Rudolf Diesel - Without a spark, a flame will ignite!
"The automobile engine will appear, and then I will be able to say that my life's work is completed."
Rudolf Diesel
Rudolf Diesel
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Europe, late 19th century. The so-called First Industrial Revolution is coming to an end, marking the beginning of an era of rapid development of the weaving industry and industrial production of cast iron and steel, based on the transition from manual labor to mechanical labor, which required completely new engineering solutions, which were then steam engines. These machines simply gave a boost to the European economy like a springboard. It was difficult to find any industry at that time without the use of these units.
Coal mine steam engine (1887), two-cylinder compound engine with horizontal cylinder arrangement. The dimensions, as well as the year of manufacture, are impressive!
The development of technical progress at that time was so rapid that what was considered something absolutely new and innovative yesterday became commonplace and well-known today, and tomorrow again required new discoveries, for the implementation of which new ones were born. historical geniuses.
So, in 1858, on March 18, at a time when these future technical geniuses, such as Nikolaus Otto, Karl Benz, Gottlieb Daimler and Wilhelm Maybach, had already finished their studies and started their working careers, in the city of Paris, in a family of immigrants from Bavaria, bearing the surname Diesel, a boy was born, Rudolf Christian Karl. It was this boy who was destined to make his unusually significant contribution to the technical development of the coming XNUMXth century.
There was absolutely no talk of any continuity of generations or a family engineering and technical dynasty. The boy's father, Theodore, was a qualified bookbinder by education, but worked, to put it mildly, not quite in his specialty - he sewed all kinds of leather goods. His mother, Eliza, was the daughter of a Nuremberg haberdasher and was a housewife, a common occupation for married women of that time.
Rudolf was the second child in the family and, apparently, since the parents were barely making ends meet and, probably, the survival of the baby was at stake, he was given to a French farming family, where he lived for the first nine months of his life. The elder Diesel's tannery business practically did not provide for the financial needs of the family, in which after the birth of Rudolf another, third child was born.
The father of the family was deeply in debt, so when young Rudolf grew up a little, he was immediately employed as an apprentice in the family business, which was on its last legs.
Despite this, the boy was still sent to school, where he unexpectedly demonstrated very good progress and showed interest in the basics of technical and natural sciences. As a result, twelve-year-old Rudolf was awarded a bronze medal for his academic achievements.
Rudolf Diesel is 12 years old
In the future, the guy could clearly get a decent technical education, but the Franco-Prussian War began, and the Diesel family left France in 1870 and moved to London.
Somehow it happened that the boy again became "superfluous" in the family, and twelve-year-old Rudolf was sent to relatives in Germany, in Augsburg. And there, indeed, "every cloud has a silver lining."
His uncle, Christoph Barnickel, was a professor at the Augsburg Royal Regional Vocational School (Königliche Kreis-Gewerbeschule), where, logically, Rudolf, who, while speaking French, also spoke fluent German, entered.
The young man clearly enjoyed his studies, and at the age of 14 he made a firm decision to obtain the title of "mechanical engineer", which he proudly informed his parents about. In 1873, Rudolf graduated with honors and immediately entered the industrial school, which had recently opened in the same building, the predecessor of the University of Augsburg (Hochschule Augsburg).
Caption: Augsburg. Regional Real and Industrial School. Nalstrasse. (Snapshot)
In 1875, he completed his studies with flying colors and immediately entered the Polytechnic School (Polytechnischen Schule), later renamed the Royal Bavarian Technical Higher School of Munich (Königlich Bayerische Technische Hochschule München), where he was awarded a scholarship, which speaks of his very high level of knowledge and, again, hard work. It seems that for young Diesel, studying was simply a pleasure, and he studied easily and passionately. In 1880, he graduated with the best grades in his certificate in the entire previous history of the educational institution!
Rudolf Diesel - engineer, leader, inventor
Even before receiving his diploma, fate brought Rudolf together with the engineer, inventor and industrialist Carl Linde (Carl Paul Gottfried Linde), the founder of the current international corporation Linde plc. In 1871-1873, Linde developed a refrigeration machine that produced ice for breweries, making it possible to produce beer at any time of year. It was this invention that formed the basis of modern refrigeration systems.
And how interestingly the fate of the young qualified engineer developed - he again found himself where he was born, in Paris, at the ice factory of the Linde'schen Eisfabrik company.
