Section Contents:- Air-cooled single-cylinder engines built by Lombardini of Italy were used and had some success, achieving similar performance to petrol bikes and fuel usage of nearly 200 miles per gallon.(More...)
- Take diesel-engine technology, throw in a two-stroke cycle and you've got the basis for an enormous amount of power.(More...)
Air-cooled single-cylinder engines built by Lombardini of Italy were used and had some success, achieving similar performance to petrol bikes and fuel usage of nearly 200 miles per gallon. This led to some countries re-fitting their bikes with diesel power.
[1] New, certified diesel-powered light planes are already available, and a number of other companies are also developing new engine and aircraft designs for the purpose. Many of these run on the readily-available jet fuel, or can run on either jet fuel or conventional automotive diesel. To gain the high power-to-weight ratio needed for an aero engine, these new "aero-diesels" are usually two-strokes and some, like the British " Dair " engine, use opposed-action pistons to gain further power.
[1] The engines can work with the full spectrum of crude oil distillates, from compressed natural gas, alcohols, gasoline, to the fuel oils from diesel oil to residual fuels.
[1] The heat for fuel heating is often provided by waste heat recovery boilers located in the exhaust ducting of the engine, which produce the steam required for fuel heating. Companies such as MAN B&W Diesel, (formerly Burmeister & Wain ) and W"rtsil" (which acquired Sulzer Diesel) design such large low speed engines. They are unusually narrow and tall due to the addition of a crosshead bearing.
[1] The engine of the diesel motorcycle is a liquid cooled, single cylinder four-stroke which displaces 584cc and produces 21kW (28 bhp) with a top speed of 85 mph (136km/h).
[1] Early marine diesels often had smaller auxiliary engines whose sole purpose was to drive the compressors to supply air to the main engine's injector system. Such a system was too bulky and inefficient to be used for road-going automotive vehicles.
[1] In the past, a wider variety of cold-start methods were used. Some engines, such as Detroit Diesels and Lister-Petter engines, used a system to introduce small amounts of ether into the inlet manifold to start combustion.
[1] In 2005 the United States Marine Corps adopted the M1030M1, an off-road motorcycle based on the Kawasaki KLR650, and modified it with an engine designed to run on diesel or JP8 jet fuel.
[1] The engine was not really ready for market until 1908, thanks to other people's improvements. This is now displayed in the Anson Engine Museum at Poynton, Cheshire, UK. It is the first in the United States. Rudolf Diesel perfects his compression start engine, patents, and licences it. This engine, pictured above, is in a German museum.
[1] Junkers Jumo 205 " The more successful of the first series of production diesel aircraft engines.
[1] Once warmed up, the operator moved two levers to switch the motor to diesel operation, and work could begin. These engines had very complex cylinder heads, with their own gasoline combustion chambers, and in general were vulnerable to expensive damage if special care was not taken (especially in letting the engine cool before turning it off).
[1] It builds diesel railroad engines"The Pioneer Zephyr "and goes on to found the General Motors Electro-Motive Division, which becomes important building engines for landing craft and tanks in the Second World War. GM then applies this knowledge to market control with its famous Green Leakers for buses and railroad engines.
[1] The most powerful engines in the world are two-cycle diesels of mammoth proportions. These so-called low speed diesels are able to achieve thermal efficiencies approaching fifty percent.
[1] The largest medium speed engines produced today (2007) have outputs up to approximately 22,400 kW (30,000) bhp ). and are supplied by companies like MAN B&W, Wartsila, and Rolls-Royce (acquired Ulstein Bergen Diesel in 1999).
[1] Postwar, another interesting proposal was the complex Napier Nomad. In general, though, the lower power-to-weight ratio of diesels, particularly compared to kerosene -powered turboprop engines, has precluded their use in this application.
[1] The next generation of common rail diesels is expected to use variable injection geometry, which allows the amount of fuel injected to be varied over a wider range, and variable valve timing similar to that on gasoline engines.
[1] Two-stroke diesel operation is similar to that of gasoline counterparts, except that fuel is not mixed with air prior to induction, and the crankcase does not take an active role in the cycle.
