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Basic Diesel engine theory
| Diesel and gasoline engines function on completely different principals. The typical Gasoline engine fills the combustion chamber with a mixture of atomized fuel and air, compresses it, then ignites the mixture with an electric spark. The resulting explosion forced the piston down turning the crankshaft. |
(C) How Stuff Works
| In a Diesel engine atomized fuel and air are compressed at a much higher rate, this compression creates the heat required to ignite the fuel/air mixture and the resulting explosion drives the piston down turning the crankshaft. A gasoline engine is a spark ignition engine, a diesel engine is a compression ignition engine. |
Image courtesy Baris Mengutay
Complete and simple explanations of how stuff works including diesel and gasoline engines and just about anything else can be found at www..howstuffworks.com
| One of the simplest diesel engines is the Russian Diesel Hammer, a diesel pile driver of the most basic design. |
| These large pile drivers are basically a tube closed at both ends which finctions as a combustion chamber, inside this is a large weight which serves as the piston. A cable pulls the piston to the top of the cylinder and drops it (I), as the piston falls to the bottom it compresses the air in the cylinder, just before the bottom it trips a small lever which literally "Pours" diesel fuel into the compressing air (II), the piston continues to fall compressing this mixture until it ignites (III). The resulting explosion drives the piston upward in the cylinder, it passes an exhaust port allowing the burnt mixture to escape (IV), then falls again repeating the cycle. Since every action has an equal and opposite reaction, the same amount of force exerted to drive the piston upward is exerted against the base of the cylinder which is resting against the "Pile" driving it into the earth. |