Just a year later, Diesel was appointed director of this enterprise, and in the same year of 1881, he registered his first patent for the process of producing transparent ice in bottles.
In 1883, Diesel built a production line producing this purest ice for the factory he ran.
Today it sounds simply amazing, Diesel and ice...
25-year-old Diesel, director of an ice factory, 1883
Rudolf himself was not, as they would say today, a "frozen nerd", fixated only on studies and work. In May 1883, Diesel married Martha Flasche, the daughter of a notary, whom he had met in Paris the year before. The wedding took place in Munich. Rudolf and Martha subsequently had three children: two sons and a daughter.
Rudolf Diesel with his wife Martha, sons Rudolf, Eugen and daughter Hedwig. Photographed in 1894
In February 1890, Carl Linde offered the promising engineer a job in Berlin, and Diesel returned to Germany, where he was elected to the board of directors of the newly founded "Joint Stock Company for Trade and Refrigeration Shops" (Aktiengesellschaft für Markt- und Kühlhallen).
But Diesel, ever since his time as a student in Munich, had a dream. Listening to lectures on thermodynamics, the student Diesel was literally amazed by the information about the operating principle of steam engines, the pinnacle of engineering thought at that time, and the theory of the French physicist Sadi Carnot (Nicolaus Leonard Sadi Carnot).
Already at that time, he decided that, based on the so-called Carnot cycle, it would be possible to achieve much higher efficiency than steam engines, but this would require an engineering breakthrough in the world of new motors.
It was then that Rudolf Diesel made a note in his notebook:
"To study whether it is possible to implement the isotherm (Carnot cycle) in practice" - that is, by compressing the gas in a cylinder, to create an extremely high pressure that will cause the gas-fuel mixture to ignite.
It was in 1878 year.
So, without interrupting his main work activity, Diesel constantly worked on his long-standing idea of creating an alternative to the steam engine, which he brilliantly implemented 19 years after he made this recording.
In the meantime, let's go through the events in chronological order.
On February 27, 1892, engineer Rudolf Diesel, already working in Augsburg, filed an application for a patent for "Working process and design of internal combustion engines." On February 23, 1893, the Imperial Patent Office in Berlin notarized the engineer's patent under number 67207.
This day is now considered the beginning of the era of diesel engines.
Patent number 67207: "Working process and design of internal combustion engines"
Apparently, Diesel was so carried away by the realization of his dream that he did not pay attention to the relatively vague wording of the patented idea, which would later become one of the factors in the tragic ending of his life.
And at the same time, in foggy England, a certain Herbert Stuart (Herbert Akroyd Stuart), a self-taught experimenter, lived and worked.
In 1886, Stewart registered his first two patents, and in 1890, two more, based on the idea of creating an engine with a cylinder head in which the compressed combustible mixture ignites. Attention, two years before Diesel!
Herbert Akroyd Stuart (1864-1927). After his death, all documents relating to his work in the field of engine building were destroyed...
In addition, by the time Diesel's patent was registered, Stewart had managed to assemble several experimental models of his engines. Subsequently, the engineering company Richard Hornsby & Sons "took over these patents" (this was a quote), as well as further development, production and sale of the engine under the name Hornsby-Akroyd.
This monster is the Hornsby-Akroyd-Motor, manufactured in 1893.
Although this bulky unit was simple and relatively reliable, it produced a low number of revolutions per minute and, even for that time, was quite low-power, and before starting it required preliminary heating, which took several minutes.
But let's return to our Rudolf, engineer Diesel.
And he, carried away by the idea of creating a miracle engine, feverishly searched for someone who could provide him with financial support, since he clearly understood that any brilliant idea could not be brought to life without start-up capital and a technical base.
In 1893, Julius Springler's publishing house published Diesel's book: "Theory and design of a rational heat engine as a replacement for steam engines and the internal combustion engines known today", which attracted the interest of Heinrich von Buz, the general director of the machine factory in Augsburg, a company that later, in 1908, received the name we know today MAN AG (Maschinenfabrik Augsburg-Nürnberg AG).
This enterprise belonged to the company Friedrich Krupp, and as a result, Rudolf Diesel again found himself in the city where he had once begun his technical training.
Machine building plant in Augsburg in 1890
So, farewell, Herr Linde, refrigeration machines and the ice they produce...
In his book, Diesel pondered how to create an alternative technology to the woefully inefficient steam engines and early internal combustion engines, which, along with their low efficiency (6–10%), also “polluted and smoked our cities,” as Rudolph himself wrote.
