The Diesel Engine

Rudolf Diesel
10 pages (2008/1915); 115KB download
WOWIO Books; ISBN: WOWIO-00358

DESCRIPTION

In this work, Dr. Rudolf Diesel discusses the development and possibilities of the internal combustion engine that bears his name.

"The Diesel engine has been characterized as the most revolutionary and important development in the field of motive power since the invention of the steam engine by Watt. Its vital importance lies not so much in the fact that it is capable of producing approximately twice as much energy as the steam engine can from the same amount of fuel, but more in the fact that it can be operated with tar and tar oils, derived from coal by coking, and produce more energy than if the coal had been burned under the boiler of a steam engine. In short, after the coal has been coked and the gas, coke, and finer by-products have been removed, the tar and tar oils remaining, when used in a Diesel engine, will produce more energy than could have been secured from the coal itself if used in a steam engine. The Diesel engine, briefly, is an internal combustion engine which uses highly heated, compressed air for ignition, instead of the electric spark, as in the ordinary gasoline engine. The piston, on the down stroke, draws in the ordinary air and on the up stroke compresses this air, against the cylinder head, under a pressure of 500 pounds to the square inch. Air under such pressure acquires a temperature of over 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit and when the air is hottest a jet of finely atomized oil is forced into the cylinder. The oil is ignited and the explosion forces the piston back and the operation is repeated." -- Oliver Joseph Thatcher