[1] As early as 1931, Clessie Cummins installed his diesel in the Cummins "Diesel Special" race car, hitting 162km/h (101mph) at Daytona and 138km/h (86mph) at the Indianapolis 500 race, where Dave Evans became the first driver to complete the Indianapolis 500 without making a single pit stop, completing the full distance on the lead lap and finishing 13th, relying on torque and fuel efficiency to overcome weight and low peak power.
[1] Modern, electronically controlled diesel engines control fuel delivery and limit the maximum rpm by use of an electronic control module (ECM) or electronic control unit (ECU). The ECM/ECU receives an engine speed signal, as well as other operating parameters such as intake manifold pressure and fuel temperature, from a sensor and controls the amount of fuel and start of injection timing through electric or hydraulic actuators to maximize power and efficiency and minimize emissions.
[1] As with gasoline engines, there are two classes of diesel engines in current use: two-stroke and four-stroke. It is also the most commonly used form, being the preferred power source for many motor vehicles, especially buses and trucks. Much larger engines, such as used for railroad locomotion and marine propulsion, are often two-stroke units, offering a more favorable horsepower-to-weight ratio, as well as better fuel economy.
[1] A larger displacement diesel engine is required to produce the same power as a gasoline engine. This is essentially because the diesel must operate at lower engine speeds. Diesel fuel is injected just before ignition, leaving the fuel little time to reach all the oxygen in the cylinder.
[1] The addition of a turbocharger or supercharger to the engine greatly assists in increasing fuel economy and power output, mitigating the fuel-air intake speed limit mentioned above for a given engine displacement. Boost pressures can be higher on diesels than gasoline engines, due to the latter's susceptibility to knock, and the higher compression ratio allows a diesel engine to be more efficient than a comparable spark ignition engine.
[1] From around 1910, manufacturers building diesel engines under patent from MAN began building engines with'solid' injection systems, where fuel is delivered to the cylinder by a high pressure jerk-pump rather than compressed air. This system was invented by Herbert Akroyd Stuart and used on Ruston-built oil engines.
[1] Solid injection systems are lighter, simpler, and allow for much higher speed, and so are universally used for automotive diesel engines. Air-blast systems provide very efficient combustion under low-speed, high-load conditions, especially when running on poor-quality fuels, so some large marine engines use this injection method.
[1] In diesel engines, a mechanical injector system vaporizes the fuel into a pre-combustion chamber (as opposed to a Venturi jet in a carburetor, or a Fuel injector in a fuel injection system vaporizing fuel into the intake manifold or intake runners as in a petrol engine). This forced vaporisation means that less volatile fuels can be used.
[1] Cylinder temperatures are much higher in a diesel engine than a petrol engine allowing less combustible fuels to be used.
[1] Diesel engines accept a cylinder full of air and measure in the right amount of fuel.
[1] Diesel engines use compression ignition, a process by which fuel is injected after the air is compressed and heated in the combustion chamber causing the fuel to self ignite when atomized into the combustion chamber.
[1] The operator then switched off the petrol fuel system and opened the throttle on the diesel injection system. Such systems fell out of favour when electrical glow plug systems proved to be the simplest to operate and produce.
[1] The net outcome of applying gas into diesel is improved fuel economy via better torque at the driving wheels resulting in fewer gear changes, and greatly reduced exhaust emissions.
[1] Fuel consumption was about fifteen to twenty percent lower than indirect injection diesels, which for some buyers was enough to compensate for the extra noise.
[1] The injector valve is forced open by the fuel pressure, and the diesel is injected until the valve rotates out of alignment and the fuel pressure to that injector is cut off.
[1] The 1988 Austin-Rover unit was developed by Perkins Engines of Peterborough, who have designed and built high-speed diesels since the 1930s.
[1] Diesel would achieve much the same thing five years later, claiming the achievement for himself. He is employed by refrigeration genius Carl von Linde, then Munich iron manufacturer MAN AG, and later by the Sulzer engine company of Switzerland. He borrows ideas from them and leaves a legacy with all firms.
[1] Invented in 1892 by German engineer Rudolf Diesel, it was based on the hot bulb engine design and patented on February 23, 1893.
[1] Importantly, Diesel's airblast injection system did not become part of subsequent "diesel" engines.
[1] MAN continued to build engines to Diesel's original design into the 1920s. By this time Robert Bosch had developed the spring-loaded fuel injector, which provided greater accuracy than the simple nozzle of earlier systems.