By the way, the academic community in Germany harshly criticized Diesel's ideas, apparently considering them unrealistic.
"The idea is utopian, no material can withstand the required high pressure, the engine proposed for development will not be able to work, Diesel is a dreamer, divorced from reality!" - this is just one of the statements of opponents.
And suddenly, on Diesel's side were... horses, or rather, the use of horses as traction force.
Everyone knows that one horse is equivalent to only one conventional "hp", but not everyone knows that one horse "produces" about 15 kg of manure and 4 liters of urine during the day. At that time, 500 horses were used daily in a city with a population of 000 people, which left 100 tons of manure and 000 cubic meters of foul-smelling liquid on the streets per day. This is where a powerful, compact, reliable and accessible engine that could replace a horse would be very useful, compared to one "hp".
Having established contact with von Butz, who clearly sensed the potential of the young engineer's idea, and having secured financial support from Friedrich Krupp, Rudolf Diesel literally plunged headlong into developing the engine of his dreams.
Diesel used oil as fuel in his first experiments, but it did not ignite. He then switched to gasoline in an attempt to achieve compression ignition.
The fuel was atomized by a modified carburetor, and the fuel-air mixture was blown into the combustion chamber under high pressure. A complex and fragile compressor, the so-called "blower machine", was used to create the injection pressure. One of the problems was that the mixture could not be allowed to get too hot, otherwise the gasoline would ignite in the fuel supply pipe, which, unfortunately, happened all the time.
Then Diesel tried to use the "fuel compaction" scheme. The mixture was compressed and cooled in several stages. But as a result of these manipulations, it became extremely fat and also did not ignite in the air compressed by the piston. It was some kind of vicious circle...
But Rudolf was stubborn. It is written that before Thomas Edison's light bulb lit up, he made a thousand unsuccessful attempts. It is not known how many times Diesel failed, but on August 10, 1893, his engine ignited for the first time.
How and where fate leads a person. Two geniuses met, Rudolf Diesel and Thomas Edison. Photo from 1912, Diesel will pass away a year and nine months later.
The engine piston started moving, the fuel pump started injecting fuel into the hot compression air of the cylinder, the people froze in anticipation. And then it exploded! There was an explosion, similar to a cannon shot. Parts of the unit flew apart like fragments of an exploding shell, but overall the engine survived!
Rudolf Diesel deliberately designed the engine with a significant reserve of mass and strength, similar to artillery a tool from the Krupp company.
What fuel Diesel used that day is anyone's guess, but his early engines could run on mineral or vegetable oil, as well as gasoline and ligroin.
With that same roaring explosion, the engine confirmed that compression ignition was possible. Rudolf was happy, and fortunately no one else present was hurt.
This was the first victory, and on February 17, 1894, the engine truly started working on its own for the first time. But it took another three years to, as they say, “bring it to mind.”
The first working Diesel engine with an efficiency of 16,6%. Photo from 1895.
Over the years, a whole series of increasingly successful models have been created.
On February 17, 1897, Rudolf Diesel proudly demonstrated the finally "finished", truly working prototype of the engine, the creation of which he had dreamed of since his student years. The engine developed a power of 19 hp with an efficiency of 26,2%, unattainable at that time for steam and gasoline engines!
The engine was born in 1897. This is confirmed by the inscription on the cylinder casing.
The culmination of the process of “finishing it to perfection” was the demonstration in 1897 of a 25-horsepower four-stroke engine with one vertical cylinder, which can still be seen today in the German Technical Museum in Munich.
The management of the MAN concern was right to place its bets on the engineer Diesel and involve the entire machine-building plant in Augsburg in implementing his ideas. The ultimate goal of this support was the future establishment of serial production of diesel engines for trucks, which replaced thousands of heavy-duty horses on the streets of German cities and villages. In this way, the MAN company made a decisive contribution to the final success of Rudolf Diesel's project, and as a result, a truly fully suitable unit for mass production and operation was created.
At the World Exhibition in Paris in 1900, Rudolf Diesel's engine was awarded first prize, and from that moment on, the triumphant march of diesel engines around the world began.
German Pavilion at the Paris World's Fair of 1900
Having finally and successfully completed the tests of his engine, which was put into serial production, and having concluded several lucrative contracts with the consortium Maschinenfabrik Augsburg – Krupp, Diesel became considerably richer, his fortune reached several million marks, which allowed his family to change their social status. They bought a luxurious villa in Munich, in the prestigious residential area of Munich-Bogenhausen, at the address Maria-Theresia-Str. 32. This purchase cost Diesel 1 million marks! But it was worth it, and the city elite of Munich recognized the famous engineer as one of their own.
