Compression ratio

For compression ratio in data compression, see data com- In a piston engine, it is the ratio between the volume of
pression ratio.
the cylinder and combustion chamber when the piston is
The static compression ratio of an internal-combustion at the bottom of its stroke, and the volume of the combustion chamber when the piston is at the top of its stroke.[1]
For example, a cylinder and its combustion chamber with
the piston at the bottom of its stroke may contain 1000
cc of air (900 cc in the cylinder plus 100 cc in the combustion chamber). When the piston has moved up to the
top of its stroke inside the cylinder, and the remaining
volume inside the head or combustion chamber has been
reduced to 100 cc, then the compression ratio would be
proportionally described as 1000:100, or with fractional
reduction, a 10:1 compression ratio.
A high compression ratio is desirable because it allows an
engine to extract more mechanical energy from a given
mass of air-fuel mixture due to its higher thermal eciency. This occurs because internal combustion engines
are heat engines, and higher eciency is created because
higher compression ratios permit the same combustion
temperature to be reached with less fuel, while giving a
longer expansion cycle, creating more mechanical power
output and lowering the exhaust temperature. It may be
more helpful to think of it as an expansion ratio, since
more expansion reduces the temperature of the exhaust
gases, and therefore the energy wasted to the atmosphere.
Diesel engines actually have a higher peak combustion
temperature than petrol engines, but the greater expansion means they reject less heat in their cooler exhaust.
Higher compression ratios will however make gasoline
engines subject to engine knocking (also known as detonation) if lower octane-rated fuel is used. This can reduce
eciency or damage the engine if knock sensors are not
present to modify the ignition timing. However, knock
sensors have been a requirement of the OBD-II specication used in 1996 model year vehicles and newer.
On the other hand, Diesel engines operate on the principle of compression ignition, so that a fuel which resists
autoignition will cause late ignition, which will also lead
to engine knock.

1 Formula

A four-stroke engine showing the stroke of the piston.

The static compression ratio is calculated by the following

engine or external combustion engine is a value that repformula:
resents the ratio of the volume of its combustion chamber
2
from its largest capacity to its smallest capacity. It is a
b s+Vc
CR = 4 Vc
, where
fundamental specication for many common combustion
engines.
b = cylinder bore (diameter)
1

2 TYPICAL COMPRESSION RATIOS

s = piston stroke length
Vc = clearance volume. It is the volume of the
combustion chamber (including head gasket).
This is the minimum volume of the space at the
end of the compression stroke, i.e. when the
piston reaches top dead center (TDC). Because
of the complex shape of this space, it is usually
measured directly rather than calculated.

Typical compression ratios

injected engines because port fuel injection allows the

air/fuel mixture to be heated together which leads to detonation. Conversely, directly injected engines can run
higher boost because heated air will not detonate without
a fuel being present. In this instance fuel is injected as
late as 60 degrees before top dead center to avoid heating
the mixture to the point of compression ignition.

2.3 Petrol/gasoline engine for racing

Motorcycle racing engines can use compression ratios as

high as 14.7:1, and it is common to nd motorcycles with
2.1 Gasoline (petrol) engine
compression ratios above 12.0:1 designed for 86 or 87 octane fuel. F1 engines come closer to 17:1, which is critThe compression ratio in a gasoline (petrol)-powered enical for maximizing volumetric/fuel eciency at around
gine will usually not be much higher than 10:1 due to po18,000 RPM.
tential engine knocking (detonation) and not lower than
6:1. Some production automotive engines built for high
performance from 19551972, used high-octane leaded
gasoline or '5 star' to allow compression ratios as high as 2.4 Ethanol and methanol engines
13.0:1.
A technique used to prevent the onset of knock is the Ethanol and methanol can take signicantly higher comhigh swirl engine that forces the intake charge to adopt pression ratios than gasoline. Racing engines burning
a fast circular rotation in the cylinder during compres- methanol and ethanol fuel often incorporate a CR of
sion that provides quicker and more complete combus- 14.5-16:1.
tion. It is possible to manufacture gasoline engines with
compression ratios of over 11:1 that can use 87 (MON +
RON)/2 (octane rating) fuel with the addition of variable 2.5 Gas-fueled engine
valve timing and knock sensors to delay ignition timing.
Such engines may not produce their full rated power usThe CR may be higher in engines running exclusively on
ing 87 octane gasoline under all circumstances, due to the
LPG or CNG, due to the higher octane rating of these
delayed ignition timing. Direct fuel injection, which can
fuels.
inject fuel only at the time of fuel ignition (similar to a
diesel engine), is another recent development which also
allows for higher compression ratios on gasoline engines.
The compression ratio can be as high as 13.5:1 (2013
Ferrari LaFerrari) in engines with a 'ping' or 'knock'
sensor and an electronic control unit. In 1981, Jaguar
released a cylinder head that allowed up to 14:1 compression; but settled for 12.5:1 in production cars. The cylinder head design was known as the May Fireball head; it
was developed by a Swiss engineer Michael May.

