I’ve always hear it when i’m watching about racing cars, i’m a farn of cars but i dont know about naturally aspirated and supercharged engines.
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So there are two types of engine intake systems – naturally aspirated and “forced” aspirated. There are two subtypes of forced aspiration – supercharged and turbocharged engines.
All engines require air to function – “they need to aspirate,” which basically just means “take air in.” In a naturally aspirated engine, there is no mechanism that forces air into the engine, it’s all just physics of the combustion reaction itself, atmospheric pressure and the working of the engine. The engine takes in air in its own to compensate for pressure changes that happen as the engine operates normally.
Now, in an engine with forced aspiration, this is not what is happening. With forced aspiration, there is a mechanism attached to the air intake of the engine that artificially increases the pressure of air going into the engine. The intake mechanism essentially is forcing air into the engine, instead of relying on atmospheric pressure and engine combustion alone. There are two types of mechanisms used – superchargers and turbochargers. Both of them are basically specialized (often nautilus-shaped in cars) tube systems that attach to the air intake and force air into them. They’re basically air compressors.
With a supercharger, the air compressor is essentially driven by the engine itself, meaning some spare engine power runs the compressor to increase the intake pressure. The supercharger itself is normally connected to the crankshaft by means of a belt system. The supercharger’s power – and thus its compression strength – is also fixed in strength, depending upon engine power, meaning the harder the engine is working/the more power it’s putting out, the harder the supercharger works. More power from the engine, more power to the supercharger, and so on.
A turbocharger is very similar mechanically to a supercharger – a mechanism is attached to the intake that forces air into the engine. However, whereas a supercharger is connected to the engine by means of a belt, and thus its compressive power increases as engine power increases in a linear fashion, a supercharger is powered by engine exhaust gases instead. Instead of their being a belt or gear system connecting the intake mechanism to the rngine, engine exhaust is pushing the intake mechanism to drive it. In this way, a turbocharger also increases motor power non-linearly – the harder the turbo works, the more compressed the intake air is, which means that the exhaust gases are pushed out at higher pressure, increasing the strength of the compressor. This turns into a feedback loop as engine operation increases, thus increasing exhaust gas pressure, and around it goes. Because of how a turbocharger works, it provides more power to the engine the harder the engine is working, which differs from a supercharger. This is why you can drive a car with a turbo “under the turbo” – a you’re not running the engine hard enough at low RPMs or during normal driving to increase exhaust gas pressure enough to drive the turbo hard enough to increase power. A supercharger can’t do that – for any given engine output, the supercharger provides a fixed amount of additional compression.
Turbochargers and superchargers are used on cars to increase engine power and efficiency. However, on planes they’re used to allow them to fly at high altitudes where the atmospheric pressure is not high enough and the air is thin enough that the engine can’t get enough oxygen to work. Using a super or turbocharger increases the amount of oxygen and pressure, allowing the engine to function normally.
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