The villa where the Diesel family lived. Photo from 2011
Diesel's fame and popularity are fueled by the press; his name and articles about his inventions are regularly published in popular newspapers.
The only thing left to do was to give the dream engine its own name. This was probably really important at the time. And if Daimler cars were called Mercedes, then Diesel's engine needed something similar.
In fact, the name of the unit, "Rational Compression Ignition Heat Engine," was quite long and complicated and clearly required replacement with something else. They write that Diesel was thinking about the names "Delta" or "Beta." And then his wife Marta, without further ado and without a sense of false modesty, suggested calling the engine simply "Diesel."
The first mass-produced diesel engines were simple and efficient, which contributed to their widespread demand. Engineers specializing in mechanical engineering and engine operation came to Germany from all over the world to get an idea of the wonder engines with the previously unknown name "Diesel".
The beginning of the disaster
It would seem that the goal has been achieved, engine production has been established, money, fame, name, what else can one dream of?
But the last four years before the triumphant success of 1897 and the first lucrative licensing agreements, Rudolf Diesel worked himself to the point of exhaustion, subjecting himself to constant physical and mental overload that lasted for years. Countless failures in the development and testing of engines, constant vicious attacks from critics in connection with his main patent DRP 67207, the patent disputes associated with it, uncertainty about how the international business in the field of as yet uncreated engines would develop, and the associated constant uncertainty about the financial security of his family, turned Diesel literally into an "inflamed nerve".
Forty years later, his son Eugen wrote that in the “fateful year 1898” he (Diesel) himself was afraid that he would “fall into a mental breakdown or even die.” Despite this, Rudolf Diesel conducted numerous negotiations between mid-1897 and September 1898 and concluded 14 license agreements himself, i.e. without the participation of Maschinenfabrik Augsburg and Krupp.
On June 16, 1898, Diesel wrote to Fried Krupp that he was no longer strong enough to manage the company properly on his own and that he wanted to create a new holding company. One of the main reasons for this idea could have been the hope that he would be freed from organizational and accounting-financial responsibility, or perhaps he simply wanted to find peace for a while, receiving a steady income from the sold licenses, in order to then devote himself entirely to inventive activity. Who knows...
One way or another, from now on the newly created holding company had to conduct all further negotiations on licensing.
And already on September 17, 1898, a company was founded under the name "Allgemeine Gesellschaft für Dieselmotoren AG" in Augsburg. The management included Heinrich Butz (Maschinenfabrik Augsburg), Fried Krupp (Fried Krupp, Essen), Berthold Bing (head of the Russian company producing diesel engines in Nuremberg), three large German banks and several financial experts. Diesel himself became a member of the supervisory board.
At the same time, a purchase and sale agreement was concluded between Diesel and "Allgemeine", whose authorized capital amounted to 3,5 million marks. Diesel was to receive this amount in cash as a one-time payment for all his investments in the new company.
Diesel invested almost everything he had in this holding: all his shares in diesel engine manufacturers, his personal shareholdings and the still existing patent rights to the diesel engine, and finally also his Munich engineering office, which moved to Augsburg, but which he retained control of. Diesel also signed a contract for the gratuitous transfer of the rights to all future improved engines and his further inventions and patents to the "Allgemeine".
In the end, he received 1,1 million in cash and shares worth 2 marks.
"Allgemeine" was not a manufacturing company and did not sell diesel engines; the holding served exclusively to acquire and use the rights of Rudolf Diesel.
Before this deal, Diesel was very well off financially, thanks to the income from the licenses for the production of his engines. As an example, in the same 1898, under Diesel's license, the Diesel Motor Company of America began producing the first diesel engines in the United States of America.
From the moment the contract with Allgemeine was signed, he lost his regular income from the production and sale of diesel engines, which was the main reason for his subsequent financial collapse.
It was never possible to fully find out why he agreed to such conditions.
Perhaps it was a nervous breakdown that prevented him from assessing the situation soberly. Or perhaps it was at that moment that someone gave him “good advice.”
One way or another, but the engineer-inventor and creator Diesel, after founding the “Allgemeine”, suddenly lost his influence on everything related to diesel engines.