[1] Petroleum-derived diesel is often called petrodiesel if there is need to distinguish the source of the fuel.
[1] Some smaller military diesels can be started with an explosive cartridge, called a Coffman starter, which provides the extra power required to get the machine turning. In the past, Caterpillar and John Deere used a small gasoline pony motor in their tractors to start the primary diesel motor.
[1] The German " pocket battleships " were the largest diesel warships, but the German torpedo-boats known as E-boats ( Schnellboot ) of the Second World War were also diesel craft. Conventional submarines have used them since before the First World War. It was an advantage of American diesel-electric submarines that they operated a two-stroke cycle as opposed to the four-stroke cycle that other navies used.
[1] In 1998, for the very first time in the history of racing, in the legendary 24 Hours N"rburgring race, a diesel-powered car was the overall winner: the BMW works team 320d, a BMW E36 fitted with modern high-pressure diesel injection technology from Robert Bosch GmbH.
[1] Owing to the high air temperature in the cylinder, ignition instantly occurs, causing a rapid and considerable increase in cylinder temperature and pressure (generating the characteristic Diesel "knock").
[1] Unlike a gasoline engine, which draws an air/fuel mixture into the cylinder during the intake stroke, the diesel aspirates air alone.
[1] Each time the intake valve on a diesel opens, a full charge of cold air enters the cylinder. This cools the cylinder back down.
[1] The largest early diesels resembled the triple-expansion reciprocating engine steam engine, being tens of feet high with vertical cylinders arranged in-line. These early engines ran at very slow speeds" partly due to the limitations of their air-blast injector equipment and partly so they would be compatible with the majority of industrial equipment designed for steam engines; maximum speeds of between 100 and 300 rpm were common.
[1] The desire to improve the diesel engine's power-to-weight ratio produced several novel cylinder arrangements to extract more power from a given capacity.
[1] While it produced large amounts of power and was very efficient, the double-acting diesel engine's main problem was producing a good seal where the piston rod passed through the bottom of the lower combustion chamber to the crosshead bearing.
[1] The flame heated the inlet manifold and when the engine was turned over the flame was drawn into the combustion chamber to start combustion. The most extreme cold-starting system was probably that developed by International Harvester for their WD-40 tractor of the 1930s. This had a 7-litre 4-cylinder engine which ran as a diesel, but was started as a petrol engine.
[1] Many Audi enthusiasts claim that the Audi 100 TDI was the first turbo charged direct injection diesel sold in 1989, but actually it isn't true, as the Fiat Croma TD-i.d. was sold with turbo direct injection in 1986 and two years later Austin Rover Montego.
[1] In 1997 first common rail diesel passenger car was introduced, the Alfa Romeo 156.
[1] On February 17th, Diesel builds his first working prototype, which narrowly avoids a catastrophic explosion in Augsburg.
[1] U.S. Navy submarines use NELSECO units. Rudolf Diesel died mysteriously when he took a ship (SS Dresden) to cross the English Channel.
[1] Development by Cranfield University and California-based Hayes Diversified Technologies led to the production of a diesel powered off road motorbike based on the running gear of a Kawasaki KLR650 petrol-engine trail bike for military use.
[1] In 2006, the JCB Dieselmax broke the diesel land speed record posting an average speed of over 328 mph.
[1] Audi's diesels won again the 2007 24 Hours of Le Mans, against competition coming from the Peugot 908 diesel powered racer.
[1] BMW had already won the 24 Hours N"rburgring overall in 1998 with a 3-series diesel.
[1] By 1896, diesel tractors and locomotives were being built in some quantity in Grantham.
[1] Diesel engines are more efficient than gasoline (petrol) engines of the same power, resulting in lower fuel consumption.
[1] While higher compression ratio is helpful in raising efficiency, diesel engines are much more economical than gasoline (petrol) engines when at low power and at engine idle.
[1] Most diesel engines that power ships like supertankers are built so that the engine can safely use low grade fuels. Normal diesel fuel is more difficult to ignite than gasoline because of its higher flash point, but once burning, a diesel fire can be fierce.
[1] With a traditionally poor power-to-weight ratio, diesel engines are generally unsuited to use in a motorcycle, which requires high power, low weight and rapid acceleration. In the 1980s NATO forces in Europe standardised all their vehicles to diesel power. Some had fleets of motorcycles, and so trials were conducted with diesel engines for these.
