Jump to content

Talk:Diesel engine/Archive 4

Page contents not supported in other languages.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Archive 1Archive 2Archive 3Archive 4Archive 5

Info on compression

I've moved this new addition by Imotorhead64 to a separate section; adding more proposals after an RfC starts can confuse things. --A D Monroe III (talk) 14:02, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

I was wondering if it might be helpful to include a statement like this at the beginning of the history section?

In most cases the definition of a "Diesel" engine has become that the engine must use compression ignition, however the original cycle proposed by Diesel was a constant temperature cycle (a cycle based on Carnots theory) which required compression much higher that what is needed for compression ignition. Diesel's idea was to compress the air so tightly that the temperature of the air would exceed that of the heat of combustion. In his 1895 patent Diesel describes the compression required for his cycle: "pure atmospheric air is compressed, according to curve 1 2, to such a degree that, before ignition or combustion takes place, the highest pressure of the diagram and the highest temperature are obtained-that is to say, the temperature at which the subsequent combustion has to take place, not the burning or igniting point. To make this more clear, let it be assumed that the subsequent combustion shall take place at a temperature of 700. Then in that case the initial pressure must be sixty-four atmospheres, or for 800* centigrade the pressure must be ninety atmospheres, and so on. Into the air thus compressed is then gradually introduced from the exterior finely divided fuel, which ignites on introduction, since the air is at a temperature far above the igniting-point of the fuel. The characteristic features of the cycle according to my present invention are therefore, increase of pressure and temperature up to the maximum, not by combustion, but prior to combustion by mechanical compression of air, and there upon the subsequent performance of work without increase of pressure and temperature by gradual combustion during a prescribed part of the stroke determined by the cut-oil.". Diesel originally proposed a ratio of 250:1 but reduced it to 90:1 then finally settled on about a 40:1 ratio. By comparison modern "Direct Injection" compression ignition engines use a ratio that is less that 20:1. Diesel also stated that the engine would require no form of cooling. In 1893 a test engine was constructed at Augsburg . After several years of testing it became apparent that the constant temperature cycle was not feasible. Eventually Diesel switched to a constant pressure cycle and by 1897 a running Diesel engine was produced.

Imotorhead64 (talk) 11:24, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

Thank you A D Monroe III Is there a specific amount of time we need to wait before edits can be made? Imotorhead64 (talk) 04:49, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

No particular time is required, but it absolutely needs sources first. Otherwise it's WP:SYNTH (or even WP:OR). Also, without sources, it's hard to judge how relevant this is. --A D Monroe III (talk) 13:47, 2 September 2016 (UTC)
Could you please be more specific and quote the specific part of the proposed text that you want a source for?. I do not understand why it is so difficult to do this. In my opinion, the reason we are making progress very slowly is the editors (not only you) refusal to be specific in their criticism. Without knowing exactly what part of the proposed addition is what you object to, it is not feasible to address your objections.
Replying to “That's backwards. Mentioning something requires specific supporting sources, not a proven lack of conflicting sources (which would be quite a burden).”: This is a small misunderstanding. I am not trying to shifting the burden of the proof to you. I am asking you to be specific in your objections so that they can be addressed.
Mario Castelán Castro (talk) 15:03, 2 September 2016 (UTC)
A D Monroe III OK I need a little help here... I'm pretty sure I can provide what you are looking for but I'm not sure how you want me to present it? Is it not OK to used Diesel's description from his patent? Is that considered WP:OR? Do you want a third party source? If that's the case I'm pretty sure I've already provided multiple third party evidence of my claim. Imotorhead64 (talk) 19:07, 2 September 2016 (UTC)
Look, this kind of thing is all very standard in WP. Any editor that wants to add some paragraphs of new info must provide sources specifically for that info. The paragraphs proposed above in this section currently have no cites. No thoughtful editor is going to say it's fine without them. I'd guess you have sources, but without them presented, we must technically treat this proposal as it stands as OR. Just add cites the sources you have to the proposal, where they would go, in the text itself. (Do this in a copy of the proposal though, since you shouldn't edit comments in a thread that have been replied to.) Then other editors will read the proposal, check the cites, ensure each one matches their statements, and think "yeah, right". Approval should be quick and easy, and we can all go on to be productive elsewhere. Don't can't make the reviewers go find the source for you, especially since you're already familiar with them. --A D Monroe III (talk) 17:18, 3 September 2016 (UTC)
A D Monroe III I assume you are aware that I've already made changes to the page... I did provide several references to support this claim. I did not provide cites / references here because I was told by Mario Castelán Castro early on in this discussion that the talk page wasn't a place to cite information but rather to discuss proposed edits... Now I realize that without citing information it's difficult to discuss the history.. Please visit the diesel engine page and let me know if you think the references are sufficient... if not I will provide more historical information... I'm open to explaining this if anyone is interested. Imotorhead64 (talk) 20:13, 8 September 2016 (UTC)

Focus on the proposed addition

[Mario Castelán Castro (talk) 00:25, 3 September 2016 (UTC)] I believe that the above discussion is mostly stuck because there it is mostly focused on discussing history itself; the focus should be on the article and the proposed change. To try to foster quicker progress in the discussion I suggest the following approach:

  • I ask any interested editor that objects to this addition to quote the part that he objects to and explain what his objections are. Please be as specific as possible. Narrow your objection to be specific to few sentences—or ideally, a single sentence. The idea is that the objections are addressed (by Imotorhead64, I guess) and then the resulting text is added to the article.

Quoting from Imotorhead64, the proposed addition is:

In most cases the definition of a "Diesel" engine has become that the engine must use compression ignition, however the original cycle proposed by Diesel was a constant temperature cycle (a cycle based on Carnots theory) which required compression much higher that what is needed for compression ignition. Diesel's idea was to compress the air so tightly that the temperature of the air would exceed that of the heat of combustion. In his 1895 patent Diesel describes the compression required for his cycle: "pure atmospheric air is compressed, according to curve 1 2, to such a degree that, before ignition or combustion takes place, the highest pressure of the diagram and the highest temperature are obtained-that is to say, the temperature at which the subsequent combustion has to take place, not the burning or igniting point. To make this more clear, let it be assumed that the subsequent combustion shall take place at a temperature of 700. Then in that case the initial pressure must be sixty-four atmospheres, or for 800* centigrade the pressure must be ninety atmospheres, and so on. Into the air thus compressed is then gradually introduced from the exterior finely divided fuel, which ignites on introduction, since the air is at a temperature far above the igniting-point of the fuel. The characteristic features of the cycle according to my present invention are therefore, increase of pressure and temperature up to the maximum, not by combustion, but prior to combustion by mechanical compression of air, and there upon the subsequent performance of work without increase of pressure and temperature by gradual combustion during a prescribed part of the stroke determined by the cut-oil.

Please add your objections if any (containing the appropriate quotation of the proposed text) must be made below the following horizontal bar. If you see no problem with the proposed addition, please also say so.

This addition would add substantial weight to the history section of the article, which is already fairly large. With respect, you're trying to advance the point of view that Brayton had more of a role in the development of the Diesel engine than he is given credit for, and this is being done by synthesis of primary sources, which is not allowed per WP:OR and WP:SYNTH. The "no original research" policy is an important one.

Again with respect, the method you're using to introduce this content into the article is not based on consensus. It is not necessary for editors to oppose specific sections of an addition nor is it necessary to state reasons for those objections. I'm going to ask some editors with more experience in dealing with original research issues for comments on this article, and I am also going to put a note on the fringe theories noticeboard, which deals with issues around WP:FRINGE.

The fringe theories noticeboard is at WP:FTN and the original research one is at WP:NORN. Roches (talk) 03:20, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

Here is what I would like to add to the diesel page... nothing else for now.

In most cases the definition of a "Diesel" engine has become that the engine must use compression ignition, however the original cycle proposed by Diesel was a constant temperature cycle (a cycle based on Carnots theory) which required compression much higher that what is needed for compression ignition. Diesel's idea was to compress the air so tightly that the temperature of the air would exceed that of the heat of combustion. In his 1895 patent Diesel describes the compression required for his cycle: "pure atmospheric air is compressed, according to curve 1 2, to such a degree that, before ignition or combustion takes place, the highest pressure of the diagram and the highest temperature are obtained-that is to say, the temperature at which the subsequent combustion has to take place, not the burning or igniting point. To make this more clear, let it be assumed that the subsequent combustion shall take place at a temperature of 700. Then in that case the initial pressure must be sixty-four atmospheres, or for 800* centigrade the pressure must be ninety atmospheres, and so on. Into the air thus compressed is then gradually introduced from the exterior finely divided fuel, which ignites on introduction, since the air is at a temperature far above the igniting-point of the fuel. The characteristic features of the cycle according to my present invention are therefore, increase of pressure and temperature up to the maximum, not by combustion, but prior to combustion by mechanical compression of air, and there upon the subsequent performance of work without increase of pressure and temperature by gradual combustion during a prescribed part of the stroke determined by the cut-oil.


If this doesn't work then why not say what will? Imotorhead64 (talk) 14:18, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

ARGH! Why is this section now entangled with the RfC? It's a separate proposal. It was proposed after the RfC was started and responded to. I separated it so that both the RfC and this new proposal could actually be resolved. We can't make progress on an RfC that keeps changing. Are we now back to square one, but with a more complicated proposal with even more loose ends? --A D Monroe III (talk) 17:18, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

off-topic
Careful, I think you're treading on the loose edge of biting. Accidentally nibbling on the fringes of fingers, anyway. I doubt Imotorhead sees the RfC split as distinct from this. I don't know if it is, either. LaughingVulcan 15:06, 5 September 2016 (UTC)
Huh? I'm tried to keep this addition separate from the RfC; there's no mention of Brayton here. But others -- not the OP -- have immediately made that association. Is that helpful for them to do this? What in the world does this have to do with me and WP:BITE? How is even implying that helpful, or even on-topic? --A D Monroe III (talk) 16:47, 5 September 2016 (UTC)
Sorry, did mean to cause any upset to you. As I read through the RfC, and the text above it, what I saw again and again was a consistent line of questioning that was asking about the sourcing, verifiability, and potential OR possibilities of what was being submitted. I think this recent addition could possibly get questioned on the same grounds - it may be all common sense to a diesel expert but it seems like a large number of asserted facts for one reference, and potentially an OR if the conclusion is not directly implied by what was cited. (Note: I'm not implying this, I just don't want the editor to get reverted again if someone else more knowledgeable DOES revert his edit on those grounds... And I'm VERY sorry if I just made a WP:BEANS.)
The WP:BITE reference was because you were expressing frustration directly under the comment of an editor who has already admitted that he doesn't completely understand policy and procedure. An editor who made some references to automotive articles in 2013 and then has no history until this thread, so IMVVHO could be considered a newbie even though he's been on Wiki three years. You didn't specify whom you were frustrated with originally, and you did not state in your frustration that you weren't frustrated with the OP. I'm sorry I misinterpreted what you said at first, but if I did then Imotorhead or someone else might have also. I was trying to say you weren't biting with some nibbling humor, but a newbie might have felt bit. LaughingVulcan 17:55, 5 September 2016 (UTC)
Crap! Meant to say, "did NOT mean to cause any upset...." And I saw that you were also explaining OR to him above - didn't mean to imply you weren't helping, either. What I get for typing in the editor, fast, instead of drafting offline and proofing properly. (puts on pointy hat with pointy ears.) LaughingVulcan 18:27, 5 September 2016 (UTC)
Okay, so nothing I said was directed at anyone in particular, so can't be BITE. Sorry if my being frustrated affected you somehow. If you have anything more, my talk page is here. I'm hatting this thread as just a distraction. (You can revert if you disagree, but then please explain how it's relevant.) --A D Monroe III (talk) 19:21, 5 September 2016 (UTC)
A D Monroe III No worries, there was offense taken and I appreciate your help in trying to resolve the issue. I rather liked the idea of giving the proposed edit it's own section however I think Mario Castelán Castro may have not realized why you did this... ? anyhow again no worries and I went ahead and added it because no one had commented and I think it's helpful information and not something that others will want to contest. Imotorhead64 (talk) 00:59, 6 September 2016 (UTC)

It's been several days with no replies... I'm assuming no one objects to me adding this to the history of the Diesel engine? Imotorhead64 (talk) 18:40, 4 September 2016 (UTC)

I'd strongly recommend waiting for a resolution of the RfC above before even thinking about adding your proposed text, unless you want to withdraw your idea of writing everything else in the RfC section above. (In which case that RfC should be closed out as issue withdrawn.) I know that may read like a whole bunch of confusing horse puckey, but you now have a wider part of the community involved with your proposed issues and things can get messy really quick. Which is (I think) why A D Monroe is frustrated above. LaughingVulcan 15:11, 5 September 2016 (UTC)
Thank you LaughingVulcan I went ahead and added the history about diesel... it's pretty slam dunk and should not be disputed. I gave up on adding information about brayton for now since it seems like it's just too much work trying to make my case... even though I believe history shows it should rightly be added. Imotorhead64 (talk) 15:45, 5 September 2016 (UTC)
You're welcome. Should you feel the need to ask about policy in the future, my offer above still stands... come over to my Talk page and ask. I'm no expert, but if I can't help at minimum we'd try and hook you up with those who can address them. LaughingVulcan 18:03, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

Here is a published paper in which Dugald Clerk discusses Diesel original proposed constant temperature cycle...

