diesel engine

Internal-combustion engine that burns a lightweight fuel oil. The diesel engine operates by compressing air until it becomes sufficiently hot to ignite the fuel. It is a piston-in-cylinder engine, like the petrol engine, but only air (rather than an air-and-fuel mixture) is taken into the cylinder on the first piston stroke (down). The piston moves up and compresses the air until it is at a very high temperature. The fuel oil is then injected into the hot air, where it burns, driving the piston down on its power stroke. For this reason the engine is called a compression-ignition engine. Most diesel engines work on a four-stroke cycle, ‘stroke’ referring to an upward or downward movement of a piston; others operate on a two-stroke cycle.

Diesel engines have sometimes been marketed as ‘cleaner’ than petrol engines because they do not need lead additives and produce fewer gaseous pollutants. However, they do produce high levels of the tiny black carbon particles called particulates, which are believed to be carcinogenic and may exacerbate or even cause asthma.

The principle of the diesel engine was first explained in England by Herbert Akroyd (1864–1937) in 1890, and was applied practically by Rudolf Diesel in Germany in 1892.