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The diesel engine (also known as a compression-ignition or 'CI' engine) is an internal combustion engine in which ignition of the fuel that has been injected into the combustion chamber is initiated by the high temperature which a gas achieves when greatly compressed (adiabatic compression). This contrasts with spark-ignition engines such as a petrol engine (gasoline engine) or gas engine (using a gaseous fuel as opposed to petrol), which use a spark plug to ignite an air-fuel mixture. The diesel engine has the highest thermal efficiency (engine efficiency) of any practical internal or external combustion engine due to its very high compression ratio and inherent lean burn which enables heat dissipation by the excess air. A small efficiency loss is also avoided compared to two-stroke non-direct-injection gasoline engines since unburnt fuel is not present at valve overlap and therefore no fuel goes directly from the intake/injection to the exhaust. Low-speed diesel engines (as used in ships and other applications where overall engine weight is relatively unimportant) can have a thermal efficiency that exceeds 50%.〔(Low Speed Engines Tech Paper ), MAN Diesel〕 Diesel engines are manufactured in two-stroke and four-stroke versions. They were originally used as a more efficient replacement for stationary steam engines. Since the 1910s they have been used in submarines and ships. Use in locomotives, trucks, heavy equipment and electricity generation plants followed later. In the 1930s, they slowly began to be used in a few automobiles. Since the 1970s, the use of diesel engines in larger on-road and off-road vehicles in the USA increased. According to the British Society of Motor Manufacturing and Traders, the EU average for diesel cars accounts for 50% of the total sold, including 70% in France and 38% in the UK. The world's largest diesel engine is currently a Wärtsilä-Sulzer RTA96-C Common Rail marine diesel, which produces a peak power output of at 102 rpm.〔(Wartsila Sulzer ), Common Rail Diesel RT96C.〕 ==History== In 1885, the English inventor Herbert Akroyd Stuart began investigating the possibility of using paraffin oil (very similar to modern-day diesel) for an engine, which unlike petrol would be difficult to vaporise in a carburettor as its volatility is not sufficient to allow this. His hot bulb engines, built from 1891 by Richard Hornsby and Sons, were the first internal combustion engine to use a pressurised fuel injection system. The Hornsby-Akroyd engine used a comparatively low compression ratio, so that the temperature of the air compressed in the combustion chamber at the end of the compression stroke was not high enough to initiate combustion. Combustion instead took place in a separated combustion chamber, the "vaporizer" or "hot bulb" mounted on the cylinder head, into which fuel was sprayed. Self-ignition occurred from contact between the fuel-air mixture and the hot walls of the vaporizer. As the engine's load increased, so did the temperature of the bulb, causing the ignition period to advance; to counteract pre-ignition, water was dripped into the air intake. The modern Diesel engine incorporates the features of direct (airless) injection and compression-ignition. Both ideas were patented by Akroyd Stuart and Charles Richard Binney in May 1890.〔 Another patent was taken out on 8 October 1890, detailing the working of a complete engine—essentially that of a diesel engine—where air and fuel are introduced separately. The difference between the Akroyd engine and the modern Diesel engine was the requirement to supply extra heat to the cylinder to start the engine from cold. By 1892, Akroyd Stuart had produced an updated version of the engine that no longer required the additional heat source, a year before Diesel's engine.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Who invented Diesel Engine? )〕 In 1892, Akroyd Stuart patented a water-jacketed vaporiser to allow compression ratios to be increased. In the same year, Thomas Henry Barton at Hornsbys built a working high-compression version for experimental purposes, whereby the vaporiser was replaced with a cylinder head, therefore not relying on air being preheated, but by combustion through higher compression ratios. It ran for six hours—the first time automatic ignition was produced by compression alone. This was five years before Rudolf Diesel built his well-known high-compression prototype engine in 1897. Rudolf Diesel was, however, subsequently credited with the innovation, and he was able to improve the engine further, whereas Akroyd Stuart stopped development on his engine in 1893. In 1892 Diesel received patents in Germany, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States for "Method of and Apparatus for Converting Heat into Work".〔(METHOD OF AND APPARATUS FOR CONVERTING HEAT INTO WORK ), United States Patent No. 542,846, Filed Aug 26 1892, Issued July 16, 1895, Inventor Rudolf Diesel of Berlin Germany〕 In 1893 he described a "slow-combustion engine" that first compressed air thereby raising its temperature above the igniting-point of the fuel, then gradually introducing fuel while letting the mixture expand "against resistance sufficiently to prevent an essential increase of temperature and pressure", then cutting off fuel and "expanding without transfer of heat". In 1894 and 1895 he filed patents and addenda in various countries for his Diesel engine; the first patents were issued in Spain (No. 16,654), France (No. 243,531) and Belgium (No. 113,139) in December 1894, and in Germany (No. 86,633) in 1895 and the United States (No. 608,845) in 1898.〔(Internal-Combustion Engine ), U. S. Patent number 608845, Filed Jul 15 1895, Issued Aug 9 1898, Inventor RUDOLF DIESEL, Assigned to the Diesel Motor Company of America (New York)〕 He operated his first successful engine in 1897. At Augsburg, on August 10, 1893, Rudolf Diesel's prime model, a single iron cylinder with a flywheel at its base, ran on its own power for the first time. Diesel spent two more years making improvements and in 1896 demonstrated another model with a theoretical efficiency of 75%, in contrast to the 10% efficiency of the steam engine. By 1898, Diesel had become a millionaire. His engines were used to power pipelines, electric and water plants, automobiles and trucks, and marine craft. They were soon to be used in mines, oil fields, factories, and transoceanic shipping. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア(Wikipedia)』 ■ウィキペディアで「Diesel engine」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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