link https://books.google.com/books?id=4Tg6AQAAMAAJ&pg=RA5-PA60&dq=diesel+and+brayton+constant+pressure&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwins-jS9I3PAhWGbSYKHeXWCJsQ6AEIPjAH#v=onepage&q=diesel%20and%20brayton%20constant%20pressure&f=false Andy Dingley In this formula which I worked out some little time ago T0 is the temperature of the charge before compression Tc is the temperature on compression 1 408 is the ratio of the specific heats T is the maximum temperature of combustion and T is the temperature at the end of the expansion You see that in this case there is a much more complicated formula than the formula in the constant volume cycle Diesel started with some erroneous notions as to what he was going to do his idea was that he was going to follow the Carnot cycle Andy Dingley In the Diesel engine the piston takes in just as on the Otto cycle it can work on that cycle or on any other cycle a charge of air only not gas and air but air only It compresses that charge up to a pressure of about 5001bs per square inch At that pressure the temperature of adiabatic compression is so high something in the neighbourhood of 700 C that any oil injected into the cylinder with air at once ignites without the use of any outside igniter Diesel thought he was going on the Carnot cycle but what he in fact did was to get the advantages of the constant pressure cycle without the danger of pre ignition or explosion Andy Dingley or compression by having air in the cylinder only Of course it is impossible to pre ignite because there is nothing to burn in the air Oil and air were added by means of a sprayer when the compression was complete the air being previously compressed to about l50lbs to the square inch above the pressure in the cylinder that is to say 650lbs On injection of the oil ignition takes place and then expansion In his description of the engine which he called a rational heat motor Diesel suggested that other inventors or designers of engines were proceeding upon wrong principles Andy Dingley and that the right principle was to rise to the maximum temperature by compression add heat at the maximum and have no increase in temperature after your compression In his first engine he thought he had done that but it is obvious that if it is desired to follow the Carnot cycle instead of having a pressure of about 50 atmospheres Andy Dingley to get the maximum temperature used in this engine a pressure of about 200 atmospheres is required Andy Dingley That of course means that heat must be added on the expanding line Working on the Carnot cycle as I showed in my first lecture an extremely slender diagram is obtained and an enormously heavy engine is required Diesel did not notice what has recently been noticed that the efficiency of the Carnot cycle constant volume and constant pressure engines are all exactly the same if you have the same compression The consequence is that you gain nothing by going to the Carnot cycle Diesel in some of his recent papers still adheres to the idea that he is dealing with a modified Carnot cycle but all heat engines may be considered as modified Carnot cycles one as well as another Twenty years ago I was in the habit of drawing Carnot cycles and of cutting out a slice to represent any given engine If you take the Carnot cycle and take the compression curve and take a vertical line for heat addition you have the constant volume engine If you take the Carnot cycle and add heat along a horizontal line you have a constant pressure engine You can carve out of the Carnot cycle any engine you like but you must not say when you have carved an engine to suit your own convenience that you are now working a Carnot cycle and that the engine is therefore different from any other Andy Dingley What Diesel has in fact done is to use very high compressions on the constant pressure cycle on the formula which I have given above Many attempts have been made to carry out constant pressure engines for gas Diesel has tried them I myself built an engine in 1887 a diagram from which is reproduced at Fig 22 see page 343 ante This was a constant pressure engine or a modification of constant pressure and constant volume somewhat like Diesel In 1888 I had an engine of 9in cylinder 15in stroke with a compression space into which air alone was compressed The ordinary coal gas was taken into a separate pump working at about 50 behind the main crank this gas was compressed and ejected into the air when compression was complete but I arranged a peculiar igniting device so schemed that immediately the gas began to flow into the air it ignited so that there was no explosion but only the constant pressure combustion That engine worked extremely well It was running well in 1888 for more than six months and was perfectly free from gasengine troubles but the difficulty was that with economy only very low average pressure could be obtained The average pressures I obtained with this engine were in the region of 30lbs to 40lbs instead of 70lbs to 80lbs as then obtained with the Otto cycle or 90lbs as now usual Andy Dingley So far as that cycle is concerned there is no doubt that a great deal has to be done yet in the way of constant pressure engines Many people have tried including Diesel himself but so far the difficulties have been too great to put any successful engine on the market Brayton in 1878 produced a gas engine (this is not Brayton's 1874 oil engine but an attempt that Brayton made at using gas with the constant pressure cycle) of the constant pressure type Andy Dingley but he compressed his gas and air separately into reservoirs to feed his cylinders at constant pressure This engine however was rather troublesome it gave frequent back explosions and there were two or three rather bad accidents with it So far as oil (this is Brayton's 1874 engine)was concerned his engine was fairly successful but he never succeeded with gas the reason being that all constant pressure engines whether of the Brayton type or of the Diesel type or of the old Andy Dingley (he's talking here about Brayton's 1874 engine) type I tried require gas to be stored up under enormous pressures The gas before being mixed with air must be compressed to the full pressure If we take for instance a cool mixture of gas and air and apply compression to the full pressure on ignition we get a pressure of about two tons on the square inch a pressure which would require extremely heavy reservoirs This is perhaps the chief difiiculty of the Diesel type If the charge in a Diesel engine happens to get in at high temperature and the cylinder misses ignition by any chance as I believe in the early experiments it did at least I should have expected it to do so and I believe it did then an explosion would occur Supposing the mixture is compressed to 5001bs on the square inch only an explosion occurs and a comparatively small rise of temperature soon runs up the maximum pressure to one ton on the square inch The consequence is that you really do get explosion and not combustion That is the main reason why the constant pressure type has never come in for gas engines Nobody has been able to control the effect . Dugald Clerk / Cantor Lectures delivered before the Society of Arts March 1905 https://books.google.com/books?id=kXo3AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA374&dq=diesel+and+brayton+constant+pressure+engine&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi40NOViY7PAhUGGD4KHZHrAkUQ6AEISDAJ#v=onepage&q=diesel%20and%20brayton%20constant%20pressure%20engine&f=false The Mechanical engineer Sept 9 1905 p346 p374-376Imotorhead64 (talk) 16:08, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

Compression Ignition

The engines is a compression ignition engine not a Diesel engine. Compression ignition is the correct term. This should be used all through. 2.219.158.32 (talk) 23:33, 19 September 2016 (UTC)


AS for what to call a Diesel engine... From "Rivers and Harbors" Vol 2
"The Diesel internal combustion engine is of constant pressure type and is named after late Dr Rudolf Diesel of Munich Germany invented and patented the cycle of operations which it works There are many types of internal combustion engines some of which closely allied to the Diesel principle There others entirely different and the origin of is lost due to having passed through so stages But not so the Diesel engine for its history there is no doubt and there seems be every indication that this name will be applied to it until the cycle is displaced by more efficient and even more satisfactory operation if ever invented Although the expression Diesel conveys nothing of the working of the cycle it has become firmly established It is distinctive and so should be as a tribute to the memory of the genius invented an engine more efficient than any class of power."


"The class of oil engine which is being so indiscriminately termed semi Diesel is the surface ignition or hot bulb motor With this there is an exhaust heated bulb or vaporizer top of the working cylinder into which the is injected in the form of a spray and upon striking the heated surface There are various forms of the surface ignition engine better known in America of such motors the Bolinders Fairbanks Morse Skandia Avance Remington Kahlenburg Potter and Mietz makers of the first named engine are very opposed to the erroneous use of the term semi Diesel Apparently the old HornsbyAckroyd engine is the original surface ignition hot bulb engine but several claims have made in the past Hence it is best to use term that describes its main principle of operation which the word surface ignition does Hot bulb does not quite cover all the variations which include hot ball hot plate hot pot and one instance the hot surface of the piston utilized on which to spray the oil"
https://books.google.com/books?id=b9b8BAAAQBAJ&pg=PA1&dq p 1 Imotorhead64 (talk) 14:51, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on Diesel engine. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true or failed to let others know (documentation at {{Sourcecheck}}).

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 5 June 2024).

  • If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
  • If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 22:47, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 25 external links on Diesel engine. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 5 June 2024).

  • If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
  • If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 02:33, 24 May 2017 (UTC)

engine efficiency

I don't believe it is accurate to say that a Diesel is the most efficient internal combustion engine. Gas turbines are more efficient, reaching 60%. Diesel is the most efficient reciprocating engine, which makes it the most efficient for uses such as road transportation. Gas turbines have a narrow speed range for peak efficiency. Mike163 (talk) 21:34, 24 May 2017 (UTC)

That's great information Mike. Do you have a reliable published source that can be cited to allow independent verification? Dolphin (t) 21:45, 24 May 2017 (UTC)

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 6 external links on Diesel engine. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 5 June 2024).

  • If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
  • If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 08:18, 26 July 2017 (UTC)

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 2 external links on Diesel engine. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 5 June 2024).

  • If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
  • If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 13:02, 10 September 2017 (UTC)

Bravo

Wow. One of the minority of articles that I've seen that isn't begging for improvement. Bravo!--Nomenclator (talk) 15:38, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion:

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. Community Tech bot (talk) 16:51, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

he fuel will ignite under compression, as in a diesel engine, before the piston reaches the top of its stroke

The statement he fuel will ignite under compression, as in a diesel engine, before the piston reaches the top of its stroke doesn't seem useful. It is usual in gasoline engines to ignite BTDC, such that pre-ignition means even earlier than desired. Gah4 (talk) 19:58, 13 August 2018 (UTC)

A man and his engine

History shows that the invention of the diesel engine was not based solely on one man's idea...

Then why, oh why, was diesel capitalized in an earlier version of this article?

I stumbled on this article while copyediting WP pages on passenger trains in the United States. I was immediately thrown by the repeated use of Diesel for the engine and fuel.

Yes, it's true Rudolf Diesel invented this type of engine. But I've never encountered Diesel used to describe the fuel or engine.

In fact, a very good reason to leave diesel lowercase when talking about the fuel or engine is so the reader will automatically know Diesel refers to the man who invented the diesel engine.

It's very frustrating to have to pore over this entry to correct this problem because somebody decided to defy convention and thought, "Well it's an engine invented by Rudolf Diesel, so I'll just call it a Diesel Engine."

See how frustrating this is to people who like to follow generally accepted conventions in an encyclopedia?

If diesel is good enough for Encyclopedia Britannica, then it's good enough for Wikipedia.Kinkyturnip (talk) 06:14, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

Personally I do capitalise it, for Diesel engines according to Diesel's design, the low-speed, air-blast injection engines using the Diesel cycle. Engines after this, with the innovations after Diesel and most importantly, using the dual or combined cycle. Andy Dingley (talk) 10:27, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

Criticism about a recent edit

I noticed a recent edit by Johannes Maximilian. I agree that there were many unrelated links in the "See also" chapter, such as Gasoline direct injection and Otto engine. But then there were also other deletions I disagree about:

I don't argue about the other deleted links, but those four should be included. ––Nikolas Ojala (talk) 19:55, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

Hello Nikolas Ojala, thank you for your comment. I reckon that these four links are not required, because:
  • Partially premixed combustion is similar to the Diesel engine process, but yet different
  • This article is on the engine and not on its fuel; quick example: The first Diesel engine actually ran on petrol, so, technically, we could also add petrol to the list.
  • Whilst being an efficient engine, or maybe even the most efficient engine ever made, the Wärtsilä-Sulzer engine is possibly not the most important engine, even though it marks a milestone. Its placement in the list is very arbitrary.
However, the see also rules are not very strict and I personally don't see any disadvantage in placing these four links in that section, so if you believe that they help the reader, please go ahead. :-) Best regards, --Johannes Maximilian (talk) 20:09, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

expansion

It seems to me that the article says compression where it should say expansion. For example, heat to work is done in expansion, though I suppose that is also negative compression. If no-one disagrees, I will change it. Gah4 (talk) 21:55, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

Thank you for mentioning that, the idea is indeed isothermal compression; in Diesel's theory, the expansion is adiabatic. --Johannes Maximilian (talk) 05:53, 1 March 2019 (UTC)

Akroyd Stuart/ T Barton

Diesel did not invent the compression ignition engine. A guy named Thomas Barton adapted Akroyds engine to work on only compression ignition. The article should changed to suit. Hornsby-Akroyd oil engine Barton formed Barton Transport, later. [1] 2A01:4B00:881D:3700:5153:4192:4D4B:AAAC (talk) 11:24, 11 May 2019 (UTC)

