rate, against the effect of higher static
CR ).

Secondly, as you increase static CR more and more, the cylinder pressures
increase more and more. The piston must work much harder to compress the
same amount of air:fuel mixture delivered into the chamber due to this higher
pressure. This negative work adds more power-robbing or parasitic-losing
friction and slows the piston speed momentum which affects the power you
produce.

So you can make more power by improving burn efficiency via increasing the
static CR up to a point. For street engines, the maximum static CR on pump
gas is around 12.5:1 CR if you know how to tune. If you do not, the maximum
is around 11.5:1 CR. For a race engine, the point at which cranking pressure
causes negative work or parasitic friction and affects power output is around
14:1 CR. Alcohol-fueled race engines can afford to run 15-17:1 CR, since the

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alcohol cools the chamber and lowers both the cylinder temperature and
detonation risk. Methanol race engines run much richer air-fuel ratios (around
5-6:1) than gasoline engines, as well.

In simple terms: for static CR, the first number is the chamber volume at BDC,
second number is chamber volume at TDC...the higher the first number is, the
more squeeze you have. More squeeze improves burn up to a certain point.
This point varies for each engine design.

When we talk about turbos and superchargers, the point at which an increase
in static CR that can cause detonation is much lower than in all motor engines.

The reason is : you are stuffing in more air into a closed container with boost.
The cylinder pressures build up to a higher level faster. And so does temp. So
the risk of detonation is much higher.

If you change cylinder heads (which have different head volumes) or change
pistons (with different dome heights), or crankshafts (with different strokes),
you will change both the static CR and the dynamic CR.

Many novices do not understand that if a piston comes from one type of engine
(eg. CTR pistons) and provides a certain static CR for that engine (eg. in a
CTR, the B16B (PTC) pistons give 10.8:1 static CR), it does NOT necessarily
mean that you will have the same static CR when you swap those pistons into
another engine.

Because the cylinder head volume, stroke, and piston-to-deck height are
different between engines, adding the same 81mm bore CTR pistons (using a
stock 3 layer head gasket) to a B18B will give 11.6:1 CR, to a B18C1 will give
12.3:1 CR , and to a B18C5 will give 12.0:1 CR!! Remember, this is the same
CTR piston that has 10.8:1 static CR in a B16B (CTR) engine.

1C. STATIC CR CALCULATORS ON THE WEB

Here are some sites which provide you with static CR calculators for different
Bseries pistons in different Bseries blocks/heads:

http://www.zealautowerks.com/ (this is the most accurate calculator on the

web)

http://www.bojangs.com/calculator (this has errors with the PCT piston

because it doesn't account for compression height spec differences)

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http://www.c-speedracing.com/howto/compcalc/compcalc.html (this has deck

clearance errors)

1D. HOW TO CALCULATE STATIC CR FROM SCRATCH YOURSELF

In not-so-simple terms, for the more math-inclined members, you can also
calculate this out yourself (i.e. to understand the definition of CR more clearly
and what individual factors determine it):

CR=(D + PV + DC + G + CC) / (PV + DC + G + CC)

CR = Compression Ratio

D = Displacement

PV = Piston Volume

DC = Deck Clearance Volume

G = Gasket Volume

CC = Combustion Chamber Volume

More Detail:

Static Compression Ratio = (Volume at BDC) / (Volume at TDC)

[ Aside: Volume stated in this equation above is the combustion chamber

volume. ]

where

Volume at BDC = [ (Swept Volume + Cylinder Head Volume + Headgasket

Volume (including piston to deck height) - Piston Dome Volume ]

Volume at TDC = [ Cylinder Head Volume + Headgasket Volume (including

piston to deck height) - Piston Dome Volume ]

Swept Volume = [Pi x [Bore] ^2 x Stroke]/4000

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Call the piston manufacturer for the aftermarket piston dome displacement
spec.

See the specs in the tables below for the OEM pistons' dome volumes and
cylinder head volumes.

An Example:

B20 VTEC with 84.5 mm BORE and 89mm STROKE, RW pistons with a 7.45 cc
Dome Height Volume, and B16A (PR3) head with 42.7 cc head volume, head
gasket thickness of 0.029 in. and piston to deck height from the gasket as
0.005 in.

Swept Volume = [Pi x (84.5 mm )^2 x 89.0mm ] / 4000 = 499.1 cc

Endyn/Wiseco Rollerwave Piston Dome Volume = 7.45 cc

Cylinder Head Volume = 42.7 cc

Headgasket Volume (incl. piston to deck height) =

[ [ (84.5 mm / 2)^2 x pi x 0.864 mm] / 1000 ] = 4.85 cc

[ Aside - For the head gasket and piston-to-deck-height part of the calculation
you must convert from inches to mm where 1 inch = 25.4 mm:

(0.029 in. + 0.005 in. ) x 25.4 mm per inch = 0.864 mm

cc stands for cubic centimeters where 1000 cc equals 1L of engine

displacement or combustion chamber volume]

therefore,

Static Compression Ratio = (Volume at BDC) / (Volume at TDC)

= [ 499.1 + 42.7 + 4.85 - 7.45 ] / [42.7 + 4.85 -7.45]

= 539.2 cc / 40.1 cc = 13.4:1 static CR

in this particular example.

