Carburetor

A carburetor basically consists of an open pipe, a "Pengina" or "barrel" through which the air passes into the inlet manifold of the engine. The pipe is in the form of a venturi: it narrows in section and then widens again, causing the airflow to increase in speed in the narrowest part. Below the venturi is a butterfly valve called the throttle valve — a rotating disc that can be turned end-on to the airflow, so as to hardly restrict the flow at all, or can be rotated so that it (almost) completely blocks the flow of air. This valve controls the flow of air through the carburetor throat and thus the quantity of air/fuel mixture the system will deliver, thereby regulating engine power and speed. The throttle is connected, usually through a cable or a mechanical linkage of rods and joints or rarely by pneumatic link, to the accelerator pedal on a car or the equivalent control on other vehicles or equipment.

Fuel is introduced into the air stream through small holes at the narrowest part of the venturi and at other places where pressure will be lowered when not running on full throttle. Fuel flow is adjusted by means of precisely-calibrated orifices, referred to as jets, in the fuel path.
[edit] Off-idle circuit

As the throttle is opened up slightly from the fully-closed position, the throttle plate uncovers additional fuel delivery holes behind the throttle plate where there is a low pressure area created by the throttle plate blocking air flow; these allow more fuel to flow as well as compensating for the reduced vacuum that occurs when the throttle is opened, thus smoothing the transition to metering fuel flow through the regular open throttle circuit.
[edit] Main open-throttle circuit

As the throttle is progressively opened, the manifold vacuum is lessened since there is less restriction on the airflow, reducing the flow through the idle and off-idle circuits. This is where the venturi shape of the carburetor throat comes into play, due to Bernoulli's principle (i.e., as the velocity increases, pressure falls). The venturi raises the air velocity, and this high speed and thus low pressure sucks fuel into the airstream through a nozzle or nozzles located in the center of the venturi. Sometimes one or more additional booster venturis are placed coaxially within the primary venturi to increase the effect.

As the throttle is closed, the airflow through the venturi drops until the lowered pressure is insufficient to maintain this fuel flow, and the idle circuit takes over again, as described above.

Bernoulli's principle, which is a function of the velocity of the fluid, is a dominant effect for large openings and large flow rates, but since fluid flow at small scales and low speeds (low Reynolds number) is dominated by viscosity, Bernoulli's principle is ineffective at idle or slow running and in the very small carburetors of the smallest model engines. Small model engines have flow restrictions ahead of the jets to reduce the pressure enough to suck the fuel into the air flow. Similarly the idle and slow running jets of large carburetors are placed after the throttle valve where the pressure is reduced partly by viscous drag, rather than by Bernoulli's principle. The most common rich mixture device for starting cold engines was the choke, which works on the same principle.