That is false. The article already addresses this: Friedrich Sass says that the Diesel engine is Diesel's "very own work" and that any "Diesel myth" is "falsification of history".[2] The Akroyd engine uses a different operating principle and does not rely on compression ignition. The author of that source of yours used a very "unfortunate" way of describing how Barton's adaption of the Akroyd engine worked: "Thomas Henry Barton at Hornsbys built a working high-compression version for trial purposes, whereby the vaporiser was replaced with a cylinder cephalon, therefore not relying on vent being preheated, but by combustion through higher compression ratios." The "cylinder cephalon" is part of all "modern" hot-bulb engines and heats up, also due to the compression heat. But the compression heat alone is insufficient for igniting the fuel; the cephalon is not cooled, and therefore causes the fuel to vaporise and catch fire. If the Akroyd engine actually utilised compression ignition, it wouldn't have needed that cephalon. The cephalon is even bad for compression ignition: It gives the combustion chamber a lot of unnecessary surface, meaning that the compression ratio would have to be even greater than that of a Diesel engine. Best regards, --Johannes (Talk) (Contribs) (Articles) 12:55, 11 May 2019 (UTC)
Barton at Hornsby removed the vaporiser, fitting a new high compression cylinder head, having the engine run on compression ignition alone.
https://www.waybuilder.net/free-ed/Resources/15-:Transportation/AutomotiveTechnology/Diesel%20engine.pdf
https://www.academia.edu/7718476/Project_Report_1
Chapter 8, page 285, Thermal Power Plant: Design and Operation by Dipak Sarkar.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=k5_vAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA285&lpg=PA285&dq=barton+akroyd-stuart+compression+ignition&source=bl&ots=j_hQnA9q5K&sig=ACfU3U2xRqEF-OF7KCXCKcJ21WHwQd1dvA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiXiZGw25PiAhVxsHEKHZ2EC7o4ChDoATACegQICRAB#v=onepage&q=barton%20akroyd-stuart%20compression%20ignition&f=false
Options do not matter.
The refs are solid and reliable. I will change the article to credit Barton.
Diesel improved the thermal qualities no more. 2A01:4B00:881D:3700:5153:4192:4D4B:AAAC (talk) 14:57, 11 May 2019 (UTC)
There is a good description of this matter in Sass' book on page 418. According to Sass, Barton intended to increase the compression ratio, but he was never permitted to do so. Due to the early and unprecise fuel injection, there would have been a homogeneous air-fuel-mixture, and the engine would have compressed it rather than pure air, making the ignition uncontrollable. This is not really compression ignition, it is rather autoignition, resulting in engine destruction. It simply cannot work. Diesel's attempt was very different. It is safe to say that Barton's experimental engine did not include all the 7 characteristics of the Diesel engine, therefore, it didn't pre-date it. --Johannes (Talk) (Contribs) (Articles) 20:23, 11 May 2019 (UTC)
This constant reverting to prove Diesel invented the compression ignition engine eliminating all before is becoming tiresome. It is distorting history. Reading this article, there was nothing, then Rudolf Diesel had a brainwave and all came about with nothing before him. Sure! What went before has to be mentioned in the history section.
You are relying on one man, Sass, as being the authority on everything and all other refs are "unreliable". I am not too taken with Sass, as many others say differently. You also think you are some sort of technical expert. That cuts no ice here. The article barely mentions the Hornsby-Akroyd engine, which was the first properly designed, and successful, oil burning engine (about 35,000 made) which the compression ignition engine was based on. Any history should start with that engine as it was the forerunner for sure. I gave a reliable ref from a very expensive and respected technical "science" book. That still stands and is very relevant. BTW, Barton eventually founded a transport company and would not allow his employees to refer to a compression ignition engine as a "diesel". I wonder why? Diesel never actually claimed to invented the compression ignition engine, he claimed to only to have improved the thermal efficiency, which he did - I have no ref for that yet.
Thermal Power Plant: Design and Operation, 2015. ISBN-10: 0128015756

ISBN-13: 978-0128015759 2A01:4B00:881D:3700:397D:BE68:AA9:A10C (talk) 05:14, 12 May 2019 (UTC)

Again: Saying that someone pre-dated Diesel makes it seem like someone designed and built a fully functional engine that worked exactly like a Diesel engine before Diesel. But this didn't happen. Barton's design may have incorporated compression ignition, but it otherwise worked very differently from a Diesel engine, if it worked at all. There are key differences between an Akroyd and a Diesel engine, and all of these are described in Sass' book. Sass compares all characteristics and even the diagrams. In this particular case it's the different injection point: In Diesel engines, the injection takes place at the end of the compression stroke around TDC, whereas with Barton's design, the fuel was injected before the intake stroke around TDC. Sass argues that such a design based on an Akroyd engine cannot work, and he also says that further experiments were prohibited. Just saying that Barton is the real Diesel engine inventor, whilst leaving out that his engine worked differently, and also leaving out the entire history doesn't make a lot of sense. Look, the article doesn't claim that Diesel invented the CI engine or the oil engine. And there is a simple reason for that.
The Diesel engine was never meant to be an oil-burning engine or a CI engine, it was supposed to be an engine that would make the Carnot cycle reality. The first Diesel prototypes ran on petrol, but they could also operate on ligroin and paraffin. Sass clearly says that the Diesel engine was not based upon the Akroyd engine, and that claiming that Diesel did not invent the engine on his own is falsification of history. The problem here is most likely a definition problem. A Diesel engine is a CI engine, but not all CI engines are Diesel engines. Diesel didn't invent the CI engine, but he invented the most successful CI engine, the Diesel engine. Reducing the Diesel engine to just compression igntion is not the way to go; Sass, p. 391: „Diesel considered compression ignition, (ignition due to highly compressed hot air without any ignition apparatus), not very important. Compression ignition is not the only main characteristic of the Diesel engine, it is one of the main characteristics.“ --Johannes (Talk) (Contribs) (Articles) 08:24, 12 May 2019 (UTC)

Nebulous claim in intro paragraph

Last sentence of the 4th paragraph needs clarification. The reader can guess, but has no idea what is being stated and the footnote also is not helpful. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.4.159.129 (talk) 17:25, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

Can you please do me a favour and name the exact sentence? Unfortunately, I don't know which sentence you mean. Best regards, Johannes (Talk) (Contribs) (Articles) 08:27, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

Carnot cycle

@Johannes Maximilian: The statement as-is is plainly wrong. The two alternative correct explanations that might be meant here are:

  1. 100% of the heat energy convertible with the Carnot cycle (not 100% of the total heat energy)
  2. All of the heat energy added by burning the fuel, minus the heat energy of the ambient air coming in. However, this is still subject to the limitations of the Carnot cycle, since due to the second law of thermodynamics, it is not possible to return the exhaust gases back to their original thermodynamic state (neglecting the fact that a reaction occurs) without expending work.

Besides, a work by Diesel himself must be considered a primary source, and as detailed in the article, Diesel was wrong on thermodynamics several times before getting it right.--Jasper Deng (talk) 04:20, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

@Jasper Deng: I think it's too complicated to exlpain that we are dealing with a hypothetical, ideal cycle. This Wikipedia article's text says Linde explained that... Linde and Diesel were humans and humans make erroneous assumptions (in Diesel's defence, he had got it right in the end). The text is not explaining the Carnot cycle or thermodynamics. It explains what Diesel thought in 1913 about what Linde had explained in 1878... I mean, you are absolutely right, the statement's "content" is painly wrong. And your alternative correct explanations are both good, and correct. But that is not the point here. The point is that Diesel had an idea based upon this statement. It doesn't matter whether or not it's correct. I think it's important not to change Diesel's statement too much, especially when considering that he highlighted the all in his text. I mean, we could add a statement that this is all wrong and doesn't work, etc., but the Carnot cycle doesn't work in the first place. Best regards, --Johannes (Talk) (Contribs) (Articles) 11:53, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

@Johannes Maximilian: No, I understand perfectly well that we are dealing with a hypothetical cycle (well, not completely; apparently a Carnot engine has been constructed on a microscopic scale). But even hypothetically, the Carnot cycle cannot hope to convert all heat energy to work, so Diesel is completely wrong even on theoretical grounds. We should not be taking Diesel's word for it but rather using WP:SECONDARY sources.--Jasper Deng (talk) 18:26, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

As I have said, it is completely obvious that the heat-conversion part is factually incorrect. But that is not the point here. In his 1913 book, Diesel explains why he built the Diesel engine, and how he has done it. This statement, that "all heat energy can be converted into work" has been made by von Linde (according to Diesel), and this has sparked Diesel's interest (according to Diesel). That is what the article's text says. It literaly reads "Linde explained that…", not "it is factually correct that the Carnot cycle allows converting all heat into work". Maybe another example illustrates this better: "In past ages, sailormen did not dare sailing too far away, because their king had told them the earth was flat". Of course we know the earth is not flat, but apparently, it made sailormen stay away from the "edge". In this case, we know that the Carnot cycle does not allow converting all heat energy into work, but somehow von Linde said it was possible or Diesel has just believed that, but whether or not it is factually correct, it made Diesel develop the Diesel engine. (And he describes how he figured that it indeed does not work, but how he got relatively close to it (in 1897 terms)). Best regards, Johannes (Talk) (Contribs) (Articles) 08:23, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

The thing is, I doubt von Linde himself would have made such an elementary mistake; the Carnot cycle was invented to demonstrate the impossibility of getting 100% efficiency, after all. This is again why I would greatly like to see WP:SECONDARY sources on this matter. At the least, we have to make sure the reader cannot be confused into thinking perpetual motion is possible.--Jasper Deng (talk) 08:36, 1 January 2020 (UTC)
Friedrich Sass: Geschichte des deutschen Verbrennungsmotorenbaus von 1860 bis 1918, Springer, Berlin/Heidelberg 1962, ISBN 978-3-662-11843-6. p. 383: „Seit er in den Vorlesungen seines Lehrers LINDE von dem Carnotschen Kreisprozeß gehört hatte, war sein Ziel, diesen „Prozeß mit höchster Wärmeausnutzung“ im Motor zu verwirklichen.“ — "Ever since he (Diesel) had heard about the Carnot cycle in his teacher's (LINDE) lectures, it had been his goal to make an engine that would use the "cycle with maximum heat utilisation" possible." Maybe I can find more sources. And maybe you are right, changing "all" into "much more" is a good improvement. Best regards, --Johannes (Talk) (Contribs) (Articles) 09:13, 1 January 2020 (UTC)
That sounds much more like it. I'd be interested in what others have to say on this as well.--Jasper Deng (talk) 09:31, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

Hellmut Droscha: Ein Gang durch die Geschichte des MAN Nutzfahrzeuges, in MAN (ed.): Leistung und Weg – Zur Geschichte des MAN-Nutzfahrzeugbaus, Springer, Berlin/Heidelberg 1991, ISBN 978-3-642-93491-9, p. 2: „Als in der bewußten Vorlesung Professor Linde ausftührte, daß die Dampfmaschine nur 6 bis 10 Prozent der bei der Kohleverbrennung als Wärme freigesetzten Energie in effektive mechanische Arbeit, also Bewegungsenergie umsetzt, aber nach dem Carnotschen Kreisprozeß bei gegebenen Temperaturgrenzen sich viel höhere Wirkungsgrade ergeben müßten, versieht der jetzt zwanzigjährige Diesel die Nachschrift in seinem Kollegheft mit der Randbemerkung „Studieren, ob es nicht möglich ist, die Isotherme praktisch zu verwirklichen“.“ — "When Professor Linde explained in one of his lectures that the steam engine is capable of converting only about 6 to 10 per cent of the heat energy released (when burning coal) into mechanical energy, but that the Carnot cycle should allow much better efficiency (given the temperature limits), then 20-year old Diesel made a note in his notebook: "Determine, wheter isothermal change in condition is feasible"."

Hans L. Sittauer: Nicolaus August Otto Rudolf Diesel, Biographien hervorragender Naturwissenschaftler, Techniker und Mediziner, 4th edition, Springer, Leipzig 1990, ISBN 978-3-322-00762-9, p. 54−55: „Im Jahre 1878 (...) behandelte Professor Carl von Linde (...) im Rahmen der theoretischen Maschinenlehre in einer seiner thermodynamischen Vorlesungen das Wesen der (...) Dampfmaschine. Dabei wies er (...) darauf hin, daß infolge des kleinen Gefälles zwischen der Temperatur des Frischdampfes und der des Kondensates die Energie sehr unvollkommen ausgenutzt und dadurch nur 6 bis 10 % der im Brennstoff enthaltenen Wärme in nutzbare Arbeit verwandelt. In diesem Zusammenhang erläuterte er auch den Lehrsatz von Sadi Carnot (...), nach dem nur bei der sogenannten isothermischen Zustandsänderung von Gasen (...) die durch Verbrennung entstehende Wärme maximal in praktisch verwertbare Arbeit umgewandelt werden konne.“ — "In the year of 1878, professor Carl von Linde (who taught theory of machines) explained the steam engine in his thermodynamics lectures. He made his students aware of the fact that a steam engine utilises the (heat) energy only very inefficienty, which is because of the little temperature difference between the live steam and the condensate. Therefore, the steam engine converts only 6 to 10 per cent of the fuel's heat energy into usable work. [Von Linde] also explained Sadi Carnot's cycle; according to this cycle, only the so-called isothermal change in a gas' condition would allow converting the heat energy released during combustion into usable work."

Best regards, --Johannes (Talk) (Contribs) (Articles) 10:24, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

ratio

A recent edit changed air:fuel ratio to fuel:air ratio, and high to low. That is, it says the same thing, but the other way around. The edit summary on the revert sounds like it didn't understand the change. I am not sure which ratio is in more common use, but we should probably use the one that is more usual. A quick google search finds both in use. Gah4 (talk) 12:26, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

It seems from Air–fuel_ratio that air:fuel ratio is common for internal combustion engines, but in government studies of such engines fule:air ratio is used. I suppose since WP is not government, then the former applies, but either one will confuse someone. Gah4 (talk) 12:32, 7 January 2020 (UTC)
  • The trouble is that both are in equally common use, depending on context. The textual phrasing is usually "fuel to air ratio", however the number is given as air to fuel, so that it's in the form "integer : 1" and avoids citing fractions.
There's also lambda, λ, which is air-fuel. However this is an air–fuel equivalence ratio and is always approximately 1.0 and always fractional, because it's referenced to the stoichiometric ratio for that fuel (i.e. stoichiometric is lambda 1.0, rich is 0.95).
There is no easy answer to this. Personally I mix the forms. If we want to stay consistent though, we should use air-fuel because that's tolerable for the text version, but the numeric version really needs to stay as air-fuel. Andy Dingley (talk) 12:38, 7 January 2020 (UTC)
  • Pretty much every international research journal (in English) about engines/fuel chemistry has been using the air-fuel equivalence ratio λ for the last ten years at least. In French-language publications (both in academic and industrial contexts), φ=1/λ (fuel/air) is the most commonly used. I would say we certainly should use one of the equivalence ratios (instead a massic ratio), and would somewhat prefer air/fuel (per research journals practices) if consistency is needed. TigraanClick here to contact me 14:19, 7 January 2020 (UTC)
But in an introductory article on the engines generally, we can't start using lambda without first having given some idea what the overall ratios are. Andy Dingley (talk) 17:01, 7 January 2020 (UTC)
In my experience, Lambda, λ, (air-fuel equivalence ratio), is the most common "ratio" for internal combustion engines. Most of the books on this topic that I own use lambda, and the oxygen sensor in motor vehicles is often referred to as lambda sensor. I'd therefore stick to lambda, but that's just my opinion. --Johannes (Talk) (Contribs) (Articles) 21:53, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

/* Major advantages */ Diesel Emissions statement is not factual.