[1] Around half of all the cars sold in Europe (where fuel prices are high) are diesel-powered, while practically no North American private cars have diesel engines, because of much lower fuel costs and a poor public image. Besides their use in merchant ships and boats, there is also a naval advantage in the relative safety of diesel fuel, additional to improved range over a gasoline engine.
[1] Diesel fuel is a better lubricant than gasoline so is less harmful to the oil film on piston rings and cylinder bores; it is routine for diesel engines to cover 250,000 miles (400000 km) or more without a rebuild.
[1] In a two-stroke diesel engine, as the cylinder's piston approaches bottom dead center a passage between the air box and the cylinder is opened, permitting air flow into the cylinder. During this time, the exhaust valves are opened and some of the air flow forces the remaining combustion gasses from the cylinder"this is the scavenging process.
[1] More crucially, because only air is inducted into the cylinder in a diesel engine, the compression ratio can be much higher as there is no risk of pre-ignition provided the injection process is accurately timed.
[1] In all major aspects, it holds true to Rudolf Diesel's original design, that of igniting fuel by compression at an extremely high pressure within the cylinder. Nearly all present-day diesel engines use the so-called solid injection system invented by Herbert Akroyd Stuart for his hot bulb engine (a compression-ignition engine that precedes the diesel engine and operates slightly differently).
[1] Diesel's original engine injected fuel with the assistance of compressed air, which atomized the fuel and forced it into the engine through a nozzle (a similar principle to an aerosol spray ). This is called an air-blast injection. The size of the gas compressor needed to power such a system made early diesel engines very heavy and large for their power outputs, and the need to drive a compressor lowered power output even more.
[1] A vital component of all diesel engines is a mechanical or electronic governor, which limits the speed of the engine by controlling the rate of fuel delivery. Unlike Otto-cycle engines, incoming air is not throttled and a diesel engine without a governor can easily overspeed, resulting in its destruction.
[1] Biodiesel is a pure diesel-like fuel refined from vegetable oil and can be used in nearly all diesel engines.
[1] The only limits on the fuels used in diesel engines are the ability of the fuel to flow along the fuel lines and the ability of the fuel to lubricate the injector pump and injectors adequately.
[1] In older diesel engines, a distributor-type injection pump, regulated by the engine, supplies bursts of fuel to injectors which are simply nozzles through which the diesel is sprayed into the engine's combustion chamber.
[1] The increased fuel economy of the diesel engine over the gasoline engine means that the diesel produces less carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) per unit distance.
[1] Advantages of the diesel engine are numerous. It burns considerably less fuel than a gasoline engine performing the same work. It has no ignition system to attend to. It can deliver much more of its rated horsepower on a continuous basis than can a gasoline engine.
[1] WVO " Waste Vegetable Oil" Filtered, alternative fuel for diesel engines.
[1] European governments tend to favor diesel engines in taxation policy because of diesel's superior fuel efficiency.
[1] The five time 24 Hours of Le Mans winner Audi R8 race car was replaced by the Audi R10 in 2006, which is powered by a 650 hp (485 kW) and 1100 N"m (810 lbf"ft) V12 TDI common rail diesel engine, mated to a 5-speed gearbox, instead of the 6 used in the R8, to handle the extra torque produced.
[1] Although diesel fuel will burn in open air, it will not explode unless compressed. Some disadvantages to diesel engines are that they are very heavy for the horsepower they produce due to the required heavy design, and their initial cost is much higher than a comparable gasoline engine.
[1] In India, motorcycles built by Royal Enfield can be bought with 650cc single-cylinder diesel engines based on the similar petrol engines used, due to the fact that diesel is much cheaper than petrol and of more reliable quality. These engines are noisy and unrefined, but very popular due to their reliability and economy.
[1] Rudolf Diesel intended his engine to replace the steam engine as the primary power source for industry. As such, diesel engines in the late 19th and early 20th centuries used the same basic layout and form as industrial steam engines, with long-bore cylinders, external valve gear, cross-head bearings and an open crankshaft connected to a large flywheel.
[1] Recently, Biodiesel from coconut, which can produce a very promising coco methyl esther (CME), has characteristics which enhance lubricity and combustion giving a regular diesel engine without any modification more power, less particulate matter or black smoke, and smoother engine performance.
