Basic diesel Engine
The diesel engine is a type of internal combustion engine that was invented by Rudolf Diesel. He received a patent for the diesel engine in 1892 and the primary goal was to create an efficient alternative to the gasoline engine. |
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Rudolf Diesel (1858 - 1913)
Rudolf Diesel, of German nationality, was born in 1858 in Paris where his parents were Bavarian immigrants. He was educated at Munich Polytechnic. After graduation he was employed as a refrigerator engineer but his true love lay in engine design. Diesel designed many heat engines, including a solar-powered air engine. In 1893, he published a paper describing an engine with combustion within a cylinder, the internal combustion engine. In 1894, he filed for a patent for his new invention, dubbed the diesel engine. His engine was the first to prove that fuel could be ignited without a spark. He operated his first successful engine in 1897.
In 1898, Diesel was granted U.S. Patent 608,845 for an "internal combustion engine".
Though best known for his invention of the pressure-ignited heat engine that bears his name, Rudolf Diesel was also a well-respected thermal engineer and a social theorist. Diesel's inventions have three points in common: they relate to heat transfer by natural physical processes or laws; they involve markedly creative mechanical design; and they were initially motivated by the inventor's concept of sociological needs. Rudolf Diesel originally conceived the diesel engine to enable independent craftsmen and artisans to compete with industry.
At Augsburg, on August 10, 1893, Rudolf Diesel's prime model, a single 10-foot (3.0 m) iron cylinder with a flywheel at its base, ran on its own power for the first time. Diesel spent two more years making improvements and in 1896 demonstrated another model with a theoretical efficiency of 75 percent, in contrast to the 10 percent efficiency of the steam engine. By 1898, Diesel had become a millionaire. His engines were used to power pipelines, electric and water plants, automobiles and trucks, and marine craft. They were soon to be used in mines, oil fields, factories, and transoceanic shipping. |
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