The following statement is not only worded in a way that is very unclear. It is partly nonfactual, and partly impossible. Compared with Otto cycle engines, diesel engines emit 10 times less pollutants and 3 times less carbon dioxide.[143]

The phrasing "10 times" and "3 times" would be appropriate if the amounts were larger than their comparison.

Also the claim is simply untrue. The 3 pollutants of engines are carbon monoxide, particulate matter, and NOx. While carbon monoxide is indeed lower in diesel engines, it cannot be lumped together with the other pollutants which are higher in modern high speed diesels.

Based on the current Euro standards outlined here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_emission_standards

For the current 2020 standards I am seeing:

Carbon monoxide: 33% - 55% as much as the petrol cars NOx: 130%-150% as much as the petrol cars PM: is the same (but the kicker with PM is that is only is in a petrol running engine if it has direct injection which is uncommon). Every diesel has PM. Most otto engines don't have any PM. And PM is the most harmful pollutant in the exhaust.

The claim that diesels have 10 times less pollutants is both: -confusing and misleading -factually incorrect

I suggest we revise it to include the information above.


Carbon dioxide: this is where the energy is coming from in an engine. Turning carbon chains and oxygen in the atmosphere into carbon dioxide. For a diesel engine to create 1/3 the carbon dioxide it would need to be 3 times as efficient as the otto cycle. The most efficient otto cycle engine to run was Mercedes' F1 car which was ~50% thermal efficiency. The most efficient diesel cycle run was at UW Madison's Engine Research Center and was ~60% thermal efficiency. I am quite sure of this as I worked in that lab for two years while at school there. Therefore it is impossible for a diesel cycle engine to emit 1/3 the carbon dioxide as an otto cycle engine. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:647:CB03:9910:2084:E309:88A0:6C3E (talk) 03:23, 27 March 2020 (UTC)

As stated, we're looking at untreated emissions (in "traditional" engines). In internal combustion engines, there are four pollutants: CO, NOx, HC, and PM. Carburetted Otto cycle engines have almost no PM emissions, but CO, NOx, and HC emissions are worse when compared to a direct injected Diesel cycle engine with a helix-controlled injection pump. The mass of the emitted pollutants is 10-times greater in an Otto cycle engine. Now if we look at "modern" engines with "ideal" exhaust gas treatment systems, there should be no significant difference in emissions. Saying that modern passenger car Otto cycle engines have no PM emissions, but Diesel cycle engines do, is not particularly useful. That is comparing apples with oranges, or in engine terms, comparing a port injected engine with a TWC against a Common-Rail engine with no DPF. But that scenario is obsolete, most modern passenger car engines, no matter what operating cycle, use Common-Rail injection, and have some sort of catalyst/particulate filter combination (DPF or OPF). Exhaust gas treatment systems though are not part of "how the engine works", and should therefore not be included in a comparision. What engine manufacturers do in order to improve their engines' exhaust behaviour heavily depends upon legislation.
Regaring the CO2 emissions: Comparing engine efficiencies is a good thought, but not the key here. The comparision assumes that both engines use the same fuel; in reality, Diesel engine fuel contains more carbon than petrol, which is why the Otto cycle carbon dioxide emissions are effected "negatively". If we were to run both Otto and Diesel engines on gas (CNG, LNG, basically methane), the overall carbon dioxide emissions would be reduced, but that's largely due to gas containing less carbon than petrol or Diesel engine fuel. That would not explain the huge difference in carbon dioxide emissions though – the comparision also assumes that the Diesel engine runs on medium load (so near its ideal operating point), whereas the Otto cycle engine runs on lambda 1 (not very close to its ideal operating point). This brings the Otto cycle engine efficiency down to <20 %. Best regards, --Johannes (Talk) (Contribs) (Articles) 07:12, 27 March 2020 (UTC)


Hey thanks for getting back to me and continuing a logic based discussion. I'm going to assume all of the points that you brought up are valid and factual as you seem knowledgeable and like you have done your research. I think that the full description you've presented above tells the full story. But without all of the extra context that you have added, it lends one to jump to conclusions. If the average passerby were to just read the original statement that started this discussion, I believe they would assume that the best modern diesel engine is being compared to the best modern otto cycle engine. Ultimately people hear what they want to, and if they're coming here trying to find out why their diesel that they have pulled all of the emissions systems out of and roll coal with is "greener" than a prius they will see that statistic and keep believing it. (before you think that is crazy I know a frightening amount of people that believe this to be true).

It seems to me that the most clear way to approach this would be to mark that that statement is applicable to old obsolete engines. And then have another comparison to modern otto and diesel cycle engines with the statement attached that after treatment is then used to combat their respective pollutants.

It also seems like we are comparing apples to oranges on the carbon dioxide emissions bit. As the diesel cycle is running at its peak operating efficiency while the otto cycle is running close to its ideal operating point. That seems a bit unfair.

What are your thoughts on this? Looking forward to hearing from you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.87.204.185 (talk) 19:25, 31 March 2020 (UTC)

Thank you for your reply! I have read through the the sentence again and I think it indeed needed clarification; I have added a note that there is no exhaust gas treatment included, and I have replaced the "three times" less CO2 with just "less CO2", which I think is a more realistic statement. (Special:Diff/948414218); this is still covered by the Reif (2014) source.
The entire rolling-coal thing seems to be part of the "American Diesel culture". Reducing lambda to a point that results in sooty exhaust totally defeats the purpose of the Diesel engine, but that is a different story. I reckon that it's very difficult to determine what engine concept is the "best" or "most efficient", and it always depends upon many factors. But have a look at hauling companies. They use lorries powered by Diesel cycle engines; apparently, it is the most economical engine concept. And that is what Rudolf Diesel wanted it to be. Best regards, --Johannes (Talk) (Contribs) (Articles) 22:51, 31 March 2020 (UTC)

Commercial vehicles and lorries

So, this article says that the undersquare engines take longer to wear out because of lower piston speeds. But on the piston stroke / bore article that's linked, the undersquare engines obvious have *higher* piston speeds. What gives - why do the undersquare engines last longer? Was it a mistake in the source textbook? Spaceman912 (talk) 17:53, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

Effective efficiency

Is there a definition for this term which appears in the "Efficiency" section, for example? The only place I have seen it before, again without a definition, is the English edition of Reif's Bosch "Gasoline Engine Management".

Without a definition we have to guess which is not good. Cheers. Pieter1963 (talk) 17:55, 29 July 2020 (UTC)

The effective efficiency is the product of thermal efficiency and mechanical efficiency. Best regards, --Johannes (Talk) (Contribs) (Articles) 20:26, 29 July 2020 (UTC)

Use of insular not well known standards

Most engine makers use ASTM or SAE standards. Quoting unused "standards" from insular organizations compromises Wikipedia usefulness. I appreciate Wikipedias preference for free standards versus paid for standards that are generally used in industry, but making Wikipedia useless doesn't prolong its existence. Truck (vehicle ) fuel as per United States Department of Transportation is called low sulfur "#2 diesel". A "#1 diesel" is used in older vessels and is specified with higher sulfur and much higher waxy hydrocarbon content; these engines depend on the #1 diesel for lubrication and suffer engine damage when operated on #2 diesel. TaylorLeem (talk) 23:45, 22 November 2020 (UTC)

List of manufacturers

Hello everyone,

a Roman IP editor wishes to include a list of major manufacturers (Special:Diff/1046350854). I object this because lists of this kind are not well-suited for articles like this one: They are never complete, arbitrary (i. e. not WP:NOR-compliant), and possibly "incompatible" with WP:NOTDIR#7 (Wikipedia does not include "simple listings without context information"). Now this has come to the point of WP:3RR and I would like to have this solved out properly. Any opinions? Best regards, --Johannes (Talk) (Contribs) (Articles) 10:55, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

It is absolutely not suitable for inclusion. If reliable sources were available to determine who the three, five, or ten largest manufacturers were, then a case could be made - yet even then, that would change regularly. Your rationale is perfectly sound and the list, as repeatedly added by this series of IPs, should not be in the article.

I reverted it and requested semi-protection on the page, which has been granted. --Sable232 (talk) 15:35, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

I heartily concur. SCHolar44 (talk) 07:44, 30 September 2021 (UTC)

Urea

There is only one sentence on using urea to reduce NOx. As that is very important for today's diesel cars, it seems that it could have more description. Gah4 (talk) 08:41, 3 November 2021 (UTC)

I suppose though that it's not this article that should explain urea in detail. Best regards, --Johannes (Talk) (Contribs) (Articles) 17:10, 3 November 2021 (UTC)
I suppose not, but then one of the See Also should reference one that does. Should it have its own article? Or a general article on emission reduction systems? Gah4 (talk) 21:22, 3 November 2021 (UTC)

Why is EGR mentioned?

Hello I'm curious why is it mentioned the Diesel engines are using EGR? EGR is strictly for reductions of Nox emissions. It really has nothing to do with the function of a diesel engine. Thoughts? Imotorhead64 (talk) 03:59, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

/* Brayton's contributions to the Diesel engine */ added Brayton's 1887 engine patent 432114

I want to restore the history section. This page is about diesel engines and not diesel the man. It seems edits have been made that only the work done by rudolph diesel should be allowed. This is a crazy revision of history since Rudolph Diesel was not the only person to contribute to the development of the engine. Diesel's first patent was for a very high compression that would produce a temperature as high as the combustion hence the quote "expansion at constant temperature" Later Diesel realized this was not possible and changed his patent to state "expansion at constant pressure" which was exactly what brayton had done in 1872. Since brayton died in 1892 no one challenged this claim. At no time does Diesel ever claim the compression ignition was part of his invention. Imotorhead64 (talk) 06:05, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

All additions require reliable sources. Sass describes in his 1962 book that Diesel copied the air-blast system by Brayton, but Sass also explains how and why Brayton's engine is conceptually different from the Diesel engine. In addition to that, Sass explicitly notes that all these claims that have been made that Diesel didn't invent the diesel engine are "falsification of history", id est that Sass considers any such claims to be conspiracy theories. Threfore, it is not necessary to describe any Brayton patents in this article. Best regards, --Johannes (Talk) (Contribs) (Articles) 22:20, 2 January 2022 (UTC)
So you don't accept the patent as a reliable source? Not mentioning Brayton when talking about the diesel engine is like saying the Wright Brothers invented the airplane but not mentioning Otto Lillenthal or Glenn Curtis. Do you also ignore all the contributions of Lyle Cummins and Bosch? You are basing all your information one book which I have never read and don't have access to. I would also add the title of the page is the diesel engine not Rudolph Diesel. Diesel's first successful engine was not even designed by him. His engine designs didn't work. In 1872 Brayton produced the worlds first commercially successful compression engine. In 1874 Brayton improved the engine by adding a fuel injection system and now the engine could use kerosene as fuel. The early Brayton engines where used to power rail cars, a bus , boats and 2 submarines and also for stationary power. In 1887 Brayton produced an engine that had many of the qualities of a diesel engine. It used only the quantity of fuel to regulate speed (the first lean burn engine) It used a high pressure variable quantity liquid fuel injection system.

Brayton describes in his patent: 

"I have for the first time, so far as my knowledge extends, regulated speed by Variably controlling: the direct discharge of liquid fuel into the combustion chamber or cylinder in a finely divided condition highly favorable to immediate combustion. As compared with said prior methods, mine obviously affords a more prompt, immediate, and direct connection between the controlling-power of the governor and the explosive action, and hence an extra ordinary uniform action on the part of the engine is assured, because for the first time I discharge the liquid fuel for immediate combustion in such variable quantities as are required for maintaining a uniform speed under the variable conditions ordinarily involved in the operation of such engines. These features of my invention are obviously wholly independent of any special form of ignitor for firing the fuel." Imotorhead64 (talk) 06:05, 5 January 2022 (UTC)
Brayton's patent is a primary source, I'm not saying that it's unreliable. The patent itself doesn't really provide much usable information (i.e. information that can be obtained without interpreting it), so it's not the best source for a Wikipedia article.

It took Rudolf Diesel approximately ten years to develop the idea of the Diesel engie; his essay that describes these ideas was first printed in December 1892. Thus, Diesel must have developed his ideas throughout the 1880s. Clessie Lyle Cummins was born on 27 December 1888, so he obviously cannot have contributed to the idea, conception and development of the Diesel engine. Robert Bosch opened up his workshop in Stuttgart in 1886. However, he primarily worked on ignition systems, it was only in the 1920s that Bosch developed a fuel injection pump suited for Diesel engines. Rudolf Diesel attempted using spark ignition for the Diesel engine, but abandoned this idea throughout the early development phase. Therefore, it is very unlikely that Robert Bosch has contributed to the development of the Diesel engine. Friedrich Sass doesn't mention it in his book either (which, by the way, can be found on Google Books).

Diesel's first successful engine (successful as in proof of concept) was designed all by himself. However, the drawings were made by Diesel and Lucian Vogel (Sass, pp. 432). The first fully functional engine was also designed by Diesel, but drawn by Immanuel Lauster (Sass, p. 469). Now, this doesn't mean that Diesel didn't design the engines by himself, and it also doesn't mean that they were not functional or that any other sort of fraud was going on at the time. The theory that Diesel didn't invent the Diesel engine is a conspiracy theory (Sass, p. 518). Diesel's problem was that his original idea, the Rational Heat Motor – an engine that doesn't work – was patented, and that the engine that Diesel actually built (the Rational Heat Motor with lower compression and more injected fuel, i.e. the Diesel engine) was not. So Diesel couldn't admit in public that he had built the Diesel engine instead of the Rational Heat Motor – it would have rendered his patent useless.

Brayton's engine had compression, yes, but it was not in the main cylinder. Also, compression is a concept that is completely different from compression ignition.

