History
Rudolf Diesel was born in Paris in 1858 into a family of German expatriates. He was educated at Munich Polytechnic. After graduation he was employed as a refrigerator engineer, but his true love lay in engine design. Diesel designed many heat engines, including a solar-powered air engine. In 1892 he received patents in Germany, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and filed in the United States for "Method of and Apparatus for Converting Heat into Work". 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. He operated his first successful engine in 1897.
Though best known for his invention of the pressure-ignited heat engine that bears his name, Rudolf Diesel was also a well-respected thermal engineer and a social theorist. Diesel's inventions have three points in common: they relate to heat transfer by natural physical processes or laws; they involve markedly creative mechanical design; and they were initially motivated by the inventor's concept of sociological needs. Rudolf Diesel originally conceived the diesel engine to enable independent craftsmen and artisans to compete with industry.
At Augsburg, on August 10, 1893, Rudolf Diesel's prime model, a single 10-foot (3.0 m) 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.
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