His son Eugen later wrote: "For him (Diesel) it was almost a mortal wound."
Just a few weeks after the founding of the "Allgemeine", in the autumn of 1898, the clearly mentally ill inventor was admitted to the Neuwittelsbach Clinic in Munich-Neuhausen for inpatient treatment.
Historical photo of the Neuwittelsbach clinic, later a spa. During World War II the building complex was completely destroyed and never rebuilt.
Diesel remained under treatment until the end of January 1899. After that, on the urgent advice of doctors, he spent another two months in a sanatorium near Meran in South Tyrol.
Thus, for a considerable period of time, when technical problems with the first series of diesel engines sold began to accumulate rapidly and required emergency measures, Diesel was practically isolated and could not influence the negative development of events.
Returning to Munich, Diesel realized that, despite the fact that he had the status of a shareholder at that time and was a member of the Supervisory Board of the "Allgemeine", his influence and control over the holding's activities had been completely lost. In addition to this, people had appeared in the company who were clearly against him, so that Diesel lost access to the work of his life, the further development of the idea of "Diesel Engines".
Trouble... and new projects
Well, and then, as they say, “when trouble comes, open the gates”...
As the English economist and journalist Tim Harford wrote:
"Unfortunately for Rudolf, the early diesel engines were more efficient than reliable. He faced a constant stream of refund requests from dissatisfied customers. This put the inventor in a financial hole from which he could not escape."
On the other hand, Diesel was still plagued by legal problems based on the fact that he was not the inventor of the diesel engine that was being distributed around the world. And this problem was that the technology developed by MAN no longer corresponded to his 1892 patent, which was interpreted as just a “sketch of ideas”.
20-horsepower diesel engine from MAN, manufactured in the autumn of 1899
The final, repeatedly tested and mass-produced engine model no longer met the specifications he had patented several years earlier. Immediately, many applicants appeared who wanted to obtain patents for Diesel's already produced engine.
These included the English (remember the firm Richard Hornsby & Sons), the French, and the Deutz gas engine factory, which had been producing Otto's four-stroke engines since the 1870s. Many years, practically until the end of his life, were spent settling patent disputes, and with the years, Diesel's money and health, both physical and mental, were gone.
It got to the point that, in order to settle a patent dispute with Gas-Motoren-Fabrik Deutz, Diesel was forced to pay a license fee for his own invention!
In 1903, Diesel published the book "Solidarism: The Economic Salvation of Man" in a print run of 10 copies. He was sure that the entire print run would be sold out immediately, since the author's name was widely known not only in Europe but also beyond its borders, and the social topics covered in the book were quite progressive at the time. He invested three years of his life and a decent amount of money into this work, which was supposed to pay off handsomely, but here too, Diesel the writer suffered a fiasco - only 000 copies were sold, and some were simply given away.
The very book that cost Diesel three years of his life and a decent fortune
At one time, Diesel bought several oil wells near Lviv, considering it a very profitable investment, but, as it later turned out, it was practically a waste of money, as was his attempt to conduct real estate transactions in Munich and its environs.
His shares in the holding company Allgemeine Gesellschaft für Dieselmotoren AG, founded in 1898, into which he had sunk virtually his entire fortune and on which he had relied for a significant increase in value, have fallen sharply in price.
In addition, Diesel himself created a legally protected financial trap. Having signed a contract with "Allgemeine" at the peak of his popularity and financial freedom and transferred the rights to his patents to it, he renounced the right to invent and design engines of the next generation for a period until 1907 and 1908.
Other manufacturers, having received through the “Allgemeine” for licensed use the patents for the engines they had invented, received a solid profit every day.
Diesel could only watch this and wait for the end date of the enslaving agreement. That is, as an engine engineer, he was effectively doomed to inaction during this period.
Ultimately, this turned into a real financial nightmare for Rudolf Diesel. Several attempts to remedy this situation, including lawsuits, failed, and this again cost him a significant amount of money and in the long term physically and mentally exhausted him.
And on top of all this there is also such an everyday “trifle” as the pompous villa of the Diesel family, with land, gardens and gardeners, furniture, servants and other insignificant expenses for the maintenance of all this luxury.
But the ambitious Rudolf Diesel, despite all the failures and truly undermined health, did not want to give up and tried in every way to restore his financial position, which just a few years ago seemed absolutely unshakable.