Brayton's engine is definitely different from the Diesel engine, and it doesn't share its operating principle with the Diesel engine (Sass, p. 411); Sass also includes pV-diagrams, and they make it even more obvious that the Brayton engine is not like the Diesel engine.

Diesel copied Brayton's injection system, he improved it, and he didn't even like it. But that's all there is. Brayton has not invented the Diesel engine or contributed to its development. Best regards, --Johannes (Talk) (Contribs) (Articles) 12:00, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

This statement is 100% not true "Brayton's engine had compression, yes, but it was not in the main cylinder." Yes the first Brayton engines starting in 1872 had a separate compressor piston, and some versions used the back of the piston to supply compressed air. Bryaton's 1874 engine was improved with a fuel pump and also used a separate compressor but starting in 1887 Brayton adopted the 4 stroke cycle now intake, compression, expansion and exhaust all took place in one cylinder. Brayton's 1887 engine used a high pressure spring loaded variable quantity fuel injectior which atomized the fuel for combustion. A platinum glow plug was the source of ignition. The speed of the engine was solely regulated but the quantity of fuel injected. This was the first lean burn engine which aside from lacking compression ignition operated on exactly the same principal as any diesel engine. In 1890 Brayton developed an air blast injection system. This engine also used the 4 stroke cycle, intake, compression, expansion and exhaust all in the same cylinder and was also lean burn rulating the speed solely by the quantity of fuel injected. It also used a glowing platinum ignitor. Again I'll include a link which hopefully you will read and can understand. https://oldmachinepress.com/2016/12/05/brayton-ready-motor-hydrocarbon-engine/ Imotorhead64 (talk) 05:34, 5 January 2022 (UTC)
from the ASME 1907 page 813 link https://www.google.com/search?q=Brayton+4+stroke+engine+1890&biw=1283&bih=697&tbm=bks&sxsrf=AOaemvI2oyvaDxx-YkhBSvbixv_7F9WXsQ%3A1641363035579&ei=WzbVYfLuIvqNwbkPi-ic4Ao&ved=0ahUKEwiyiLvl-Zn1AhX6RjABHQs0B6wQ4dUDCAk&uact=5&oq=Brayton+4+stroke+engine+1890&gs_lcp=Cg1nd3Mtd2l6LWJvb2tzEANQ3gpY3gpg2w1oAHAAeACAAYMBiAGAApIBAzAuMpgBAKABAcABAQ&sclient=gws-wiz-books

"2 The reference to the work by the American inventor and engineer Mr George B Brayton should not be without interest to The American Society of Mechanical Engineers due to the fact that the cycle which he invented possesses theoretical and practical advantages over the Otto and has essentially the same characteristics in practical operation as that of the Diesel which differs however theoretically and was invented much later The Brayton cycle is one in which ignition takes place at constant pressure whereas the theoretical Diesel cycle as described in his patent. is one in which ignition takes place at constant temperature practically however the Diesel engine more often operates on the constant pressure or Brayton cycle than on the constant temperature or Diesel cycle 3 In connection with the suit brought for infringement of the Selden patent for use of a gas engine on a motor car a thorough investigation has been made of the work done by Mr George B Brayton in developing his internal combustion motor which proves that Mr Brayton occupied a position both theoretically and practically much in advance of his time As his life and work must be of great interest to American mechanical engineers I will call attention briefly to some of the work which he accomplished. 4 Mr Brayton was granted four patents for his internal combustion engines The first dated in 1872 was for a gas engine in which the gas and air were drawn by suction into an air compressor in proper proportions for a combustible mixture and were there compressed to the desired pressure and delivered into a reservoir from this reservoir the combustible mixture was fed into the working cylinder where it was ignited A cut off valve controlled by a governor shut off the supply at the proper time to produce uniform speed A concontinuous flame was maintained in the working cylinder which was fed from the reservoir through a small opening The constant pressure gas engine of Brayton's was used quite extensively and a test was made by Dr RH Thurston which is published in the report of the Vienna Exposition of 1873 This engine proved to be troublesome to maintain principally due to the difficulty of preventing the flame passing back from the working cylinder into the reservoir filled with combustible mixture of gas and air and causing an explosion Because of this difficulty Brayton was led to design a new engine in which oil was the source of fuel instead of gas which was patented in 1874 It operated in much the same manner as the engine of the 1872 patent but the air compressor was used for the purpose of compressing air only and the oil was injected by a special pump directly into a vaporizing chamber which was closely connected and an essential part of the working cylinder. connected and an essential part of the working cylinder 5 The Brayton oil or hydro carbon engine was built by several firms in this country each of which was given a limited territory to supply Several hundred motors were made and were used for a great variety of purposes The engines designed for stationary purposes were generally built with an inverted walking beam arranged to connect the working cylinder and the air compression cylinder These engines were exhibited at the Centennial Exhibition in 1876 pumping water and driving machinery One of these engines of 3 hp was used by Dr Draper in his investigations of the properties of light in 1877 8 and is still in existence and is owned by the complainants in the Selden patent case referred to above 6 Another engine of 5 hp was used by Prof Anthony in 1875 in a lecture before the Cooper Union to drive the first dynamo machine of the Gramme type ever built in America This latter machine was afterwards bought by Cornell University and was used by that institution for several years for furnishing the power for the Physical Laboratory It is still in good working condition and forms a part of the equipment of the Mechanical Laboratory of Sibley College. College 7 The Brayton engines in operation were comparatively noiseless and gave an indicator diagram much like that from the Corliss engine Brayton considered these engines as combustion engines rather than explosion engines because of the smoothness of their operation which was due to the peculiar character of the combustion The Brayton engine was designed to operate at the maximum pressure of 60 to 80 pounds and for these conditions its economy was very poor being much inferior to that of the unmechanical free piston engine which was built by Otto and Langen The actual efficiency on the basis of heat converted into work in accordance with Clerk was seven per cent when gas was used and six per cent when oil was used the low efficiency being very largely due to low pressures to friction and losses between the air compressor and working cylinder The efficiency of the Otto Langen engine was from 50 to 100 per cent better than that of the Lenoir engine only about one half as great 8 There is abundant evidence to prove that Brayton constructed his engines in numerous forms as for instance double acting engines with separate compression cylinder single acting engines with the combustion chamber in one end and the compression pump in the other walking beam engines the cylinders in some cases above and in other cases below the walking beam cases above and in other cases below the walking beam 9 The engines were applied for the propulsion of boats and were used commercially for this purpose They were also applied for the purpose of propelling a street car and operating a bus No commercial success attended the application to the street car or to the bus 10 The early engines of Brayton were of the two cycle class In 1890 he patented an engine of the four cycle type of which a limited number were built A test of one of these engines was made by Mr Dugald Clerk which shows great superiority of the early type 11 Mr Brayton died in 1893 The above concise statement of his work indicates that he is entitled to a prominent place in the development of the gas engine and recent investigations indicate that his cycle is likely to be extensively used in the future I hope that a full description of his life and machines will be presented to the Society at some future meeting Prof H DIEDERICHS The presentation of the subject in general is so complete that little can be added The great importance of the gas power question is conceded and the recent placing of large orders for Loomis Pettibone producers with the Power and Mining Machinery Co and for Allis Chalmers blowing engines by the Carnegie Steel Co would seem to show that our own power users have not only considered but have already very largely decided the question for themselves 2 The writer is in thorough accord with the statements made regarding the Brayton now the so called Diesel cycle the possibilities of the constant pressure gas engine having up to this time not been fully realized It is true that Diesel carried the oil engine working on this principle to a degree of perfection never before attained but the oil engine is limited in its capacity owing to the difficulty of satisfactory combustion in large cylinders The constant pressure gas engine has never been developed to the extent that the promise of its cycle seems to warrant Of course it is realized that there are serious difficulties connected with the handling of comparatively large bodies of gas under high pressures but producer gas and not oil will be the fuel of importance and hence the constant pressure gas engine seems worthy of a little more attention than it has so far received 3 The computations made by Mr Junge on type cycles in the appendix of the paper are of interest and show in a limited way the relation between the constant volume or Otto and the constant pressure or Brayton cycle for the conditions assumed To get a clear insight into this relation for himself the writer in 1904 constructed a three dimension diagram published in the Sibley Journal which may prove of interest.Imotorhead64 (talk) 06:42, 5 January 2022 (UTC)[3]

You say that my statement "Brayton's engine had compression, yes, but it was not in the main cylinder" is "100% not true". Surprisingly, this is not my statement. This is what Sass writes in his 1962 book on page 411: "Der Brayton-Motor hatte keine Verdichtung im Arbeitszylinder" (The Brayton engine had no compression in the main cylinder). You also say: "[The Brayton engine] was the first lean burn engine which aside from lacking compression ignition operated on exactly the same principal as any diesel engine." Sass writes on page 414 of his book: "Zwischen dem Verfahren von BRAYTON und dem Dieselverfahren bestehen aber doch erhebliche Unterschiede." (There are significant differences between the Brayton operating principle and the Diesel operating principle). Dugald Clerk has has tested one of Brayton's 8×12 in 5 hp engines (Sass p. 415); the diagram is included in Sass's book on page 411. It is very obvious that the operating principle is completely different from the Diesel principle. Clerk found a specific fuel consumption of 2.16 lb·(hp·h)−1 (1314 g·(kW·h)−1) and an MEP of 30.2 lbf·in−2 (0.2 MPa). The first fully functional Diesel engine achieved a specific fuel consumption of 324 g·(kW·h)−1 and an MEP of around 0.8 MPa. --Johannes (Talk) (Contribs) (Articles) 12:25, 5 January 2022 (UTC)
Ok I'm starting to see the problem here. You've read one book which you believe is 100% correct. Yes it's true the 1872 and 1874 versions of the Brayton Ready Motor did compress in a separate cylinder. The compressed air was stored in a receiver/accumulator tank. It's an easy mistake to to believe all Brayton engines operated on the same cycle, I did it myself when I first started researching Brayton 20 years ago. The 1872/74 engine operate on a 2 stroke cycle and the 1887/90 engine's operate on the 4 stroke cycle. All prayton engine operate on the same constant pressure pricinpal. I'll also admit that there are very few publications that cover his last 2 engines. However if you look carefully you'll realize what I'm saying is not fiction. I'm not sure if you caught this so I'll provide it again: "The Brayton engine was designed to operate at the maximum pressure of 60 to 80 pounds and for these conditions its economy was very poor being much inferior to that of the unmechanical free piston engine which was built by Otto and Langen The actual efficiency on the basis of heat converted into work in accordance with Clerk was seven per cent when gas was used and six per cent when oil was used the low efficiency being very largely due to low pressures to friction and losses between the air compressor and working cylinder The efficiency of the Otto Langen engine was from 50 to 100 per cent better than that of the Lenoir engine only about one half as great 8 There is abundant evidence to prove that Brayton constructed his engines in numerous forms as for instance double acting engines with separate compression cylinder single acting engines with the combustion chamber in one end and the compression pump in the other walking beam engines the cylinders in some cases above and in other cases below the walking beam cases above and in other cases below the walking beam 9 The engines were applied for the propulsion of boats and were used commercially for this purpose They were also applied for the purpose of propelling a street car and operating a bus No commercial success attended the application to the street car or to the bus 10 The early engines of Brayton were of the two cycle class In 1890 he patented an engine of the four cycle type of which a limited number were built A test of one of these engines was made by Mr Dugald Clerk which shows great superiority of the early type" Please read it very carefully. Here are 2 links, the first describes Brayton's 1872/1874 2 stroke cycle.

http://vintagemachinery.org/mfgindex/imagedetail.aspx?id=6715

This link describe the operation of the 1890 engine:

http://vintagemachinery.org/mfgindex/imagedetail.aspx?id=6367

Let me know if you have any further questions. Imotorhead64 (talk) 14:05, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

