Abstract
ON OCTOBER 9, Mr. H. R. Ricardo received the Melchett Medal of the Institute of Fuel, and after the presentation delivered his Melchett Lecture on the “Progress of the Internal Combustion Engine and its Fuel”. This progress he characterised as one of the most startling developments of the last fifty years, and now, he said, more than eighty per cent of the total power output of prime movers is based on petrol. He traced the development of the views held on the cause and character of the phenomenon of ‘engine knock’ and the formulation of the well-known method of evaluating ‘knock-tendency’ by means of the variable compression engine. The value of aromatic hydrocarbons was established by this machine and later the practice of rating fuel by an ‘octane-number’. The production of fuels with high ‘octane-numbers’ has permitted the use of higher compression ratios with consequent greater engine efficiency, culminating in the 60 horse-power per litre attained by the Schneider engines. Further increase in the octane-number of petrols is not anticipated, nor the use of supercharging in pleasure cars. The Diesel engine is displacing the petrol engine in heavy commercial vehicles, and will continue to do so even at the same cost of fuel per gallon, owing to the 70 per cent advantage in the figure of miles per gallon.
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The Internal Combustion Engine and its Fuel. Nature 136, 714 (1935). https://doi.org/10.1038/136714c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/136714c0