|
Rudolph Diesel was born on March 18, 1858 in Paris, France. The son of a German craftsman, he was deported to London at the start of the Franco-Prussian War in 1870. With the help of a cousin, Diesel emigrated to his father's hometown of Augsburg, Bavaria and entered the Royal County Trade School. He won a scholarship to the Munich Institute of Technology and studied under Carl von Linde, a devout Lutheran and pioneer of refrigeration techniques. Upon graduation, Diesel worked as a machinist and designer. After a two-year sojourn in Switzerland, he moved first to Paris and then to Berlin to work for Linde Refrigeration Enterprises. In 1885, Diesel setup his first shop and invented the engine that would bear his name.
Diesel's goal was to design an engine that would use less fuel and provide greater efficiency than traditional steam engines or newer, gasoline-powered devices. In 1892, he submitted an application to the Imperial Patent Office in Germany. The combustion engine he described did not use a spark plug or mix the fuel with air via carburetion. Instead, it used higher air compression and direct fuel injection. According to Diesel, compressing the air inside an engine's cylinders at a high rate would cause the air to become so hot that fuel could be made to ignite spontaneously. The combustion and expansion of hot gases would drive the piston downward in a power stroke. Then, during the return swing, the piston would push the spent gases from the cylinder so that they cycle could begin again.
Diesel was granted a patent for his invention in 1893. Contracts from industrialists such as Frederick Krupp soon enabled him to design and build a model engine that ran under its own power at twice the efficiency of a contemporary steam engine. A subsequent model operated at almost three times this amount, achieving a peak efficiency of 75%. Powered by peanut oil, the engine that Diesel demonstrated at Paris' Exhibition Fair in 1898 embodied the inventor's dream of a highly efficient, biomass-fueled engine that could be used by small factories and farms. During the early 1900s, however, diesel engines were mainly deployed aboard ships, including submarines.
Rudolph Diesel died at sea in September 1913. The circumstances were suspicious and the cause of death remains unknown. Biographers who attribute Diesel's death to suicide note the cross in his journal, the briefcase full of debts, and his long history of mental illness. Scholars who claim murder point to Diesel's opposition to the use of his engine in the growing German fleet. According to these theorists, Diesel was on his way to meet with members of the British Navy when he disappeared over the side of his ship in the English Channel.
Resources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudolf_Diesel
https://auto.howstuffworks.com/diesel.htm
http://www.eere.energy.gov/vehiclesandfuels/pdfs/b asics/jtb_diesel_engine.pdf
| 
Diesel