In his book titled Flame Ignition (2015), Wayne Grenning (a respected authority of early internal combustion engines) Starting on page 655 he talks about the different types of Brayton engines. On page 689 he begins to discuss Brayton's later engines. When discussing the 1890 air blast engine he states " Operation of the vertically configured engine was in some regards similar to earlier engines but with a few significant differences." Grenning goes on to say that similar to the Otto 4 stroke cycle the engine draws in air, but not fuel on the intake stroke, the vacuum created in the cylinder operates the atmospheric valve which is located in the top of the piston. After the intake stroke the air is then compressed in the cylinder by the rising piston. At or near the top of the stroke, fuel is injected via the air blast injector with a small burst of compressed air for atomization. Some of the fuel contacts the nearby platinum glow plug and combustion occurs, pressure is created by the burning fuel pushing the piston downward creating the power stroke. Near the bottom of the stroke the exhaust valve is opened and exhaust gasses are released and pushed out by the rising piston, and at the top of the stroke the cycle repeats. Grenning also makes mention of the 1887 engine and it's operation. Imotorhead64 (talk) 05:25, 6 January 2022 (UTC) [4]
Gustave Richard (1892) writes more or less the same about Brayton's 1890 engine (p. 677–682). He also includes diagrams of the engine (p. 676), and these diagrams have a flat bottom line – indicative of the lack of compression in the main cylinder. Richard doesn't include exact pressure or volume figures, but Sass (1962, p. 411) does – the first Diesel engine had a combustion pressure about 7 times greater than the Brayton engine. So obviously, the Diesel engine is much more efficient – this is why it consumes only one fourth of the Brayton engine's fuel. --Johannes (Talk) (Contribs) (Articles) 13:43, 6 January 2022 (UTC)
Again you are still confused looking at PV diagrams from Brayton's 1872-74 engines. These engines were not 4 stroke. They had 2 pistons (or in some cases they used the back side of the piston) one for compressing and the other for combustion and expansion. Compression pressure on these engines were relatively low, about 60-80 psi. (4-5 bar). I also acknowledge that the 4 stroke Brayton would have had a much lower compression than a Diesel. However these 4 stroke versions of the Brayton were more efficient that a comparable Otto cycle of the day. Aside from compression ignition (the source of ignition being a glow plug) these engines operated identical to a diesel using the constant pressure process with which Brayton is clearly credited. Diesel never claimed to invent compression ignition and it's fairly clear that Akroid was using it before Diesel so I think his name should also be mentioned. https://www.thehistorypress.co.uk/articles/it-s-an-akroyd-not-a-diesel/ Brayton very clearly invented both a metered high pressure solid injection system and the air blast system and the constant pressure cycle that Diesel adopted. if Brayton had lived it's very likely that he would have received royalties for his patents. Imotorhead64 (talk) 14:18, 6 January 2022 (UTC)
The high compression is the key to the Diesel engine's efficiency, and thus the Brayton engine and the Akroyd engine don't operate on a process "identical to a Diesel". I also doubt that the Brayton engine is more efficient than an Otto because an ideal constant pressure cycle engine with very low compression (ε=4) and a lean burn principle (λ=4) is still less efficient than an ideal constant volume cycle engine with slightly higher compression (ε=5) but a homogeneous mixture with λ=1.[5] Diesel has indeed never claimed to have invented compression ignition, but it is the logical consequence of the Diesel engine's operating principle and protected by Diesel's first patent.[6] However, the Akroyd engine is not a compression ignition engine (it uses hot-bulb ignition), and Akroyd has not used compression ignition. The reason for that is pretty obvious: As the fuel is injected during the intake stroke, the pressure at the end of the compression cannot be higher than approximately 0.3 MPa – otherwise, the fuel would combust during the compression stroke due to compression ignition, and that would destroy the engine. In a Diesel engine, the fuel is injected much later and only combusts around top dead centre.[7] Sass uses very clear words: "The Diesel engine uses an operating principle that is different from the one used in the Akroyd engine."[8] It is correct that Brayton has invented air-blast injection,[9] but it was Diesel who significantly improved the system in terms of air-blast pressure.[10] The Diesel engine also doesn't operate on a constant pressure cycle, so Diesel cannot have copied it from anyone.

The "The History Press" source that you have linked spreads a conspiracy theory. So many things claimed are so wrong in so many ways that it's almost ironical that the source claims that "the history of technology is full of myths and half-truths":

  • "The real inventor was Herbert Akroyd Stuart" → There is no evidence presented for this claim. No sources, nothing. Just an opinion. Sass says that the Akroyd engine and the Diesel engine use different operating principles, and that Akroyd propagated that his work was "adversely cloaked by nomenclature".[11] But there is nothing more to it than that.
  • The History Press claims that Akroyd has made a 'diesel' engine in 1886: "In 1886, (…) built his first prototype 'diesel' engine" → There is again no evidence for that claim. Sass compares the Akroyd engine with the Diesel engine and it should be clear to anyone with a tiny understanding of thermodynamics that these two engines are not the same. So, why would Akroyd – if he has made a Diesel engine in 1886 – not sell this engine as a commercial product? Why would he instead develop an additional inferior engine? That makes no sense, and The History Press has no explanation for it.
  • "Diesel’s later patent (…) was for an engine that burned coal dust rather than oil" → That is false. Diesel says in his patent that the Rational Heat Motor can burn any kind of fuel[12]
  • "it was not until 1887 that [Diesel] made his first working prototype. This prototype blew up and nearly killed him" → The History Press confuses Diesel's 1887 ammonia engine with the 1893 Diesel engine prototype. The ammonia engine was a proof of concept, but it worked rather like a steam engine than an internal combustion engine.[13] It must thus not be compared with an internal combustion engine. Also, Sass doesn't mention that this engine blew up; neither does Sittauer (1990). The 1893 prototype engine though had an indicator blew-up on 10 August 1893. But the engine itself didn't explode, and Diesel wasn't killed.[14]
  • "Diesel’s design idea was based on the ‘isobaric combustion’ principal" → No, it was not, Diesel desired an isothermal principle. And it was Diesel who first figured that it was not possible, and that he had to inject more fuel.[15] The History Press argues – based on the false claim – that "Diesel’s first patent was plagiarised from an earlier invention" – well, that is nonsense.
  • "The seminal patent, #7146 of May 1890 (…) described the first proper ‘diesel’ engine in detail." → It doesn't. It describes an engine that is different from a Diesel engine (different fuel injection timing).[16]
  • "This system [i.e. hot-bulb injection] is known as solid injection, and is the principle used by most present-day diesel engines" → It can be said for sure that Diesel engines don't operate on this principle. The only similarity of Akroyd and some(!), i.e. antechamber Diesel engines is the combustion chamber principle which is characterised by two combustion chambers: a main chamber and an antechamber. Sass argues that the hot-bulb engine can be considered a predecessor to antechamber injected engines because of the overall combustion chamber design.[17] But one must not confuse combustion chamber principle similarities with operating principle similarities. The History Press's author clearly confueses these two things and doesn't seem to know that Diesel engines don't necessarily need an antechamber design.
  • "Although [the Akroyd engine] required the vaporiser to be initially heated, that is exactly the way ‘glow plugs’ in many large modern ‘diesels’ work." → Side note: Diesel engines don't necessarily need glowplugs, and many Diesel engines neither have glowplugs, nor any other "heating systems". In an Akroyd engine, the so-called "vaporiser" is necessary for the engine to work, because it acts as the engine's ignition device. The fuel is injected onto the vaporiser where it catches fire and eventually combusts. An Akroyd engine without a vaporiser would never work because the compression heat alone cannot cause combustion in an Akroyd engine. A Diesel engine will always start without glowplugs if enough work is converted into compression heat.
  • "in May 1892, a year before Diesel even applied for his dubious coal-dust-burning patent" → I have already explained why the "coal-dust-burning" is nonsense. This time, it's about the date: May 1892 was after Diesel applied for his DRP 67207 patent – he did so on 28 February 1892.[18]
  • "The world’s first successful commercial compression-ignition engine was installed at Fenny Stratford waterworks in July 1892" → There is no evidence for this dubious claim. The The History Press source goes on about compression ignition and claims that Akroyd has made several compression ignition and Diesel engines. It is obvious that the author confuses hot-bulb ignition (a form of ignition with an ignition device) with compression ignition (ignition without an ignition device). Sass says: "The theory 4 that the Akroyd engine has used compression ignition instead of an ignition device is not vindicable".[19]
  • "Akroyd Stuart was a quiet unassuming man who did not seek the limelight" → I doubt that. Akroyd publically complained about the Diesel engine nomenclature and demanded that the Diesel engine be renamed Akroyd engine.[20] That is definitely contradictory to "unassuming man who did not seek the limelight".
  • "So where does this leave Rudolph Diesel, who didn’t even build built his first working engine, albeit one that blew up(…)?" → It was quite normal at the time that engineers didn't build their engines all by themselves. Akroyd also let someone else build his engines. I have already said that there is no evidence for the claim that the ammonia engine blew up. However, Diesel also didn't build the ammonia engine all by himself – he let someone else build it.[21]
  • "[The Diesel engine] was a copy of someone else’s design" → That is a false claim without any evidence.
  • "[The Diesel engine] didn’t run on oil" → The Diesel engine is a multifuel engine and can run on a huge variety of fuels, including fuel oils, petroleum, petrol, gas, etc. – the most economic fuels were shale oils. In the early days of the Diesel engine, steam engines were inefficient, but ran on cheap coal and thus could be more economical to operate than Diesel engines.
  • "[The first Diesel engine] used an ignition cycle quite different from the modern ‘diesel’ engine" → That is not correct, Sass says: "[The first Diesel engine's operating principle] is used by all Diesel engines, albeit that we nowadays see higher pressure figures".[22]
  • "it wasn’t in fact until 1898 that [Diesel] was able to exhibit a successful oil-burning engine at the Paris Exhibition Fair" → The fair was in München, not in Paris.[23]
  • "And [the Diesel engine presented at the "Paris" fair] was a gargantuan vertical monstrosity with a ten-foot (three metre) long cylinder" → Not one, but four engines were presented, of which none had a "three metre long cylinder". In 1898, Langen & Wolf built a Diesel engine under licence, and it looks like this – it is quite obvious that the cylinder is not three metres long. The flywheel has a diameter of 3 metres,[24] and it is significantly larger than the cylinder. The piston also has a stroke of only 0.4 metres,[25] so the cylinder shouldn't be that much longer.
  • "Diesel was an arrogant, self-promoting, person" → There is no evidence for this claim. Neither Sass, nor Sittauer write anything about that.
  • "[Akroyd] built the first ever ‘diesel’ car and the first ever ‘diesel’ locomotive. He supplied the ‘diesel’ engines to illuminate the Statue of Liberty, and also provided the ‘diesel’ engine which generated electricity for Marconi’s landmark radio transmission across the Atlantic Ocean." → Again, there is no evidence for this claim, and I really doubt all of it. One of the two first Diesel cars that have been mass-produced is the Mercedes-Benz W 138;[26] the other is the Hanomag Rekord Diesel.[27] I don't know who built the first Diesel locomotive, but it was Rudolf Diesel who first suggested building one, in 1892.[28]
  • "self-publicising Rudolph Diesel managed to grab the headlines for something he did not invent, but just copied." → Sass says that a "Diesel myth" is "falsification of history".[29]
  • "Modern oil engines use Akroyd Stuart’s method of oil-spray injection with constant volume burning" → No, virtually all internal combustion engines that use fuel oils are Diesel engines.
  • "Diesel’s method of air-blast injection with constant pressure burning" → The Diesel engine does not operate on a constant pressure cycle.[30]
  • "[The Diesel engine] is not the ‘diesel’ engine, it is the Hornsby-Akroyd engine." → no, the Akroyd engine is the Akroyd engine, and the Diesel engine is the Diesel engine. The Akroyd engine has been out of use since the 1960s; the only vehicle that I know of that kept using an Akroyd engine rather than a Diesel engine is the Lanz Bulldog.
  • "There is a rather ironic footnote to the true story of the ‘diesel’ engine. The first two production engines, 101 and 102, worked at the Great Brickhill Water Works until 1923, when No 101 was purchased by a Bletchley timber merchant. In 1939 it was returned to Hornsbys for restoration, and then preserved as a museum piece." → The first production Diesel engine was set up in November 1897 at Aktiengesellschaft Union, Kempten. It was completed in April 1898,[31] and looked very similar to this unit.

I'm pretty sure the author of "The History Press" confuses the Akroyd engine with the Diesel engine. The "The History Press" page seems to attribute the conspiracy theory text to a person called "Keith Ray", but I am not sure whether he has actually written the text. --Johannes (Talk) (Contribs) (Articles) 19:37, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

For the record I have never stated that the Akroid and the diesel operate on the same principal. Akroid relied on a heated surface to vaporize the fuel and compression together with a hot surface to initiate combustion. Brayton on the other hand used a timed injection system to vaporize the fuel, the engine fired on every power stroke and speed was regulated solely by the quantity of fuel injected. Also (presumably because the link I provided refutes diesel's claim to invention) you feel necessary to clutter up the discussion. I'm not denying that the diesel engine is an amazing invention and I don't wish in any way to reduce Diesel's accomplishments. Did he improve the air blast system? yes without a doubt. Buy we can also acknowledge that Brayton was the first to use it. Brayton was the first to develop the constant pressure cycle. Brayton also in 1887 made an engine that used a variable quantity liquid fuel injection system that was essentially the same design that would power diesel engines for many years. If you doubt that Brayton's injection system works please watch take some time to watch a video on youtube where model builder Find Hansen unintentionally made a nearly identical copy of Brayton's 1887 design and uses it on his engines. the title is: Build a true A-Frame Model Diesel Engine The Whole Story and the date is July 2017. @ about 12 minutes into the video he shows the fuel pump and tapered wedge control. @ 22 minutes he shows the injector. If you bother to look at Bryaton's patent drawings and make a comparison (US patent #432,114 of 1890, application filed in 1887) you hopefully will notice this is a nearly identical design. If you are incapable of recognizing this similarity I'm afraid your intelligence may be limited and any further discussion on this matter will likely be an useless waste of time. Imotorhead64 (talk) 01:48, 7 January 2022 (UTC)
Johannes if you like we could have this discussion on my talk page? if you visit you'll see I've already had an extensive discussion about diesel engine history. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Imotorhead64&action=edit&section=7

Imotorhead64 (talk) 04:16, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

I don't doubt that Brayton's injection systems worked, and I am also convinced that Diesel copied Brayton's injection system; after all, this is what Sass describes in his 1962 book: "Der Motor wird in RICHARDs 1892 erschienenem Buch beschrieben, und da DIESEL mit GUSTAVE RICHARD um die Jahreswende 1892/93 korrespondiert hat, wird DIESEL das Buch gekannt haben. So ist es wahrscheinlich, daß DIESEL die Anregung, den Brennstoff durch Druckluft in den Zylinder einzuführen, durch das Studium des Brayton-Motors erhalten hat." The [Brayton] engine is described in Richard's 1892 book, and because Diesel has contacted Richard in late 1892 / early 1893, we can presume that Diesel knew about the book. Therefore, it is likely that Diesel obtained the idea of air-blast injection from studying Brayton's engine. I have now added this to the article.