[1] Particularly in the United States, coming tougher emissions regulations present a considerable challenge to diesel engine manufacturers. Other methods to achieve even more efficient combustion, such as HCCI (homogeneous charge compression ignition) are being studied.
[1] The lack of an electrical ignition system greatly improves the reliability. The high durability of a diesel engine is also due to its overbuilt nature (see above) as well as the diesel's combustion cycle, which creates less-violent changes in pressure when compared to a spark-ignition engine, a benefit that is magnified by the lower rotating speeds in diesels.
[1] Although the weight and lower output of a diesel engine tend to keep them away from automotive racing applications, there are many diesels being raced in classes that call for them, mainly in truck racing and tractor pulling, as well in types of racing where these drawbacks are less severe, such as land speed record racing or endurance racing. Even diesel engined dragsters exist, despite the diesel's drawbacks of weight and low peak rpm, specifications central to performance in this sport.
[1] Older diesel engines with mechanical injection pumps could be inadvertently run in reverse, albeit very inefficiently, as witnessed by massive amounts of soot being ejected from the air intake. This was often a consequence of push starting a vehicle using the wrong gear.
[1] In Spring 2005, Mercedes-Benz unveiled the first application of a mass-produced aluminum block diesel engine for passenger vehicles and commercial use.
[1] The vehicle used "two diesel engines that have a combined total of 1,500 horsepower (1120 kilowatts).
[1] All mechanical-injection diesel engines built from the 1920s onwards used some form of jerk-pump and spring-nozzle injection.
[1] The vast majority of diesel engines in service today use solid injection and the information below relates to that system.
[1] Diesel fuel is a form of light fuel oil, very similar to kerosene, but diesel engines, especially older or simple designs that lack precision electronic injection systems, can run on a wide variety of other fuels.
[1] Diesel engines can operate on a variety of different fuels, depending on configuration, though the eponymous diesel fuel derived from crude oil is most common.
[1] The current model "koda Octavia, using Volkswagen Group engines, has a combined Euro rating of 38 miles per U.S. gallon (6.2L/100km) for the 102 bhp (76kW) petrol engine and 54mpg (4.4L/100km) for the 105bhp (78kW) diesel engine. Such a comparison doesn't take into account that diesel fuel is denser and contains about 15% more energy by volume.
[1] Most diesel engines waste between 30 and 15% of the diesel fuel, so by burning the near total amount of diesel consumed on each stroke, the mechanical effect is to improve the torque curve by as much as 28%.
[1] As mentioned above, diesel engines tend to have more torque at lower engine speeds than gasoline engines.
[1] Citro"n sells more cars with diesel engines than gasoline engines, as the French brands (also Peugeot ) pioneered smoke-less HDI designs with filters.
[1] Where weight is an issue, diesel engines can be more massive than gasoline engines of similar output.
[1] The pony motor heated the diesel to aid in ignition and utilized a small clutch and transmission to actually spin up the diesel engine. Even more unusual was an International Harvester design in which the diesel motor had its own carburetor and ignition system, and started on gasoline.
[1] In cold weather, diesel engines can be difficult to start because the mass of the cylinder block and cylinder head absorb the heat of compression, thus preventing ignition. Spark ignition engines undergo the same problem, though they have the added benefit of a spark plug to help cause ignition.
[1] While Rudolf Diesel is credited with the invention the diesel engine, Herbert Akroyd Stuart and Charles Richard Binney had already patented a compression ignition engine designed to run on coal dust.
[1] Unfortunately, due to the greater compression force required and the increased weight of the stronger components, starting a diesel engine is a harder task.
[1] Because the burned gases are expanded further in a diesel engine cylinder, the exhaust gas is cooler, meaning turbochargers require less cooling, and can be more reliable, than on spark-ignition engines.
[1] Five cylinder diesel engines have also been produced, being a compromise between the smooth running of the six cylinder and the space-efficient dimensions of the four cylinder.
[1] Today (2007), the 14 cylinder W"rtsil"-Sulzer 14RTFLEX96-C turbocharged two-stroke diesel engine built by W"rtsil" licensee Doosan in Korea is the most powerful diesel engine put into service, with a cylinder bore of 960 mm delivering 84.42 MW (114,800 bhp ). It was put into service in September 2006, aboard the world's largest container ship Emma Maersk which belongs to the A.P. Moller-Maersk Group.
