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How do diesel engines work?

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bone

bone

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in a regular fuel engine, th!e mixture is sucked (carb) or sprayed (injection) in the cylinder when it's open. it's then compressed, a spark comes and you have the combustion.

in a diesel engine, the compression starts with only air cylinder, and the diesel is injected steadily until the conditions are wright and it explodes.

now, how did this work before they had injection??????

EDIT: read this http://autorepair.about.com/cs/generalinfo/a/aa102001a.htm
 
Diesel works the same as regular fuel but there's no spark. It explodes when compressed enough.
 
I think he knows that, the diesel is still injected in though...I have no idea either on that question...

I thought Diesel always used injection, but was was first? Diesel or petrol?
Because it would be stupid that the first diesels (trains) were already fuelinjected while petrol cars are still carburated.......never even thought about it...good question
 
I thought Diesel always used injection, but was was first? Diesel or petrol?
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Nicholas Otto (of Germany) was the inventor of the gasoline (petrol) engine. His four-stroke prototype first ran in 1876, and he mounted it on a bicycle, which became the Otto-Cycle. He partnered with Eugen Langen to manufacture the Otto-Mobile, which later became "Automobile" in the English language. The company was N.A. Otto & Cie, which is now DEUTZ AG, K?ln, and it's still in business!

Rudolph Diesel (of France), a prominent thermal engineer, proposed the idea that compression could cause combustion and built a model that first operated on August 10, 1893, and it was patented in 1894. It was almost killed when a later prototype exploded. He was also awared the first patent for the "internal combustion engine". It was a phenomenal engine in its day, because they proved an efficiency of 25% which was twice the efficiency of any gasoline (petrol) engine of the time.

The very first Diesel engine prototype didn't have injectors like they have nowdays-- when the piston pulled back, it moved past a hole in the side of the cylinder which allowed oil to enter the cylinder. It worked, but it was very smokey. It wasn't until 1927 when Bosche invented the injector pump, and diesel engines became even more efficient than before.

Of course, it was Henry Ford that invented the concept of "mass production" in 1913 which made cars (and everything else) cheap and available to everyone. The rest is history.

This is all from memory, and I'm not 100% sure this is all correct, but it should be fairly close.
 
it just flowed in through the sides? but there must have been valves, or be 2-stroke...
 
I have heard of that, but the engine burns lots of oil compared to petrol...not sure though..gonna google some more when I have time :)
 
it just flowed in through the sides? but there must have been valves, or be 2-stroke
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The very first Diesel prototype was two-stroke, a proof of concept that compression by itself could combust the oil in the cylinder. Valves were used in subsequent designs for cleaner and more efficient engines.
 
Here's another interesting tidbit. We all know that injecting nitrous oxide will give gasoline (petrol) engines a boost. You use propane with Diesel engines to get the same effect. For example:

http://www.dieselperformanceproducts.com/home.html

A friend of mine has a diesel Ford F-250 truck that will do a 9-second quarter mile on the drag strip, just a little bit slower than my AC Cobra.
 
Err, Rudolf Diesel was German, not French. He had the idea of the Diesel engine while travelling to Africa, when he saw African tribes use pilons in order to burn a mixture and produce fire. He imagined it was a very good way for peasants to use their production wastes as fuel, and created his engine.

A prototype of his Diesel engine ran at the universal exposition in Paris, 1901 (the one where the Eiffel tower was, too - it was supposed to be removed at the end of the expo :mrgreen:), and to prove the point that wastes could be used, this engine ran on peanut oil!

Prior to direct injection, the Diesel used prechambers, which communicated with the combustion chamber. And in these prechambers there were glow plugs in order to warm up the Diesel fuel. But with direct injection glow plugs are not needed anymore, and neither are prechambers.
 
Rudolf Diesel was German, not French
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Perhaps he was German because his parents were from Germany, but he was born in France in 1858, and lived most of his life in France. Does that make him French or German?
 
kanderson said:
A friend of mine has a diesel Ford F-250 truck that will do a 9-second quarter mile on the drag strip, just a little bit slower than my AC Cobra.
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I think I've seen that clip... it had alotvery thick black smoke coming out the exhaust
 
the F250 truck would be such a sleeper... imagine the look on a person with a ferrari's face when he whoops the ferrari's ass off the traffic light :lol:
 
Daniel said:
No matter how fast a Diesel may be, It still is a Diesel, sounds like a Diesel and smells like a Diesel. Petrol all the way.
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!? Depends on what you're doing. I love the smell of a diesel starting up on a cold morning. And if you're towing a trailer a lot, or even just doing a lot of driving, diesel will save you a LOT of money on fuel.
 
Not here you dont. I know that Diesel can be a good thing in bigger cars like vans etc, but why the hell put one in your Golf? The engine costs more, so it will take a long while for you to save enough money for it to become valuable. I still think its a step backwards. Im young, maybe naive too. But I love it. :mrgreen:
 
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