I know of Brayton's patents, and as far as I'm concerned, he doesn't claim a constant pressure cycle. It is also very unlikely that Brayton's 1890 engine works like a Diesel engine. We can clearly see in Fig 3 of Brayton's July 1890 patent that there is an automatic self-opening valve in the piston, and there are also no sealing elements in the piston or the cylinder walls (i. e. there are no piston rings). Therefore, it is unlikely that there is sufficient compression in the engine. The very low air-blast pressure of 0.4...0.5 MPa is also indicative of this (an engine with high compression requires much a much higher – i.e. >6 MPa – air-blast pressure). The Otto engine should also have – due to its higher compression – a higher efficiency than the Brayton engine. If Brayton had realised the importance of compression, he would have designed his engine accordingly. --Johannes (Talk) (Contribs) (Articles) 15:12, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

Hello Johannes so you did take time to examine Brayton's solid liquid fuel injection system for US patent #432,114 and Brayton's air blast injection systems for US patent #432,260? Thanks for having a look and I assume you also watched the Find Hansen video I suggested that shows a working injection system nearly identical design to Brayton's 1887 engine? I forgot to mention there is also a British patent #6138 which was issued in March of 1894 for an air blast injection engine nearly identical to patent # 432,260.

This is what Brayton says about his 1887 liquid fuel injection system: 

"This organization involves what I believe to bea novel mode of regulating the Speed of engines operated by the explosive combustion of liquid. fuel within the cylinder in that, instead ofregulating an exact supply of air needed with combustible gases to afford a combustible gaseous mixture, or of regulating the supplyup by air to form a gaseous or carbureted mixture afterward fed to the cylinder, or of varying a supply of liquid fuel to hot platesor bodies of metal or stone for converting it into a gaseous combustible condition, I have for the first time, so far as my knowledge extends, regulated speed by Variably controlling: the direct discharge of liquid fuel into the combustion chamber or cylinder in a finely divided condition highly favorable to immediate combustion. mine obviously affords a more prompt, immediate, and direct connection between the controlling-power of the governor and the explosive action, and hence an extra ordinary uniform action on the part of the engine is assured, because for the first time I discharge the liquid fuel for immediate combustion in such variable quantities as are required for maintaining a uniform speed under the variable conditions ordinarily involved in the operation of such engines. "

I believe this was the first engine to operate on the lean burn principal.

With regard to rings and piston sealing when viewing patent #432,114 you should have noticed the drawings clearly show piston rings. Patent #432,260 does not appear to show any ring or other seal in the drawings however I'm sure the intention was to used a ring or some other method of sealing for the piston since earlier versions of Braton's engines all used rings or lip seals. The British patent #6138 appears to show a lip seal likely made from leather since that was also an accepted method for sealing pistons. maybe you can have a look at this picture: https://oldmachinepress.files.wordpress.com/2016/11/brayton-1887-patent-ready-motor-engine.jpg?w=625&h=443

This is what Brayton had to say about compression: 

"so that the piston in moving back toward the firing end of the cylinder compresses said air during about one-half of its stroke; but the efficiency of the engine may be increased, however, by a higher rate of compression, desirable in some cases."

I'm not sure if you caught that Brayton's 4 stroke engines used the principal adopted by Atkinson of overexpansion. In other words, the compression stroke was not equal to the expansion stroke. In his early 2 stroke engines Brayton did this by making the compressor volume about 1/2 that of the expansion cylinder. In his 4 stroke engines he did it by opening the exhaust valve for about 1/2 of the compression stroke. In modern times engineers have revisited the concepts of Brayton, Atkinson, Charron Miller and others who have used these methods to increase efficiency. I's worth noting that Diesel also proposed a compound engine and most people ignore the fact that a large portion of Diesel efficiency isn't so much in the compression being high but in the fact that a high compression ratio automatically results in a high expansion ratio.

I'm also curious which version of Brayton's engines was described in Richard's book? was it the 2 or 4 stroke version? That would be interesting to know. Is it possible to view it or obtain a copy or a scan?

I did find this Austrian book on Brayton from 1874, maybe you would like to read it? https://www.google.com/books/edition/Neueste_Erfindungen_und_Erfahrungen_Auf/hwhAAAAAYAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=Brayton%20ready%20motor&pg=PA102&printsec=frontcover&fbclid=IwAR1fwFTB9CY49urYl42AdOnUO0dilZvCaWPoZKDQ8QM1iMi18_jq2nbz_B8


I think it's worth noting that Brayton was aware of the benefits of raising compression. Here he talks about various methods to ignite the fuel, he states that it's possible to use compression for ignition: 

"These features of my invention are obviously wholly independent of any special form of ignitor for firing the fuel, and any of the well known types of ignitors or “lamps,’ as they are Sometimes termed, Will serve the purpose, pro vided always that they are so organized in connection with the cylinder that air may be compressed within the cylinder, and also of such a character as will insure a successful firing of the sprayed or atomized liquid fuel."

Brayton describes the construction and operation of his injector which he calls a "jet pipe": 

"Fig. 13, includes a small tube p, having at its inner end a conical valve-seat, as at p, a valve-spindle having a tapering head p, which fits said seat, and a comparatively strong spring p, which normally closes the valve. The interior of the tube is of small sectional area, and the spring-spindle carries a guide, loosely occupying said interior and Serving as one abutment for the spring, its other abutment being a shoulder afforded at the contracted end ofthe tube in which the Valve-seat is located. The charges of oil are delivered through this jet-pipe for an engine with, say, a seven-by-ten inch-cylinder range-Say from one-half a drop to five or six drops-and when the oil therein is suddenly subjected to pressure it flies from the valve-seat in a finely-divided condition, so that if a means of ignition be present explosion will follow. The liquid-fuel is driven to the jet-pipe by the forcing-pump G through a small metal tube p, sufficiently flexible to admit of its being conveniently attached to or detached from the jet-pipe by means of suitable couplings."

Thanks for you consideration in these mattersImotorhead64 (talk) 22:55, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

  • This entire section is a ridiculous wall of text, void of paragraph brakes and utterly unreadable. Whatever is being proposed, I'm instinctively going to say nay to simply because I shouldn't have to spend an hour reading this unformatted mess to figure it out. New or not, you must learn to be more concise if you are going to propose a change. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 01:36, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ https://www.eurodiesel.com/blog/diesel-engines/history-diesel-engines-past-present
  2. ^ Friedrich Sass: Geschichte des deutschen Verbrennungsmotorenbaus von 1860 bis 1918, Springer, Berlin/Heidelberg 1962, ISBN 978-3-662-11843-6. p. 518
  3. ^ ASME 1907 page 813
  4. ^ Grenning, Wayne (2015) Flame Ignition Coolsprings Power Museum p. 689
  5. ^ Pischinger R., Klell M., Sams T., "Thermodynamik der Verbrennungskraftmaschine," Springer Wien New York, 3rd edition, Wien, 2009
  6. ^ Sass (1962), p. 407
  7. ^ Sass (1962), pp. 417
  8. ^ Sass (1962), p. 419
  9. ^ Sass (1962), p. 414
  10. ^ Sass (1962), p. 415
  11. ^ Sass (1962), pp. 419
  12. ^ DE 67207 Rudolf Diesel: "Arbeitsverfahren und Ausführungsart für Verbrennungskraftmaschinen" p 4.: "Alle Brennmaterialien in allen Aggregatzuständen sind für Durchführung des Verfahrens brauchbar."
  13. ^ Sass (1962), p. 387
  14. ^ Diesel (1913), p. 13
  15. ^ Sass (1962), p. 405
  16. ^ Sass (1962), pp. 417
  17. ^ Sass (1962), p. 417
  18. ^ Sass (1962), p. 389
  19. ^ Sass (1962), p. 421
  20. ^ Sass (1962), p. 419
  21. ^ Sass (1962), p. 387
  22. ^ Sass (1962), p. 411
  23. ^ Diesel (1913), p. 90
  24. ^ Diesel (1913), p. 76
  25. ^ Diesel (1913), p. 57
  26. ^ Oswald (1979), Deutsche Autos 1920–1945, p. 253
  27. ^ Oswald (1979), Deutsche Autos 1920–1945, p. 135
  28. ^ Diesel (1893), Theorie und Konstruktion eines rationellen Wärmemotors, pp. 89
  29. ^ Sass (1962), p. 518
  30. ^ Sass (1962), p. 411
  31. ^ Diesel (1913), pp. 87 
I understand  Dennis Brown maybe for you it's more important that everything is presented in the approved appropriate format? maybe you're not so concerned with providing factual information? you are not alone. many of the wiki editors have the same mentality. Imotorhead64 (talk) 03:01, 8 January 2022 (UTC)
  • Being a condescending jerk isn't particularly helpful. I'm not being pedantic about formatting, the above text is a bloody mess by anyone's standard. It is a flood of unreadable text. Try again, but without the arrogance this time. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 11:57, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

Arbitrary break

  • Dennis Brown I understand and sincerely apologize for any rudeness. You are right, I was rude and it was and still is a bit of a mess. I went back and tried to clean things up a little bit. Maybe you will find my argument easier to understand now? My frustration is a couple of years ago it took a lot of work to get Brayton's accomplishments included in the history section on this page and they remained for quite sometime until Johannes came along and erased the entire history section and replaced it with his own version which is largely based on a book by Frederic Sass that is only available in the German language. I obviously have no ability to understand the book he is referencing so I must rely on his interpretation. In my discussions with Johannes I can't help but think there is a bit of national pride at stake here that I believe is clouding his ability to look at things objectively. Should there be a requirement to provide sources that are in the same language as the page is written? Or atleast translate the references so those of us who don't speak German can read them? What if I start referencing Chinese papers that refute the history as presented? How is this helpful when the only people who can read this information are Germans? Imotorhead64 (talk) 17:59, 8 January 2022 (UTC)
  • Sources can be in any language, all we care about is that they are reliable, and pass WP:RS. I'm not a diesel expert, although I've pretty well versed in the design and Otto design as well. I've also been here 15 years, have tens of thousands of edits, and as admin, have to help people all the time. Not an "expert", but I have a pretty good idea of what works. Btw, WP:TLDR applies to more than Wikipedia. Too much text means that the majority of people simply aren't going to read it, and it isn't fair to make a large change that way. Honestly, the best way to propose a complicated change is to write the details down offline, refine it (condense the verbiage), then come to the talk page, START the discussion with a short summary of the changes, then provide the detail. It just makes the bigger, complicated issues much easier to understand. Since you need consensus for big changes, you need more than one person to read and understand your ideas.
And use paragraph breaks, please. I can't imagine some poor soul trying to read all this on a cell phone. I'm on a computer, using a huge monitor, and it still makes my eyes bleed. Oh, and if the changes are going to be HUGE, you probably need to break it down into smaller chunks at a time. Otherwise, you will have drive by editors simply revert you, and you don't want to start an edit war. If your goal is to effect major changes, you need some planning and patience.
And thank you for owning up. We can all be rude or blunt sometimes. Including me. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 20:06, 8 January 2022 (UTC)
One other note: I see you've raised other questions below. Do yourself a favor, and stick to one big thing at a time. I say this not to complain, but to help you. You are more likely to get interest in your ideas if they aren't scattered. We call it the KISS principle. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 20:12, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

The history section should be improved by adding the promotions and achievements of Clessi Cummins

Currently there is very little mention about the history of Clessie Cummins and his promotion of the Diesel engine. Cummins was instrumental in bringing the diesel engine to the USA. Cummins is currently the worlds largest supplier of diesel engines. No other man since Rudolph Diesel did more to promote the use of this highly efficient engine. https://www.automotivehalloffame.org/honoree/clessie-l-cummins/

  • In 1930 Cummins installed one of his marine diesel engines in a 1925 Packard. He drove it 792 miles and averaged 26.4 mpg.
  • In 1931 he entered a Cummins powered car in the Idianapolis 500 and placed 12th. The first time a Diesel engine powered car was entered in a race.
  • In 1935 Cummins installed one of his engines in an Auburn passenger car and drove from New York to San Francisco averaging 44 mpg for a cost of just $7.63 The engine was constructed with an aluminum block and head to reduce weight. This was the first time aluminum was used to construct a diesel engine. The engine weighed only 80 lbs. more that the Lycoming gasoline engine it replaced and produced similar power with more torque. https://theoldmotor.com/?p=155357 https://www.hemmings.com/stories/2011/01/11/the-40-mpg-diesel-powered-auburns-of-clessie-cummins
  • By the 1950's 1/2 of the trucks on the road in the USA were powered by Cummins diesel engines.
  • Cummins made numerous improvements and innovations to diesel engines over the years most notably the Cummins pressure timed injection system.