[1] Diesel engines for smaller plant machinery, boats, tractors, generators and pumps may be four, three or two cylinder types, with the single cylinder diesel engine remaining for light stationary work.
[1] The fuel is ignited by the heat, causing a rapid expansion of gases that drive the piston downward, supplying power to the crankshaft. In Diesel's manuals, he described the supply of compressed gas into the cylinder to promote the final burn. It is now possible to fumigate the air intake with a small quantity of LPG / CNG.
[1] When comparing engines of relatively low power for the vehicle's weight (such as the 75 hp VW Golf), the diesel's overall energy efficiency advantage is reduced further but still between 10 and 15 percent.
[1] Akroyd-Stuart constructed the first compression-ignition oil engine in Bletchley, England in 1891 and leased the rights to Richard Hornsby & Sons, who by July 1892, five years before Diesel's prototype, had a diesel engine working for Newport Sanitary Authority.
[1] In Canada, Smart Fortwo was first introduced in 2004 with a diesel engine, up until 2008.
[1] Napier Deltic " A high-speed, lightweight (about 4 tons ) diesel engine used in fast naval craft and some railway locomotives.
[1] The archetype of the modern form of the two stroke Diesel is the Detroit Diesel engine, in which the blower pressurizes a chamber in the engine block that is often referred to as the "air box."
[1] Adjusting the numbers to account for the energy density of diesel fuel, one finds the overall energy efficiency of the aforementioned paragraph is still about 20% greater for the diesel version, despite the weight penalty of the diesel engine.
[1] Ford Motor Company tried diesel engines in some passenger cars in the 1980s, but to not much avail.
[1] The BMW diesel lab in Steyr, Austria is led by Ferenc Anisits and develops innovative diesel engines. Mercedes-Benz, offering diesel-powered passenger cars since 1936, has put the emphasis on high performance diesel cars in its newer ranges, as does Volkswagen with its brands.
[1] Some modern diesel engines feature diesel particulate filters, which catch the black soot and when saturated are automatically regenerated by burning the particles. Other problems associated with the exhaust gases (nitrogen oxides, sulfur oxides) can be mitigated with further investment and equipment; some diesel cars now have catalytic converters in the exhaust.
[1] Diesel engines can be of either two(2) stroke cycle or four(4) stroke (Otto) cycle.
[1] Refer to two-stroke Diesel engines for more discussion concerning aspiration issues with a two-stroke engine.
[1] The main reason diesel engines take a long time to warm up in cold weather is the lack of a throttle.
[1] Although the calorific value of the fuel is slightly lower at 45.3 MJ/kg (mega joules per kilogram ) than gasoline at 45.8 MJ/kg, liquid diesel fuel is significantly denser than liquid gasoline. When this is taken into account, diesel fuel has a higher energy density than petrol; this volumetric measure is the main concern of many people, as diesel fuel is sold by volume, not weight, and must be transported and stored in tanks of fixed size.
[1] Diesel fuel is also prone to "waxing" or "gelling" in cold weather, terms for the solidification of diesel oil into a partially crystalline state.
[1] Good-quality diesel fuel can be synthesised from vegetable oil and alcohol.
[1] In 1952, Fred Agabashian in a Cummins diesel won the pole at the Indianapolis 500 race with a turbocharged 6.6 liter diesel car, setting a record for pole position lap speed, 222.108 km/h or 138.010 mph.
[1] The first production turbo diesel car was, in 1978, the 3.0 5-cylinder 115 hp (86kW) Mercedes 300 SD, available only in North America.
[1] The first production diesel cars were the Mercedes-Benz 260D and the Hanomag Rekord, both introduced in 1936.
[1] Whereas a gasoline engine's compression ratio is rarely greater than 11:1 to avoid damaging preignition, a diesel's compression ratio is usually between 16:1 and 25:1. This extremely high level of compression causes the air temperature to increase to 700 to 900 degrees Celsius (1300 to 1650 degrees Fahrenheit ).
[1] In 1931, Dave Evans drove his Cummins Diesel Special to a nonstop finish in the Indianapolis 500, the first time a car had completed the race without a pit stop. That car and a later Cummins Diesel Special are on display at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Hall of Fame Museum.
