Liquid Fuels for Internal-combustion Engines: A Practical Treatise for Engineers and Chemists

Abstract

THE rapid development of the internal-combustion enginfc has considerably changed our methods of power production, and liquid fuels for such engines being the, most recent development, it is not surprising that their scientific study is still incomplete in respect to this method of application. The author considers it likely that the employment of liquid fuels for steam raising will entirely give place to their use in internal-combustion engines. Referring to the use of engines of the Diesel type for propelling ships, the author says that this is at present prevented through insufficient experience in building engines of very large size and of building them of low weight in proportion to the power they develop, but these difficulties, he says, are by no means insurmountable. Inexperience will be a vanishing factor, but the weight is by no means a factor to be easily overcome, being dependent on the high initial working pressures these engines require. Few engineers would care to predict the displacement of the steam turbine by Diesel engines for the high power demanded in modern battleships of even moderate size. Indeed, on the American coast there have been already cases where Diesel engines have been displaced by steam.