How Turbocharger Helps to Reduce Overall Fuel Consumption?

The first thing that may come to mind when thinking about a turbocharger is car modification common in street racing. However, turbochargers aren’t simply used to just make a car faster, they are used to increase the power to weight ratio and increase engine efficiency. Cars, motorcycles, trucks, boats, and ships can all use this technology.  Turbochargers utilize exhaust gas - which contains energy that would otherwise be wasted— to power a compressor. This system forces more air into the cylinders, therefore enabling the engine to burn fuel at a faster rate and make it more powerful.  
 

Turbochargers consist of a turbine, a rotary shaft, and a compressor - each contained in their own housing. Cold air enters through the intake, is compressed, ignited, and expelled. Air that is expelled out of the combustion chamber flows past turbine blades and the hot and high-pressure air rotate the blades. The turbine blades are attached to a rotary shaft, which is connected to the air compressor- the air compressor, therefore, is being powered by the energy being converted from the exhaust into mechanical energy. Because the air is hot, it is less dense, and less efficient at burning. So, it is passed through a heat exchanger before it enters the combustion chamber— cooling makes the air denser. A turbochargers performance is relative to its size. Large turbochargers take more heat and pressure to spin the turbine, but small turbochargers may not perform as well at high acceleration. To combine the benefits of a small and large turbocharger, different setups were created.
 
Twin turbos include two separate turbochargers in a sequence, or parallel to each other. Half of the engine's exhaust is fed to each turbocharger individually. One operates at low speeds while the other operates at a predetermined engine speed or load. While this configuration reduces turbo lag, there’s a downside in that they require an intricate set of pipes. Twin scroll turbochargers have two exhaust gas inlets and two nozzles. One is a smaller and sharper angle for quick response, the other is larger and less angled, used for peak performance. Variable geometry turbochargers adjust the air-flow to the turbine and improve fuel efficiency without creating higher levels of lag.
 
With all of the benefits in mind, someone might wonder why turbochargers are not used on all engines. The reason is that not all vehicles need more power or speed. Sometimes the main goal is to decrease fuel consumption, and while a turbocharger improves the power to weight ratio and saves fuel consumption, it's not always the case in every application. It can be similar to comparing a diesel engine with a gas engine - one saves fuel relative to the amount of power produced while the other is better for overall fuel consumption.

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