[2] The first diesel powered flight of a fixed wing aircraft took place on the evening of September 18, 1928, at the Packard Motor Company proving grounds, Utica, Michigan with Captain Lionel M. Woolson and Walter Lees at the controls (the first "official" test flight was taken the next morning).
[2] Biodiesel's complete lack of sulfur and sulfate emissions allows the use of NOx control technologies that cannot be used with conventional diesel, allowing the management and control of nitrous oxide emissions.
[2] In the United Kingdom, Belgium and the Netherlands it is known as red diesel (or gas oil ), and is also used in agricultural vehicles, home heating tanks and refrigeration units on vans/trucks which contain perishable items (e.g. food, medicine).
[2] Biodiesel has a higher gel point than petrodiesel, but is comparable to diesel. This can be overcome by using a biodiesel/petrodiesel blend, or by installing a fuel heater, but this is only necessary during the colder months.
[2] A small fraction of biodiesel can be used as an additive in low-sulfur formulations of diesel to increase the lubricity lost when the sulfur is removed.
[2] Certain kits allow for processing of used vegetable oil that can be run through any conventional diesel motor with modifications.
[2] After purification the Fischer-Tropsch process is used to produce synthetic diesel.
[2] The density of petroleum diesel is about 850 grams per litre whereas petrol (gasoline) has a density of about 720 g/L, about 15% less.
[2] When burnt, diesel typically releases about 40.9 megajoules (MJ) per litre, whereas gasoline releases 34.8 MJ/L, about 15% less.
[2] Reasons for higher priced diesel include the shutdown of some refineries in the Gulf of Mexico, diversion of mass refining capacity to gasoline production, and a recent transfer to ultra-low sulfur diesel (ULSD), which causes infrastructural complications.
[2] In an effort to further demonstrate the potential of diesel power, California-based Gale Banks Engineering designed, built and raced a Cummins-powered pickup at the Bonneville Salt Flats in October 2002. The truck set a top speed of 355 km/h (222 mph) and became the world"s fastest pickup, and almost equally notable, the truck drove to the race towing its own support trailer.
[2] In Germany, diesel fuel is taxed lower than gasoline but the annual vehicle tax is higher for diesel vehicles than for gasoline vehicles. This gives an advantage to vehicles that travel longer distances (which is the case for trucks and utility vehicles) because the annual vehicle tax depends only on engine displacement, not on distance driven.
[2] The use of biodiesel blended diesel fuels in fractions up to 99% result in substantial emission reductions.
[2] Diesel or diesel fuel ( IPA : /"di"z"l/ ) in general is any fuel used in diesel engines. The most common is a specific fractional distillate of petroleum fuel oil, but alternatives that are not derived from petroleum, such as biodiesel, biomass to liquid (BTL) or gas to liquid (GTL) diesel, are increasingly being developed and adopted. To distinguish these types, petroleum-derived diesel is increasingly called petrodiesel.
[2] Petroleum diesel, or petrodiesel is produced from petroleum and is a hydrocarbon mixture, obtained in the fractional distillation of crude oil between 200"C and 350"C at atmospheric pressure.
[2] The cost of diesel traditionally rises during colder months as demand for heating oil, which is refined in much the same way, rises. Due to its higher level of pollutants, diesel must undergo additional filtration which contributes to a sometimes higher cost.
[2] Synthetic diesel oil may be one route to biomass based diesel oil. Such processes are often called Biomass-To-Liquids or BTL.
[2] Synthetic diesel may also be produced out of natural gas in the Gas-to-liquid (GTL) process or out of coal in the Coal-to-liquid ( CTL ) process. Such synthetic diesel has 30% less particulate emissions than conventional diesel (US- California).
[2] In the United States, more stringent emission standards have been adopted with the transition to ULSD starting in 2006 and becoming mandatory on June 1, 2010 (see also diesel exhaust ).
[2] In many parts of the United States and throughout the UK, diesel may be higher priced than petrol.
[2] Diesel combustion exhaust is an important source of atmospheric soot and fine particles, which is a fraction of air pollution implicated in human heart and lung damage.
