Nomenclature Was: Audi in London

[John Cody Forbes]

Tihol Tiholov wrote:
> Somewhat versed in German.
> Kompressor would be the word you seek.  It refers to belt-driven
> supercharger, at least in MB speak, been so for many decades.
> "Abgasturbolader" can mean only what we call turbo, Abgas means
> exhaust or literally "off gas"; Lader=charger.  Like G-Lader in some
> VW from late 80's, early 90's?
> "Turbolader" doesn't specify how it is driven, so semantically it
> could be used for any type of supercharger but practically it's the
> same as Abgasturbolader.  All chargers have some form of a turbine
> after all.  Maybe what we call turbo took over the name because of
> it's 2 turbines?

Actually a turbocharger has only one turbine and on the other end is a 
compressor. A turbine by definition is an engine that extracts energy from a 
fluid flow. A roots and a centrifugal supercharger have no form of turbine 
at all, actually a turbocharger is the only supercharger that has one.

The term supercharger is the parent of turbocharger, roots-type, sliding 
vane, scroll (G-lader), and centrifugal (commonly Vortec) type (among 
others). All of the above can rightly be called a supercharger as can any 
device that compresses air for induction into an internal combustion engine.


The translation is in simmilar fashion. An 'abgasturbolader' (usually 
shortened to turbolader), 'spirallader' (G-Lader), 'drehkolbenlader' 
(roots), are all types of 'motoraufladung'. One difference is that all types 
of mechanically driven superchargers are categorised as 'kompressoren' and 
also sometimes refered to as 'mechanische lader'.

-Cody Forbes