Diesel engine
The name diesel is given to an engine invented by a German named Rudolf Diesel in the late 19th century. It is one of the most used kinds of internal combustion engine.
Most other engines need a system called an ignition system – one that uses an electric spark – in order to burn the mix of fuel and air and make power. Other types of ignition systems use compressed air from an outside source, such as an air compressor. A diesel does not. It burns a diesel fuel (similar to heating oil) through very high compression or pressing together of the mix. A tiny bit of fuel is injected, or forced, into the engine's cylinders at just the right moment. Since gases heat when they are pressed together, the compression of the air and fuel mix cause the mix to explode within the cylinder.
Diesel engines make very good use of the fuel they burn. They also make lots of torque (pronounced "tork"), or twisting power. An engine with a lot of torque will be able to spin its shaft even if it is very hard to do so. This makes a diesel engine a good choice in heavy equipment like trucks, trains and construction machines. The very big trucks on the road have diesel engines in them. So do train locomotives, unless they are electric or the old steam-powered kind.
Sometimes, even the torque of a diesel engine is not enough to run such big machines. To boost power, large diesels often have a device called a turbocharger attached. A turbocharger is a type of turbine – something used to move a lot of air very quickly. Jet engines also contain a turbine. In the diesel, pressure from the exhaust spins the turbocharger at a very high speed. Fresh air is then forced back into the engine. Since the engine works by pumping air, the more air you can put through it, the more power it makes. That is where the turbocharger helps. A diesel engine that has a turbocharger is called a turbodiesel. The whistling sound sometimes heard near one of these engines is caused by the turbocharger, or "turbo" for short.
A diesel engine can also be made to run on canola oil made from old cooking oil. This type of fuel is called biodiesel. Running a diesel engine on biodiesel fuel makes the exhaust smell like food. Vegetable oil as fuel is not a new idea. The engine that Rudolf Diesel used to demonstrate his new idea ran on canola oil.
Diesel Engine Media
Diesel engine built by Langen & Wolf under licence, 1898
1952 Shell Oil film showing the development of the diesel engine from 1877
Rudolf Diesel's 1893 patent on a rational heat motor
Diesel's second prototype. It is a modification of the first experimental engine. On 17 February 1894, this engine ran under its own power for the first time.Effective efficiency 16.6% Fuel consumption 519 g·kW−1·h−1
First fully functional diesel engine, designed by Imanuel Lauster, built from scratch, and finished by October 1896.Rated power 13.1 kWEffective efficiency 26.2% Fuel consumption 324 g·kW−1·h−1.
An MAN DM trunk piston diesel engine built in 1906. The MAN DM series is considered to be one of the first commercially successful diesel engines.
Fairbanks Morse model 32
Piston of an MAN M-System centre sphere combustion chamber type diesel engine (4 VD 14,5/12-1 SRW)
Mercedes-Benz OM 352, one of the first direct injected Mercedes-Benz diesel engines. It was introduced in 1963, but mass production only started in summer 1964.
BMW E28 524td, the first mass-produced passenger car with an electronically controlled injection pump
