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The Pros And Cons Of Rudolf Diesel

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In the year 1885 Rudolf Diesel sets up a small shop in Paris to begin developing an engine that would forever change the way we look at transportation. Rudolf was trying to design an engine to run off compression ignition to replace the costly steam locomotive. His research lasted around 13 years before showing a successful test of a slow burning, efficient, compression ignition engine. diesels had his first running engine built on February 17,1897 with an efficiency of 26.7% v.s the steam engine's efficiency at 10%.

Rudolf had paved the path for modern diesel engines, quickly evolving from running on coal dust to having computerized injectors with injection so microscopic water is incapable of traveling through in a little over a century. …show more content…

One pro of diesel engines is also a con. While a diesel engine is an internal combustion engine it fires off of the heat of the engine. The heat is caused from the friction inside the cylinders, this causes the engine to have a little less maintenance and run more efficiently. The con of diesel engines combustion off of cylinder heat is in northern climates it isn't always warm enough for the engine to maintain enough heat to run. They solved this problem in the northern climates by installing glow plugs and block warmers. Glow plugs are used to heat the fuel before it gets injected into the cylinder helping the motor start because the heat needed for combustion isn't used to warm the fuel. Block warmers are a small heater that is placed in a soft plug hole on the side of the engine and helps keep the coolant warm so that the block stays warm while the truck is sitting for a week or a few minutes. Cold weather can cause more then just starting issues for diesel engines it can cause them to just shut off from a lack of fuel, the diesel itself will gel in cold weather and be like a jello like substance and then needs additives added to the fuel to be bring it back to its original

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