Thoughts? Imotorhead64 (talk) 03:59, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

Additions need proper references that show why these mentions are siginificant and why they should be placed in this particular article. And I doubt that it's possible for these bullet points to be added here. I'm dropping other names as examples: James McKechnie has invented the unit-injector fuel injection in 1910 (Sass, pp. 501), Prosper L'Orange invented the antechamber injection (Sass, p. 610), J. Siegfried Meurer developed the M-System in 1954 – there are so many inventions that improved the Diesel engine, and it seems unjustified to mention all of them, especially if the importance of their impact cannot be derived from the mention itself. For instance: Fuel consumption in miles per gallon certainly isn't a specific (i.e. comparable) figure, it is an absolute figure. If an engine is just small enough, the fuel consumption will also be low, even if the engine is very inefficient. Car fuel consumption also largely depends upon the CdA, so technically, a well-shaped car with an awful engine can still have a low fuel consumption. This basically leaves us with the question what Cummins's figures actually mean and why we would include them in the article. --Johannes (Talk) (Contribs) (Articles) 12:43, 8 January 2022 (UTC)
Johannes I can provide sources to back up the history. Things like: the first diesel powered race care and the first aluminum block and head diesel engine seem worth mentioning. The 1935 Auburn was not by any measure a small car and to achieve an average of fuel economy of 44 mpg, especially in 1935, is a remarkable feat that most anyone can relate to so that seems worth mentioning. Cummins pressure/timed fuel injection system was also a novel way to inject fuel. It does no good to edit the page if you are just going to refute all the changes so I think it's best to discuss it here first. Imotorhead64 (talk) 19:02, 8 January 2022 (UTC)
The sources need to put all of that into context, id est that the sources need to discuss the history of the Diesel engine to a minimum degree. I found a brief overview of the Diesel engine history in Helmut Tschöke, Klaus Mollenhauer, Rudolf Maier (ed.): Handbuch Dieselmotoren, Springer, Wiesbaden 2018; Klaus Mollenhauer mentions all sorts of interesting Diesel engine developements (including those that I have mentioned earlier), but he doesn't talk about Cummins. --Johannes (Talk) (Contribs) (Articles) 21:05, 8 January 2022 (UTC)
The same is true for the aluminium thing: I have a copy of Hans Kremser's 1942 book "Der Aufbau schnellaufender Verbrennungskraftmaschinen für Kraftfahrzeuge und Triebwagen" (Springer, Wien 1942); Kremser describes pistons and aluminium crankcases, cylinder heads, etc. that are made of or contain aluminium, so aluminium definitely hasn't been a novelty in engine manufacturing in the late 1930s. Obviously Diesel engines have to produce more torque for the same power when compared against a similar Otto engine – due to the ignition delay, Diesel engines have an engine speed limit at around 5000…6000/min; now, power is the product of angular velocity and torque, so if the angular velocity is low, the engine needs to produce a lot of torque. Apparently, Cummins's car Diesel engine had a mass of around 400 kg and put out around 60 kW. A contemporary Ford Flathead V8 with the same power weighs only half of that. And as I have mentioned earlier, vehicle mass becomes negligible at a certain point, and that is especially true for older cars with high CdA. If we assume a CdA of 1.5 m², a speed of 108 km/h and a mass of 1800 kg for the Auburn, then it requires 24.8 kW of power because of the drag, and 10.6 kW of power because of the mass. Reducing the mass by 100 kg would reduce the power requirement by about 1 kW. The sum of these two figures is around 35 kW, almost half of what the engine produces. I guess that in 1935 America a constant speed of 108 km/h on the contemporary roads was not possible; so Cummins has definitely chosen an engine way too big for the application, and we can assume that it was nothing more than a marketing campaign. --Johannes (Talk) (Contribs) (Articles) 21:57, 8 January 2022 (UTC)
Johannes
  • yes it's true that many auto manufacturers had used aluminum crankcases since the early days of autos. A few like Rolls Royce Phantom and Marmon V16 had produced monolithic aluminum engines with aluminum cylinders and crankcase cast together. The Cummins engine had both an aluminum head and block which was a novel idea in 1935 diesel or no diesel. Are you aware of an all aluminum automotive diesel engine that was produced before 1935?
  • As to your other comment where you "guess" that a speed of 100 kph is not possible in 1935? where does that come from? By 1935 many American cars could cruise at speeds well over 60-70 mph. A 1930's Duesenberg was capable of over 120 mph and would cruise at 70-80 mph all day long. Auburn, Chord and Duesenberg were all the same company in the 1930's. The stock engine for the Auburn car would have been a 280 ci Lycoming straight engine producing 115 hp. Cummins diesel was 80 hp so slightly less hp but likely produced much higher torque. Why do you say the engine was too big for the car when it looks as if it was just the right size? Yes it was a marketing campaign to save his company. An average fuel economy of 44 mpg for a large American auto in 1935 was truly remarkable economy my 2022 diesel Jeep is lucky to get 26 mpg. I'm stymied as to why you don't think this is worth adding? Imotorhead64 (talk) 02:19, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

I can already see where this is going. Well: I don't know of any all aluminium automotive Diesel engine made in the 1930s. But there is no good reason why anyone would build such an engine – Cummins's engine wasn't leightweight despite being "all aluminium". In head design the gas flow is much more important, albeit that especially at lower engine speeds occuring in Diesels this becomes less and less important, which is why some four stroke Diesels don't have crossflow heads (e.g. Perkins).
The speed is not limited by the car, but by the road. I doubt that 1935 US roads were suited for driving from the East Coast to the West Coast with relative ease at motorway speeds. Even in 2022, a constant motorway speed of >108 km/h is impossible due to speed limits, road works, and so on. That's why I chose 30 m/s as an arbitrary maximum speed for the example. What I was saying is that the car would have possibly needed less than 35 kW of power as its maximum engine power. So one should have designed the engine to achieve its highest fuel efficiency at around 25 kW of power with a reasonably high load. A >60 kW engine will not run at its ideal specific fuel consumption point in a car; so it's too big – this is true for most car engines. A modern bog-standard 2.0 TDI can easily achieve >80 mpg, but if it was a 0.8 TDI, it could go well beyond 100 mpg. However, nobody would buy a car powered by such an engine.
The Jeep is not designed for high fuel efficiency – it has off-road tyres, all-wheel drive and an awful CdA.
High torque results in the engine producing its power sooner, but it doesn't do anything else. --Johannes (Talk) (Contribs) (Articles) 04:07, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

Guess what Johannes you win. I give up! It's clear to me you have no desire to improve this page with anything other than your own contributions. You deleted all the history I had compiled and replaced it with your own German version without consulting. You continue to refute even the smallest of suggestions. You insist that Sass's book is the bible even though it's clearly not 100% accurate about many things including much of the information regarding Brayton. I've read some of your other wiki contributions and IMO there is an obvious desire to credit Germany, and the eastern Europeans with improvements in technology and deny any credit to the USA or Brits or other countries whenever possible. Honestly it's just not worth it. all the best Imotorhead64 (talk) 05:36, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

Recent changes

The edit summary is too small for a reasonable explanation, which is why I explain my ce (Special:Diff/1096448529) here:

  • The diesel engine is a type of compression ignition engine which contrasts engines with ignition devices. The most common ignition device is a spark plug, but not all ice ignition devices are spark plugs. For instance, the Akroyd engine uses a hot bulb – and uncooled portion of the cylinder head – as an igntion device.
  • The "fuel injection thing" has to be "internal mixture formation", because that is what the source describes. "Direct fuel injection" is factually incorrect in this case and leaves too much room for erroneous interpretation; not all diesels are direct-injected, however, in all diesel engines, fuel is injected into the combustion chamber. If the term "combustion chamber" is narrowed down to the smallest possible set of what can be considered a "combustion chamber", then in petrol engines with direct injection, the fuel is typically NOT injected into the combustion chamber. That is because the "combustion chamber" would be formed only at TDC between the piston and the head. However, that is not where fuel is injected into in modern direct-injected petrol engines. They typically operate with an injection scheme that injects the fuel closer to BDC, and a homogeneous mixture is then formed during the compression stroke. The advantage of using internal mixture formation can be viewed from a thermodynamics perspective, where one would inject the fuel within the system boundaries of the cylinder and thus the injection effects the cylinder charge in a "more direct" way.
  • Lack of throttle is no characteristic of a diesel engine. Quality torque control is a characteristic, which means that the amount of torque the engine produces is only effected by the amount of the injected fuel. Throttles however are quite common in a lot of diesel engines. It's just that they are not used for setting the desired amount of torque. The use of the word "power" in this context is also not ideal, because what the fuel added to the combustion chamber does is increase the torque output. This can effect the power output. But it doesn't always have to: Power is the product of the torque and the crankshaft's angular velocity, thus, the power decreases when the engine speed drops, and increases when the engine speed rises. Anecdote: A throttle valve has been a characteristic feature of many Mercedes-Benz diesel engines. In the Unimog 435 there is a dedicated throttle pedal for its throttle valve. It is used as an auxiliary brake that uses the gas resistance in the engine to convert the vehicle's movement energy into thermal energy that can be dissipated using the water cooler.
  • The global λ of diesel engines is (at least in normal production engines) always at λ>1, because the oxygen has to diffuse into the flame, which always requires some extra oxygen. Most publications list the diffusion flame characteristic seperately from the high air-fuel ration characteristic, so should Wikipedia.
  • The mixture formation process of diesel engines is different from the mixture formation process of otto (spark ignition) engines; the density of fuel is not deliberately present around the fuel injector (as is in stratified charge petrol engines). In diesel engines, the fuel undergoes compression igntion at the end of the injection phase while the surface of the fuel droplets vapourise, before a global mixture formation process could "finish". This is why a homogeneous mixture cannot be formed – there is not enough ignition delay in a diesel engine.

Best regards, --Johannes (Talk) (Contribs) (Articles) 14:58, 4 July 2022 (UTC)

Hello Johannes, thank you for your work improving this section, and especially for your detailed explanation of the changes here. Your understanding of these engines is very impressive, so any improvements you can make to my future edits would also be much appreciated.
If I could make one small suggestion, it is that the term "quality" isn't likely to be understood by the average reader, so I think it would be helpful if it could somehow be explained using other terms. Regards, MrsSnoozyTurtle 22:20, 4 July 2022 (UTC)

Two-stroke cycle, Diesel cycle vs diesel-fueled engines

Hello Johannes Maximilian, I seek your knowledge please :) Is there another common name for a Two-stroke diesel engine? Güldner engine, perhaps? (I wonder if it is misleading to call it a "diesel engine", since it is not Rudolf's design and "diesel fuel" historically wasn't standardised). MrsSnoozyTurtle 01:26, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

Hello User:MrsSnoozyTurtle, the Diesel operating principle is not defined by the number of strokes, i.e. it doesn't matter whether a diesel engine is a two-stroke or four-stroke. Hugo Güldner even argues that the therodynamic processes of two- and four-stroke diesel engines are identical (see Güldner 1914, p. 48). Because of Rudolf Diesel's "Journal", we know that on 22 February 1896 Rudolf Diesel, his friend Lucian Vogel, and Ebbs, an engineer of Maschinenfabrik Augsburg, discussed Motor 250/400, and that Ebbs proposed making it a two-stroke motor (see Sass 1962, p. 467). Diesel's own designs clearly indicate that he knew how to design a two-stroke engine, and he had figured by the late 1890s that supercharging had the potential to increase effciency in a two-stroke engine, but Diesel didn't know at the time how to practically build an engine that didn't suffer from huge mechanical losses caused by the supercharger, since supercharging technology was still in its infancy at the time (see Diesel, 1913, p. 67–68). Güldner's first two-stroke diesel engine suffered from a lack of scavenging air, and it only had proper power with an external supercharger that made it impractical (see Sass 1962, p. 504). Sass argues that Diesel first wanted to make a proper, and functional four-stroke engine (see Sass 1962, p. 502). Lauster says that a two-stroke Diesel engine was "not in Diesel's sphere of ideas", i. e. that Diesel didn't want to design such an engine (Sass 1962, p. 502). Güldner first proposed a design for a two-stroke diesel engine in 1898, and he was the first one to realise that the two-stroke principle was well-suited for a diesel engine because of the internal mixture formation, allowing easy scavenging with normal air. At the time Güldner proposed his first design, he had been working on two-stroke engines for about five years (see Sass 1962, p. 502), but it was only in 1903 that Güldner's book on how to design (two-stroke) engines was published (and sadly, I only have a copy of the third edition from 1914); still, this book was, for many years, the only scientific work that discussed two-stroke diesel engine design in sufficient detail (see Sass 1962, p. 505). This is possibly why we can safely assume that Güldner is the inventor of the two-stroke diesel engine; nonetheless, as he says himself, there are no thermodynamic differences in the processes of two- and four-stroke diesel engines (which in reality is only true to a certain, yet reasonably chosen level), so it doesn't really change the fact that the diesel engine was invented by Diesel, hence the term "two-stroke diesel engine". Best regards, --Johannes (Talk) (Contribs) (Articles) 09:10, 24 July 2022 (UTC)
  • Güldner, Hugo (1914). Das Entwerfen und Berechnen der Verbrennungskraftmaschinen und Kraftgas-Anlagen. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer Berlin Heidelberg. doi:10.1007/978-3-662-26508-6. ISBN 978-3-662-24387-9.
  • Sass, Friedrich (1962). Geschichte des Deutschen Verbrennungsmotorenbaues. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer Berlin Heidelberg. doi:10.1007/978-3-662-11842-9. ISBN 978-3-662-11843-6.
  • Diesel, Rudolf (1913). Die Entstehung des Dieselmotors. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer Berlin Heidelberg. doi:10.1007/978-3-642-64948-6. ISBN 978-3-642-64940-0.
Thank you Johannes Maximilian. That wonderfully detailed explanation of yours is very helpful. Regards, MrsSnoozyTurtle 09:28, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

Clatter

Hello User:MrsSnoozyTurtle, is there some literature that indicates that diesel engines are still necessarily noisy? Modern common-rail diesels have continuous injection pressure and super fast piezo-electric valves, which allows injection schemes that were impossible 20 years ago. Modern injections schemes with up to ten injections per power stroke push the combustion towards constant volume combustion and drastically reduce operating noise, even compared to engines from just 20 years ago. I still recall early car common-rail and unit-injector engines (Fiat 1.9 JTD, BMW M57, and VW EA 188 1.9 TDI); these were really loud, and the engine noise became unbearable at around 180 km/h. This is not at all true of modern common-rail engines. Also note that the MWM AKD 112 Z is not a good example for a "modern" direct-injected engine; at the time MWM made these engines, injection pumps were not very precise which resulted in really noisy combustion. But the days of the loud and uncomfortable diesel engine are long gone. Best regards, --Johannes (Talk) (Contribs) (Articles) 09:51, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

Hello Johannes Maximilian. Yes, the modern engines are definitely much quieter. The reason for the unbalanced tag is that I think the word "eliminated" is going a bit too far. I don't have any academic literature to support this (just reviews of modern cars saying thing like "the typical diesel noise at idle is slightly present").
What do you think about changing it to "Through measures such as these, diesel clatter noise is greatly reduced in modern engines"? Regards, MrsSnoozyTurtle 08:10, 25 July 2022 (UTC)
"Greatly reduced" is possibly the best wording in this case. Best regards, --Johannes (Talk) (Contribs) (Articles) 08:13, 25 July 2022 (UTC)
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Diesel_engine/Archive_4&oldid=1255134269"