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MarkusWandeltoday at 5:40 PM2 repliesview on HN

Wonderful but it irritates me that so many descriptions of internal combustion engines refer to "explosions" of the fuel. You don't want that. It causes knocking and pinging and engine damage. You want a controlled burn that generates heat smoothly.


Replies

Toutouxctoday at 6:07 PM

Not exactly. You do want a deflagration and not a detonation, but "explosion" is more loosely defined and, depending on who you're talking to, a self-sustaining subsonic flame front and a sharp pressure spike are a perfectly valid explosion.

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stousettoday at 6:02 PM

You don’t want detonation, but you do want deflagration.