and night, and it is calculated that in America nearly three
million horse-power is available from this source. Thwaite’s
system was put into operation in 1895 at the Glasgow Iron Works,
and it was also successfully applied near Barrow-in-Furness.
For many reasons the system did not take immediate root in
England, but in 1898 the Société Cockerill of Seraing near Liège
applied an engine designed by Delamere-Deboutteville to utilize
blast furnace gas. This engine indicated 213 h.p. running at
105 revolutions per minute. This was followed in 1899 by an
engine giving 600 b.h.p. at 90 revolutions per minute used for
driving a blowing cylinder for a blast furnace. It had a single
cylinder of 51.2 in. diameter and a piston stroke of 55.1 in.
About 1900 the Gasmotoren Fabrik Deutz built an Otto cycle
engine of 1000 b.h.p. having four cylinders each 33 in. diameter
and 39.3 in. stroke, speed 135 revolutions per minute. It was
coupled direct to a dynamo. Crossley Bros. Ltd. took up the
large gas engine at an early date, and a 400 h.p. engine by them
was at work at Brunner, Mond & Co.’s works, Winnington, in
1900; it had two cylinders of 26 in. diameter and 36 in. stroke,
and it ran at 150 revolutions per minute.
 |
| Fig. 3.—End Elevation of Otto Cycle Engine. |
Gas engines operating on the Otto cycle are usually of the single acting open cylinder type up to about 200 b.h.p., but for the larger engines closed cylinders of the double acting type are used. The engine then closely resembles a double acting steam engine. It has a cylinder cover with packing box of a special type, and, in addition to the water jacket surrounding the cylinder and combustion spaces, the piston and piston rod are hollow and cooling water is forced through them by a pump. Such a double acting cylinder gives two succeeding power impulses and then two charging strokes so that one revolution of the crank shaft is occupied in charging and compression, while the succeeding revolution gets two power impulses. For still larger engines two such double acting cylinders are arranged in tandem, so that one piston rod runs through two pistons and connects to a slide in front and to one crank pin by a connecting rod. Such an engine gives two power impulses for every revolution of the crank shaft. The greatest power developed in one double acting cylinder is claimed by Ehrhardt and Sehmer for a cylinder of 45¼ in. diameter by 51¼ in. stroke, which at 94 revolutions per minute gives 1100 i.h.p.
Two-Cycle Engine.—While the Otto or four-cycle engine was developing as above described, inventors were hard at work on the two-cycle engine. In Britain this work fell mostly upon Clerk, Robson and Atkinson, while on the continent of Europe the most persevering and determined worker was Koerting.
Dugald Clerk began work on the gas engine at the end of 1876. His first patent was dated 1877 and dealt with an engine of the air pressure vacuum type. His next patent was No. 3045 of 1878, and the engine there described was exhibited at the Royal Agricultural Show at Kilburn, London, 1879. In it a pump compressed a mixture of air and gas into a reservoir, from which it entered the motor cylinder during the first part of its stroke. After cut-off ignition was caused by a platinum igniter, the piston was driven forward, and exhausting was performed on the return stroke. This engine gave three b.h.p., and it was the first compression explosion engine ever run giving one impulse for each revolution of the crank shaft. It had difficulties, however, which prevented it from reaching the market.
The particular type of engine now widely known as operating on the Clerk cycle was patented in 1881 (Brit. Pat. No. 1089). One of the earliest of these engines was set up at Lord Kelvin’s laboratory at the Glasgow university and used for the purpose of driving a Siemens dynamo and supplying his house with electric light. The engine was first exhibited in the Paris Electrical Exhibition of 1881 and the London Smoke Abatement Exhibition of the same year. In this engine the charge was not compressed by a separate pump. A pumping cylinder, it is true, was used, but its function was to act merely as a displacer to take in a mixture of gas and air and transfer it to the motor cylinder at as low a pressure as possible, in such a way that the entering charge displaced the exhaust gases through ports which were opened by the overrunning of the piston. The motor piston thus timed and controlled the exhaust discharge, and gave a power impulse for every revolution of the crank. Engines of the Clerk type were built largely by Messrs Sterne & Co. of Glasgow, the Clerk Gas Engine Co. of Philadelphia, U.S.A., the Campbell Gas Engine Co., and a modification was made and sold in considerable numbers by the Stockport Company. The lapsing of the Otto patent, however, in 1876 caused engineers to neglect the two cycle for a time, although a little later it was introduced for small engines in an ingenious and simple modification known as the Day engine. This two-cycle engine later became very popular, especially for motor launch work. The Clerk cycle is now much in use for large gas engines up to about 2000 horse as modified by Messrs Koerting of Hanover.
The Clerk cycle engine, as built in 1881, is shown in sectional plan at fig. 4. The engine contains two cylinders—a power cylinder A and a displacer cylinder B. The function of the displacer cylinder is to take in a combustible charge of gas and air and transfer it to the power cylinder, displacing as it enters the exhaust gases of the previous explosion. A compression space G is formed at the end of the motor cylinder A. It is of conical shape and communicates with the displacer cylinder B by means of a large automatic lift valve which opens into the compression space from a chamber communicating by a pipe with the displacer cylinder. At the out-end of the motor cylinder are placed V-shaped ports E which open to the atmosphere by an exhaust pipe. The outward travel of the motor piston C causes it to overrun these ports, as seen in fig. 4, and allows the pressure in the cylinder to fall to atmosphere. The action of the engine is as follows:—The displacer piston D on its forward movement draws in its charge of gas and air, and it is so timed with reference to the motor piston C that it has returned a small portion of its stroke just when the motor piston overruns the exhaust ports. The overrunning of the exhaust ports at once causes the pressure in the cylinder to fall to atmosphere, and then the pressure in the displacer overcomes the pressure in the motor cylinder and opens