Watching how the diesel engine becomes more and more popular and more powerful and reliable, already without his, Rudolf Diesel's, participation, and how diesel engine manufacturers increase sales volumes and profits, he grabs hold of many different plans and projects.
Thus, in 1906, he signed a contract with the Swiss company Gebrüder Sulzer to design and develop a diesel locomotive, the drive wheels of which were to be driven directly, i.e. without an intermediate gearbox, by a two-stroke Sulzer diesel engine with a capacity of 1200 hp. But this took time, and as we know, time is money. Diesel no longer had either one.
The work dragged on until the spring of 1913, until the test runs proved to be quite successful, and the first “real” small diesel locomotive finally appeared only in 1925, and even then it was made by the Germans, by the Deutz company.
That is, as a result, this project also “stalled”, and there could be no talk of any “quick money”.
At the same time, Diesel returned to his idea of creating a compact “oil engine for cars”, which he had been nurturing since 1897.
Since 1905, his family owned their first vehicle, a seven-seater AEG NAG car with a power output of 20 to 24 hp.
Rudolf Diesel's laboratory car. He is on the right. Photo from 1906.
In addition to being used for its intended purpose, the car also served as a "working model". Diesel experimented with the vehicle, considering the possibility of developing a compact diesel engine later and to study the requirements for a future diesel car in everyday road traffic.
In doing so, he attempted to solve the problem of fuel injection using compressed air, similar to large stationary diesel engines, which for small-sized automobile engines was technically very difficult and, as a result, expensive.
Despite the forced creative pause, in mid-January 1905 he filed a patent application for a “Method for direct injection of liquid fuel into internal combustion engines.” And in order to avoid negative legal consequences, he did so under the pseudonym Oscar Lintz.
Unfortunately, Diesel was ahead of his time, and no manufacturer was interested in his idea...
But Diesel did not give up, and immediately after the expiration of the contract on refusal to develop new engines, he opened a design office, having sacrificed an entire floor of his villa for this purpose. Also, being confident in the success of his project, in order to be able to sell new compact engines in the future, which would certainly be in demand, Diesel founded his own company Diesel & Co. Munich.
This was the last company founded by Diesel. Today, no one knows how long the company lasted or whether there was anyone else on its board besides Diesel himself.
But let's go back to the 1900s. Trying to organize the production of automobile diesel engines, Diesel rushes between Switzerland, where he has contacts with the company Gebrüder Sulzer, and Germany. But the Swiss from Sulzer showed a complete lack of interest in the production and sale of some "useless" small diesel engines and transferred the license for their production to their fellow countrymen, the car manufacturer SAFIR (Schweizerische Automobil-Fabrik Rheineck), a company founded only in 1906, and which, in turn, acquired the rights to produce commercial and passenger cars from the company Adolph Saurer.
However, just two years after its founding, SAFIR went bankrupt and sold its entire automotive division to Maschinenfabrik Aktiengesellschaft St. Georgen in Zurich.
It was at Maschinenfabrik Aktiengesellschaft St. Georgen that the small, single-cylinder, 5 hp diesel engines designed by Diesel and his team were created.
This engine was shown to the public at the Berlin International Motor Boat and Engine Exhibition in 1910, as well as at the World Exhibition in Brussels, which took place from April 23 to November 1, 1910, where Diesel's engine was awarded the Grand Prix.
One of the 5-horsepower Diesel engines. Behind it you can see a cylinder with compressed air, which provided injection of the fuel mixture under pressure of 59,22 atm.
But the production of engines did not continue for long; at the end of 1910 – beginning of 1911, Maschinenfabrik Aktiengesellschaft St. Georgen also stopped the production process.
Unfortunately, Rudolf Diesel did not have his own plant capable of producing these truly innovative engines, nor did he have the capital to finance further developments and investments in serial production of engines at any third-party enterprise.
This was the final financial collapse of Diesel the entrepreneur, which ultimately undermined his health. In the few years remaining before his tragic death, Diesel was no longer able to devote himself properly to any of his projects...
Diesel did have projects and plans, but they were finally put into practice by other people after his death.
Diesel & Co. initially planned to produce multi-cylinder engines (up to six cylinders) with a power of up to 30 hp. A number of engines with an unknown number of cylinders, based on a single-cylinder experimental engine, were manufactured in French and Belgian factories after 1910 and sold to customers, mainly in Russia. In Germany, unfortunately, there was little interest in them due to the technically complex fuel injection and the resulting high purchase price compared to the petrol engines available at the time.