[2] Diesel exhaust also contains nanoparticles which have been found to damage the cardiovascular system in a mouse model. The study of nanotoxicology is still in its infancy, and the extent of health and societal effects caused by diesel combustion is unknown.
[2] Diesel spills severely reduce tire grip and have been implicated in many accidents. They are especially dangerous for two-wheeled vehicles.
[2] Chemically, most biodiesel consists of alkyl (usually methyl ) esters instead of the alkanes and aromatic hydrocarbons of petroleum derived diesel.
[2] French automaker Peugeot entered the diesel powered Peugeot 908 LMP in the 2007 24 Hours of Le Mans in response to the success of the Audi R10.
[2] Rudolf Diesel originally designed the diesel engine to use vegetable oils as a fuel in order to help support agrarian society and to enable independent craftsmen and artisans to compete with large industry.
[2] Biodiesel-powered diesel engines offer substantially improved emission reductions compared to petro-diesel or gasoline-powered engines, while retaining most of the fuel economy advantages over conventional gasoline-powered automobiles.
[2] Diesel-powered cars generally have a better fuel economy than equivalent gasoline engines and produce less greenhouse gas pollution. Their greater economy is due to the higher energy per-litre content of diesel fuel and the intrinsic efficiency of the diesel engine.
[2] The term DERV (short for "diesel engined road vehicle") is also used in the UK as a synonym for diesel fuel.
[2] Diesel engines are used in cars, trucks, motorcycles, boats and locomotives.
[2] The point at which a diesel vehicle becomes less expensive than a comparable gasoline vehicle is around 20,000 km per year (12,500 miles per year) for an average car.
[2] In India, taxes on diesel fuel are lower than on gasoline as the majority of the transportation that transports grains and other essential commodities across the country runs on diesel.
[2] European emission standards and preferential taxation have forced oil refineries to dramatically reduce the level of sulfur in diesel fuels.
[2] The exhaust emissions of total hydrocarbons (a contributing factor in the localized formation of smog and ozone) are up to 93 percent lower for biodiesel than diesel fuel.
[2] Poor quality, (high sulfur ) diesel fuel has been used as a palladium extraction agent for the liquid-liquid extraction of this metal from nitric acid mixtures. This has been proposed as a means of separating the fission product palladium from PUREX raffinate which comes from used nuclear fuel. In this solvent extraction system the hydrocarbons of the diesel act as the diluent while the di alkyl sulfides act as the extractant. This extraction operates by a solvation mechanism.
[2] The U.S. annual consumption of diesel fuel in 2006 was about 190 billion litres (42 billion imperial gallons or 50 billion U.S. gallons).
[2] Retrieved on 2006 - 10-28." Diesel fuel or kerosene satisfies the dyeing requirement of this paragraph (b) only if the diesel fuel or kerosene contains" (1) The dye Solvent Red 164 (and no other dye) at a concentration spectrally equivalent to at least 3.9 pounds of the solid dye standard Solvent Red 26 per thousand barrels of diesel fuel or kerosene; or (2) Any dye of a type and in a concentration that has been approved by the Commissioner."
[2] Petroleum-derived diesel is composed of about 75% saturated hydrocarbons (primarily paraffins including n, iso, and cycloparaffins ), and 25% aromatic hydrocarbons (including naphthalenes and alkylbenzenes ).
[2] 
Take diesel-engine technology, throw in a two-stroke cycle and you've got the basis for an enormous amount of power. Explore diesel two-stroke engines
diesel two-stroke engines in this HowStuffWorks video.
[3] The rest of the fuel simply produced useless heat. In 1878, Rudolf Diesel was attending the Polytechnic High School of Germany (the equivalent of an engineering college) when he learned about the low efficiency of gasoline and steam engines. This disturbing information inspired him to create an engine with a higher efficiency, and he devoted much of his time to developing a "Combustion Power Engine."
[3] The types of engines you'll learn about in this section include diesel, rotary, HEMI, stirling and quasiturbine, to name a few.
[3] Trains have been around for hundreds of years, but modern trains use a new hybrid technology. Learn how diesel locomotives
diesel locomotives work in this HowStuffWorks original video.
[3] If you haven't already done so, you'll probably want to read How Car Engines Work first, to get a feel for the basics of internal combustion. Hurry back -- in this article, we unlock the secrets of the diesel engine and learn about some new advancements.
[3] 
