Engine is the power house of a bike – it generates power from continuous combustion process utilizing 4-stroke cycle. Due to this combustion, lot of heat is generated – partial heat is sent out of engine during the exhaust stroke in the form of waste gases. But still good amount of heat is left within the engine which If not removed can hinder engine performance and its life.
To deal with this heating issue, cooling system comes into play. Most of the modern internal combustion engine are liquid cooled which is a quite complex system and deploying such system on a bike engine means adding more weight to it along with additional cost. To keep the cost low, a simple yet efficient system is utilized in bike known as Air-cooled system.
For making air cooling efficient, both engine cylinder & head are covered with metal fins to promote cooling. Lets quickly go over how exactly air cooling works.
Working of Air-cooled Engine
Air cooled engine follow simple mechanism of direct flow of air on to the engine to remove the heat from engine body. To make this cooling process quick and efficient, engine body is extended using metal fins which increases the surface area. More surface area helps in achieving better air contact on to the engine resulting improved heat removal rate.
In technical terms, conduction causes the heat to flow from engine cylinder & head to the metal fins. Once bike start rolling, automatically cool air moves over the engine fins and remove the heat by simple convection process.
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