Likewise, the project for a 480-kilogram, water-cooled, four-cylinder engine for trucks with a capacity of 30 hp, which was designed between 1909 and 1910 by Rudolf Diesel and Heinrich Deschamps on the basis of a converted 5,7-liter gasoline engine from the Saurer company with a capacity of 42 hp and developed by the St. Georgen joint-stock company, did not work out.
The peculiarity of the prototype was the lack of the ability to control the number of revolutions, but with the function of reverse running. Both cylinder blocks had a common casting with a common water jacket. At the same time, the ratio of power to a kilogram of weight was 16 kg / hp, a fairly decent level for that time.
A prototype of the first four-cylinder water-cooled diesel engine designed specifically for trucks. Photo from 1910.
Unfortunately, Diesel and his partners were never able to bring the prototype to the level necessary for its practical widespread production and consumption.
It was impossible to make the experimental fuel pump provide a uniform and reliable supply of fuel to all four cylinders at high engine speeds, and it was simply abandoned. The estimated power of 30 hp was never achieved, the engine smoked mercilessly and produced a maximum of 25 hp. In general, it was unsuitable for real use on the roads. In the end, in 1910, work on developing the unit was stopped, and the Aktiengesellschaft St. Georgen company, as I wrote above, ceased to exist.
Diesel's hopes of recouping at least some of his dwindling fortunes by producing and selling new diesel engines for cars were dashed.
Most likely, his ideas were simply ahead of their time, and he simply did not have the money to initiate interest and demand in the industrial world market.
But the process, which was ahead of the time when Diesel had his finger directly on the pulse of the development, production and sale of the engines he had invented, was nevertheless launched, and he could no longer stop.
Until the end of his days, Diesel tirelessly continued to search for new areas of application for his inventions, for example, in inland navigation on large rivers in the African colonies.
In an article published in 1912 in the monthly magazine Technik und Wirtschaft of the Association of German Engineers (VDI), of which he was a board member from 1911 until his death, he emphasized the many advantages of the diesel engine over other types of power plants.
At the same time, without his direct participation, the first stationary diesel engines began to be installed on ships, initially as auxiliary units for generating electricity, and then as main engines.
In 1910, for Roald Amundsen's expedition to the South Pole, the Norwegian ocean-going research vessel Fram was the first in the world to be equipped with a diesel engine.
The Fram under sail in Antarctic waters. Photo taken in 1910-1911
And this is a photo of the very same diesel engine that was installed on the Fram in addition to the sails and steam engine. It produced 180 hp (132 kW) and could also operate in reverse mode. It has been preserved to this day in the Fram Museum in Oslo.
In December 1910, the tanker MS Vulcanus, one of the world's first marine diesel-powered ships (MS is short for Motor Ship), was commissioned.
MS Vulcanus was commissioned by Anglo-Saxon Petroleum Company, a subsidiary of oil company Shell. The ship is said to have served as a coastal tanker in Borneo and Singapore, although other sources claim the tanker sailed between Rotterdam and Stockholm.
The ship was powered by a six-cylinder, four-stroke diesel engine from the Dutch company Werkspoor with a capacity of 450 hp. Compared to steam ships of the same size, the MS Vulcanus consumed only two tons of oil instead of about eleven tons of coal and sailed with a crew of 16 people instead of thirty.
In 1912, the first ocean-going diesel cargo ship, MS Selandia, was launched in Copenhagen.
The MS Selandia, built for the Danish East Asian Company for voyages to Europe and Southeast Asia.
MS Selandia was built at the Burmeister & Wain shipyard in Copenhagen and launched in 1911. Her maiden voyage took place in 1912. Due to the lack of a smokestack, typical for steamships of the time, the ship was considered "ugly and unusual".
The Danes were so proud of their revolutionary ship that they even issued a coin dedicated to the MS Selandia.
Danish 20 kroner commemorative coin. Obverse: Queen Margrethe II (1989–2023). Reverse: silhouette of the MS Selandia and a silhouette of a diesel engine.
Death
Rudolf Diesel passed away in 1913.
Mystically, his death was connected to a sea vessel, the British steamship SS Dresden (SS from Steamship), on board which he was an ordinary passenger.
On September 29, Diesel simply disappeared from the ship during a voyage from Antwerp to Harwich.
The purpose of the trip was to attend a ceremonial meeting dedicated to the opening of a new diesel engine plant of Consolidated Diesel Manufacturing Ltd. in London. According to other information, he was planning a meeting with representatives of the British Royal Navy. fleet to discuss the possibility of using diesel engines on British naval vessels.