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Some Useful Specs for Calculating Static CR:

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a) Piston to Deck Height

B18A/B, B18C1, B18C5, B20Z/B = 0.762mm ( 0.030 in.)

B16A/B = 0.508 mm (0.020 in.)

b) Piston Dome Volume

B18A/B (PR4/P74) -3.2 cc

B18C1 (P72AO) -0.60 cc

JDM GSR(P72OO) +2.52 cc

B18C5 (P73AO) +3.64 cc

JDM Spec R (P73OO) +5.96 cc

B17A (P61) 0.00 cc

B16A (PR3) +6.01 cc

JDM B16A (P30) +6.93 cc

B16B (PCT) +8.63 cc

B20Z (PHK) -4.04 cc

B20B (P3F) -9.92 cc

c) Head Gasket Thickness

Stock 3 layer: 0.74 mm (0.029 in.)

Modified Stock 2 layer: 0.49 mm (0.0193 in.)

Modified Stock 1 layer: 0.25 mm (0.0097 in.)

Aftermarket Mugen 2 layer: 0.47 mm (0.0185 in.)

Aftermarket Spoon 2 layer: 0.45 mm (0.177 in.)

Subtract the stock thickness from the thinner headgasket's thickness to get
what the equivalent to head milling would have been. For example, with a GSR
head (smallest head volume of the Integras) using the Mugen headgasket on a
stock GSR block , the static CR would be lowered by approx. 0.4:1 CR with the
10.5 thousandths difference in thicknesses (i.e. it's equivalent to milling your

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head 10 thousandths).

d) Cylinder Head Combustion Chamber Volumes

B18A/B: 45 cc

B16A, B16B, B17A, B18C5: 42.7 cc

B18C1: 41.6 cc

e) Bore and Stroke

see Engine Package II Article in the Performance Section.

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1E. VISUAL EXAMPLES OF HIGH AND LOW STATIC CR PISTONS

Here are 2 versions of the same Wiseco forged piston with different piston
dome heights (High CR, left and Low CR, right) to provide different static and
dynamic CR's. Notice how small the difference is on the dome heights and yet
it makes a big difference in the CR you get :

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Here is an NA piston (closer to you, foreground) with a higher piston dome for
high static CR versus a Forced Induction (FI) piston (background) with a flat
"no dome" or "dished" piston to achieve a lower CR. Notice the FI piston still
has a good quench area at the outside edge of the piston top, despite not
having a dome.:

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2. Dynamic CR

The piston is always moving up and down but the intake valve opens and
closes during this time as well.

As the piston is beginning to squeeze at BDC, the intake valve is beginning to

close. The intake valve is not completely shut until the piston is near TDC.
There is a connection between the cylinder combustion chamber and the intake
port/intake manifold runner, when the intake valve is still partially open. As the
piston is squeezing and approaching TDC, some cylinder pressure can bleed up
into the intake port which reduces overall cylinder pressure.

If you use your adjustable intake cam gear to close the intake valve earlier
(advancing the cam gear), the amount of cylinder pressure bleeding up the
intake port is reduced. The cylinder pressure builds up faster and you get a
better burn.

If you let the intake valve close later (retard the intake cam gear or use a
longer duration intake cam), more cylinder pressure will bleed out or be
reduced and the burn will be less complete.

This is why it is important to increase your static CR when you get extremely
longer duration cams.

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You want a fast, complete burn of the air fuel mix to make power.

If you want to read more about combustion chamber design and how it affects
burn efficiency along with CR, check out my article:

http://www.team-integra.net/sections/articles/showArticle.asp?ArticleID=183

We also get into the importance of static CR and dynamic CR when you
upgrade your cams in this article:

http://www.team-integra.net/sections/articles/showArticle.asp?ArticleID=472

3. FINAL THOUGHTS

If you know how to tune , you can go as high as 12.3:1 static CR in all motor
Hondas using 93 octane pump gas. A safe number is 11.5:1 CR. Stock Integras
vary from 9.2:1CR in the LS, 10:1 CR in the GSR , 10.6:1 in the US ITR, and
11:1 in the JDM ITR.

Remember when we talk about CR, the first number is the volume at BDC,
second number is volume at TDC...the higher the first number, the more
squeeze...

Posted 4/7/2002 2:49:48 AM

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