2.6 Diesel engine

There is no electrical sparking plug in an auto-ignition

diesel engine; the heat of compression raises the temperature of the air in the cylinder suciently to ignite
the diesel when this is injected into the cylinder; after
the compression stroke. The CR will customarily exceed
14:1 and ratios over 22:1 are common. The appropriate
In 2012, Mazda released new petrol engines under the compression ratio depends on the design of the cylinder
brand name SkyActiv with a 14:1 compression ratio (U.S. head. The gure is usually between 14:1 and 23:1 for
models have a 13:1 compression ratio to allow for 87 AKI direct injection engines, and between 18:1 and 23:1 for
octane), to be used in all Mazda vehicles by 2015.[2][3][4] indirect injection

2.2

Petrol/gasoline engine with pressure2.7 Kerosene engine

charging

In a turbocharged or supercharged gasoline engine, the

CR is customarily built at 10.5:1 or lower. This is due
to the turbocharger/supercharger already having compressed the air before it enters the cylinders. Port fuel
injected engines typically run lower boost than direct fuel

A compression ratio of 6.5 or lower is desired for operation on kerosene. The petrol-paran engine version
of the Ferguson TE20 tractor had a compression ratio
of 4.5:1 for operation on tractor vaporising oil with an
octane rating between 55 and 70.[5]

Fault nding and diagnosis

Measuring the compression pressure of an engine, with a

pressure gauge connected to the spark plug opening, gives
an indication of the engines state and quality. There is,
however, no formula to calculate compression ratio based
on cylinder pressure.

remains low, it is a valve sealing (or more rarely head gasket, or breakthrough piston or, rarer still, cylinder-wall
damage) issue.
If there is a signicant (greater than 10%) dierence between cylinders, that may be an indication that valves or
cylinder head gaskets are leaking, piston rings are worn,
or that the block is cracked.

If the nominal compression ratio of an engine is given, If a problem is suspected, then a more comprehensive test
the pre-ignition cylinder pressure can be estimated using using a leak-down tester can locate the leak.
the following relationship:

p = p0 CR

4 Variable Compression
(VCR) engines

Ratio

where p0 is the cylinder pressure at bottom dead center

which is usually at 1 atm, CR is the compression ratio, and Because cylinder-bore diameter, piston-stroke length and
is the specic heat ratio for the working uid, which is combustion-chamber volume are almost always constant,
about 1.4 for air, and 1.3 for methane-air mixture.
the compression ratio for a given engine is almost always
For example, if an engine running on gasoline has a com- constant, until engine wear takes its toll.
pression ratio of 10:1, the cylinder pressure at top dead One exception is the experimental Saab Variable Comcenter is
pression engine (SVC). This engine, designed by Saab
Automobile, uses a technique that dynamically alters the
volume of the combustion chamber (V ), which, via the
1.4
above equation, changes the compression ratio (CR).
pTDC = 1bar 10 = 25.1bar
This gure, however, will also depend on cam (i.e. valve)
timing. Generally, cylinder pressure for common automotive designs should at least equal 10 bar, or, roughly
estimated in pounds per square inch (psi) as between 15
and 20 times the compression ratio, or in this case between 150 psi and 200 psi, depending on cam timing.
Purpose-built racing engines, stationary engines etc. will
return gures outside this range.
Factors including late intake valve closure (relatively
speaking for camshaft proles outside of typical
production-car range, but not necessarily into the realm
of competition engines) can produce a misleadingly low
gure from this test. Excessive connecting rod clearance,
combined with extremely high oil pump output (rare but
not impossible) can sling enough oil to coat the cylinder
walls with sucient oil to facilitate reasonable piston
ring sealing. In engines with compromised ring seals,
this can articially give a misleadingly high compression
gure.
This phenomenon can actually be used to some slight advantage. If a compression test does give a low gure, and
it has been determined it is not due to intake valve closure/camshaft characteristics, then one can dierentiate
between the cause being valve/seat seal issues and ring
seal by squirting engine oil into the spark plug orice, in
a quantity sucient to disperse across the piston crown
and the circumference of the top ring land, and thereby
aect the mentioned seal. If a second compression test
is performed shortly thereafter, and the new reading is
much higher, it would be the ring seal that is problematic, whereas if the compression test pressure observed

The Atkinson cycle engine was one of the rst attempts at

variable compression. Since the compression ratio is the
ratio between dynamic and static volumes of the combustion chamber, the Atkinson cycles method of increasing
the length of the power stroke compared to the intake
stroke ultimately altered the compression ratio at dierent stages of the cycle.
On August 15, 2016 Nissan Motor Company announced
a new variable compression engine that can choose an optimal compression ratio variably between 8:1 and 14:1.
That lets the engine adjust moment by moment to torque
demands, always maintaining top eciency. Nissan says
that the turbo-charged, 2-liter, four-cylinder VC-T engine
averages 27 percent better fuel economy than the 3.5-liter
V6 engine it replaces, with comparable power and torque.