Diesel's fellow passengers, Belgian business partner George Carels and chief designer Alfred Luckmann, noted that he was in good spirits. Carels later said that after dinner they strolled together on deck and went to their cabins around 22 p.m.
Diesel was then never seen again.
His cabin bed was made, his nightshirt was neatly folded on it, his pocket watch was hanging on the headboard. Diesel's coat and hat were also found neatly left on deck.
A few days later, on October 10, the crew of the Dutch pilot boat Coertsen found a badly decomposed body in the English Channel. It was not possible to identify the drowned man, but the sailors took some items from his pockets, such as a candy box, a wallet, a pocket knife and a glasses case, which Diesel's son Eugen identified as belonging to his father.
The bag of documents that Diesel handed over to his wife shortly before sailing contained 200 marks and documents confirming that the engineer was so deeply in debt that he could not even pay the ever-growing interest.
The main version of death to this day is considered to be suicide.
It is said that a few days before his death, Diesel sent his wife a letter in which he wrote about his feelings of oppression and depression. And if we recall Diesel's deep nervous breakdown in 1898-1899, then the conclusion about suicide looks very plausible.
The police also assumed that 55-year-old Rudolf Diesel had committed suicide. Another fact that led to this conclusion was that in Diesel's work weekly, the date September 29 was marked with a black cross.
The sea on that tragic evening was calm, the bulwarks were high, there was practically no pitching, so Diesel could not have accidentally fallen overboard.
At the same time, conspiracy theorists support the idea that Diesel was simply thrown overboard.
Why did Diesel have to prepare a nightshirt and a watch if he was going to drown himself? Why didn't he leave a suicide note?
And the cross in the diary could not necessarily have been made by Diesel's hand, but by his killer, in order to lead the investigation down a false trail.
Many believe that the order to eliminate the inventor may have been given personally by the Kaiser of Germany. Allegedly, he feared that the inventor could pass on to the British advanced technologies for the production and use of diesel engines for military purposes.
Other conspiracy theorists believe that, on the contrary, the British secret service eliminated Diesel in order to disrupt German rearmament plans shortly before the First World War.
There is also a theory about a conspiracy of oil industrialists. Diesel allegedly wanted to use vegetable oil in his engines instead of mineral oil.
However, this theory seems completely unserious, since the prices of vegetable oil were constantly rising, which made its use as fuel unprofitable in the future.
One way or another, Rudolf Diesel passed away.
Diesel is dead, long live diesel!
As Rudolf Diesel's biographer says: "The world lost a genius, but gained an economic power that revolutionized all forms of transport and brought the name of its inventor into the public eye."
As often happens, Rudolf Diesel with his ideas was just a little ahead of his time in the context of the historical development of industry and manufacturing.
Unfortunately, the inventor did not live to see the fulfillment of his dream, the worldwide industrial breakthrough of his engine.
Diesel engines were initially used only on ships and submarines, and later on airships, and only in the 1920s did mass production of cars with diesel engines begin.
As an example, the first serial trucks equipped with a diesel engine with direct injection were released by MAN in 1923-1924. The truck had a four-cylinder engine with a power of 35 to 40 hp, developing up to 1000 revolutions per minute. The unit weighed about 420 kg.
MAN truck, 1923. In 1924, this truck was presented at the German Motor Show in Berlin.
In 1932, MAN produced the first three-axle MAN S1H6 with a D4086 engine producing 140 hp.
The most powerful diesel truck in the world at the time, MAN S1H6.
In 1936, Mercedes-Benz presented to the public, and in 1937 began serial production of the world's first passenger car with a diesel engine. The four-cylinder diesel had a working volume of just under 2600 cubic centimeters and developed a power of 45 hp.
Maximum speed up to 97 km/h.
Mercedes-Benz 260 D. Well, really, it's a beauty!
And then the years, decades passed, and now for more than a hundred years we have all been inseparable from the world of diesel engines. Since its invention, the diesel engine has set in motion, spun up and changed the entire world, and this is not an exaggeration. Today, it is simply impossible to imagine this world without "diesels".
And I would like to say on behalf of all of us, as a token of admiration and gratitude:
"Thank you, Rudolf Christian Karl Diesel! Ahead of your time, you did for all of us what you dreamed of, you lit a flame without a spark!"
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