Tuesday, July 8, 2008

First diesel engine prototypes

Auto mobile automover car shipping parts transport engine system


This principle is not as simple as it sounds. The conversion into the automover practice was very problematic. Such high pressures and temperatures had never been used automobile parts before, and the first experimental engine, built 1893 together with the Maschinenfabrik Augsburg (MAN) automover in Germany led to its destruction. Only a second automobile engine, built 1896, could convince the automobile engineers and performed an efficiency of about 25 percent, which was by far more than any other automobile engines performance at that time.

But the engine was not after automobile Diesel's requires yet: The compression ratio was still low and the max. pressure therefore small (about 30 bar), additionally a fuel injection was not yet possible. He had to use an air-injection, a procedure, which required many very complicated, expensive and heavy additional devices. This fuel engine could become generally accepted only with many difficulties, because of economic problems - fuel oil and petroleum were very expensive - and disputes about patents delayed a successful introduction.

Diesel's problems

Rudolf Diesel was pursued by patent quarrels, and scruplesless businessmen succeeded in acquiring rights for diesel's engine, so that he finally couldn't develop on his own automobile engine any more. Only 1908, when the patents had run and automover, he developed still smaller engines for the use in cars and trucks, together with the Swiss pioneer company Saurer. When he impoverished completely and didn't beleave any more in a successful advancement of his engine, he set an end to his life 1913 (see also biografie Rudolf Diesel).

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