5 Dynamic compression ratio

The calculated compression ratio, as given above, presumes that the cylinder is sealed at the bottom of the
stroke, and that the volume compressed is the actual volume.
However: intake valve closure (sealing the cylinder) always takes place after BDC, which may cause some of
the intake charge to be compressed backwards out of the
cylinder by the rising piston at very low speeds; only the
percentage of the stroke after intake valve closure is compressed. Intake port tuning and scavenging may allow
a greater mass of charge (at a higher than atmospheric
pressure) to be trapped in the cylinder than the static vol-

7 SEE ALSO

ume would suggest ( This corrected compression ratio

is commonly called the "dynamic compression ratio".

design, valve timing and exhaust tuning determine

how eectively an engine scavenges.

This ratio is higher with more conservative (i.e., earlier,

soon after BDC) intake cam timing, and lower with more
radical (i.e., later, long after BDC) intake cam timing,
but always lower than the static or nominal compression
ratio.

6 Compression ratio versus overall

pressure ratio

The actual position of the piston can be determined by

trigonometry, using the stroke length and the connecting
rod length (measured between centers). The absolute
cylinder pressure is the result of an exponent of the dynamic compression ratio. This exponent is a polytropic
value for the ratio of variable heats for air and similar
gases at the temperatures present. This compensates for
the temperature rise caused by compression, as well as
heat lost to the cylinder. Under ideal (adiabatic) conditions, the exponent would be 1.4, but a lower value, generally between 1.2 and 1.3 is used, since the amount of heat
lost will vary among engines based on design, size and
materials used, but provides useful results for purposes
of comparison. For example, if the static compression
ratio is 10:1, and the dynamic compression ratio is 7.5:1,
a useful value for cylinder pressure would be (7.5)^1.3
atmospheric pressure, or 13.7 bar. ( 14.7 psi at sea level
= 201.8 psi. The pressure shown on a gauge would be
the absolute pressure less atmospheric pressure, or 187.1
psi.)

Compression ratio versus pressure ratio

Compression ratio and overall pressure ratio are interrelated as follows:

The reason for this dierence is that compression ratio is
dened via the volume reduction:

CR =

V1
V2

The two corrections for dynamic compression ratio aect

cylinder pressure in opposite directions, but not in equal while pressure ratio is dened as the pressure increase:
strength. An engine with high static compression ratio
and late intake valve closure will have a DCR similar to
P
an engine with lower compression but earlier intake valve PR = 2
P
1
closure.
In calculating the pressure ratio, we assume that an
Additionally, the cylinder pressure developed when an enadiabatic compression is carried out (i.e. that no heat engine is running will be higher than that shown in a comergy is supplied to the gas being compressed, and that any
pression test for several reasons.
temperature rise is solely due to the compression). We
also assume that air is a perfect gas. With these two as The much higher velocity of a piston when an engine
sumptions, we can dene the relationship between change
is running versus cranking allows less time for presof volume and change of pressure as follows:
sure to bleed past the piston rings into the crankcase.
a running engine is coating the cylinder walls with
( )
much more oil than an engine that is being cranked P1 V = P2 V P2 = V1
1
2
P1
V2
at low RPM, which helps the seal.
the higher temperature of the cylinder will create
higher pressures when running vs. a static test, even
a test performed with the engine near operating temperature.
A running engine does not stop taking air & fuel
into the cylinder when the piston reaches BDC;
The mixture that is rushing into the cylinder during
the downstroke develops momentum and continues
briey after the vacuum ceases (in the same respect
that rapidly opening a door will create a draft that
continues after movement of the door ceases). This
is called scavenging. Intake tuning, cylinder head

where is the ratio of specic heats (air: approximately

1.4). The values in the table above are derived using this
formula. Note that in reality the ratio of specic heats
changes with temperature and that signicant deviations
from adiabatic behavior will occur.

7 See also
Mean eective pressure
Overall pressure ratio - a closely related ratio for jet
engines

Notes

[1] Encyclopdia Britannica, Compression ratio, retrieved

2009-07-21
[2] gSiteLife.Recommend(ExternalResource,"110429942);
Tweet (2011-04-22). 2012 Mazda 3 gets 40-mpg SkyActiv engine option; diesel expected in 2014. Autoweek.
Retrieved 2012-05-29.
[3] Archived March 12, 2012, at the Wayback Machine.
[4] VANDERWERP, DAVE (August 2010). Mazda Engine News: Mazda Sky Gas and Diesel Details. Car and
Driver. Retrieved 2012-05-29.
[5] Tractor Vaporising Oil. Web.archive.org. 2005-04-18.
Archived from the original on October 12, 2007. Retrieved 2014-08-10.

External links
Here Comes High Compression Engines " 1949
highly detailed article in Popular Science with photos and cutaway drawings
Variable compression engine
Cam Timing vs. Compression Ratio Analysis
Calculating Compression Ratio changes with engine
modications

10

10
10.1

TEXT AND IMAGE SOURCES, CONTRIBUTORS, AND LICENSES

Text and image sources, contributors, and licenses

Text

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