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| Fig. 6.—Arrangement of Oechelhäuser Gas Engine. |
Messrs Crossley Brothers, Limited, 57 motors, with an aggregate of 23,660 h.p.; Messrs Ehrhardt & Sehmer, 59 motors, total, 69,790 h.p.; the Otto Gasmotoren Fabrik, 82, total 47,400 h.p.; Gebrüder Koerting, 198, total 165,760 h.p.; Société Alsacienne, 55, total 23,410 h.p.; Société John Cockerill, 148, total 102,925 h.p.; Société Suisse, Winterthur, 67, total 8620 h.p.; Vereinigte Maschinenfabriken, Augsburg and Nürnberg, 215, total 256,240 h.p. The mean power of each gas engine made by Messrs Ehrhardt & Sehmer and the Augsburg and Nürnberg companies is in each case 1200 h.p. It is stated that in one factory there are gas engines representing a total output of 35,000 h.p. These European large gas engines thus give nearly 575,000 h.p. between them.
The installation of large gas engines has made considerable progress in America. Mr E. L. Adams estimated that 350,000 h.p. was at work or in construction in the United States in 1908. The first large engines were installed at the works of the Lackawanna Steel Co., Buffalo, New York. They were of the Koerting-Clerk type, and were built by the De La Vergne Co. of New York. They included 16 blowing engines, each of 2000 h.p., and 8 engines of 1000 h.p. each, driving dynamos to produce electric light. This large power plant was started in 1902. The Westinghouse Co. of Pittsburg have also built large engines, several of which are in operation at the various works of the Carnegie Steel Co. These Westinghouse engines are of the horizontal twin tandem type, having two cranks and four double-acting cylinders in each unit, the cylinders being 38 in. in diameter and the stroke 54 in. The Snow Steam Pump Co. have built similar horizontal tandem engines with cylinders of 42 in. diameter and 54 in. stroke. The English Westinghouse Co. have also designed large gas engines, and they exhibited a very interesting vertical multiple cylinder gas engine having four cranks and eight single-acting cylinders, four pairs, in tandem, at the Franco-British Exhibition of 1908; it gave 750 h.p., and the pistons were not watered.
Over two million horse-power of the smaller gas engines are now at work in the world, and certainly above one million horse-power of petrol motors.
The application of large gas engines to marine work, the compounding of the gas engine, and many other matters are being strenuously pursued. Capitaine of Frankfort-on-Main has built several vessels used for towing purposes in which the vessel is driven by gas engines operated by means of suction gas-producers consuming anthracite. Messrs Thornycroft and Messrs Beardmore in Great Britain have adopted the Capitaine designs, and both firms have applied them to sea-going vessels, Thornycroft to a gas launch which has been tested in the Solent, and Beardmore to an old gunboat, the “Rattler.” The “Rattler” was fitted with five-cylinder Otto cycle engines and suction gas-producers giving 500 i.h.p.; and has sailed some 1500 m. under gas power only. There are many difficulties to be overcome before large light and sufficiently slow-moving gas engines can be installed on board ship, but progress is being made, and without doubt all difficulties will be ultimately surmounted and gas power successfully applied to ships for both large and small power.
The flame and incandescent tube methods of ignition have been displaced by electrical ignition of both high and low tension types; all large gas engines are ignited electrically and generally by more than one igniter per cylinder.
The governing of large gas engines, too, is now effected so as to keep up continuity of impulses by the method either of throttling the charge inlet or by varying the point of admission of gas alone or air and gas mixed.
It may be said, indeed, without exaggeration, that the whole world is now alive to the possibilities of the internal-combustion motor, and that progress will be more and more rapid. This motor has almost fulfilled the expectations of those engineers who have devoted a large part of their lives to its study and advancement. They are looking forward now to the completion of the work begun so many years ago, and expect, at no distant date, to find the internal-combustion motor competing with the steam engine even in its latest form, the steam turbine, on sea as vigorously as it does at present on land.
Thermal Efficiency of Four-Cycle Engines.—The Otto and Clerk type engines are usually designated respectively four-cycle and two-cycle, because in the Otto type four strokes are necessary to complete the power-producing cycle of the engine and in the Clerk engine two strokes complete the cycle.
Indicated thermal efficiency may be defined as the proportion of the total heat of combustion which appears as work done by the explosion and expansion upon the piston. Brake thermal efficiency may be defined as the proportion of the total heat of combustion which appears as work given out by the engine available for overcoming external resistances; that is, brake thermal efficiency is the effective efficiency of the engine for doing work. In the early gas engines the indicated thermal efficiency was only 16%, as shown by tests of Otto engines from about 1877 to 1882, but now indicated thermal efficiencies of from 35% to 37% are often obtained. Some experimenters claim even higher efficiencies, but even 37% is higher than ordinary best practice of 1909. Table I. has been prepared to show this advance. It shows, in addition to indicated thermal efficiency, the brake thermal efficiency and the mechanical efficiency, together with other particulars such as engine dimensions, types and names of experimenters. It will be seen that brake thermal efficiency has also increased from 14% to 32%; that is, practically one-third of the whole heat of combustion is obtained by these engines in effective work available for all motive power purposes.
| No. | Mechanical Efficiency. | Names of Experimenters. | Year. | Dimensions of Engine. | Indicated Thermal Efficiency. | Brake Thermal Efficiency. | Type of Engine. | |
| Per cent. | Diam. | Stroke. | Per cent. | Per cent. | ||||
| 1 | 87·6 | Slaby | 1882 | 6·75″ | × 13·7″ | 16 | 14 | Deutz |
| 2 | 84·2 | Thurston | 1884 | 8·5″ | × 14″ | 17 | 14·3 | Crossley |
| 3 | 86·1 | Society of Arts | 1888 | 9·5″ | × 18″ | 22 | 18·9 | Crossley |
| 4 | 80·9 | Society of Arts | 1888 | 9·02″ | × 14″ | 21 | 17 | Griffin (6-cycle) |
| 5 | 87·3 | Kennedy | 1888 | 7·5″ | × 15″ | 21 | 18·3 | Beck (6-cycle) |
| 6 | 82·0 | Capper | 1892 | 8·5″ | × 18″ | 22·8 | 17·4 | Crossley |
| 7 | 87·0 | Robinson | 1898 | 10″ | × 18″ | 28·7 | 25 | National |
| 8 | 83 | Humphrey | 1900 | 26″ | × 36″ | 31 | 25·7 | Crossley |
| 9 | 81·7 | Witz | 1900 | 51·2″ | × 55·13″ | 28 | 22·9 | Cockerill |
| 10 | 85·5 | Inst. Civil. Eng. | 1905 | 14″ | × 22″ | 35 [1] | 29·9 | National |
| 11 | 77·1 | Burstall | 1907 | 16″ | × 24″ | 41·5 [2] | 32 | Premier |
| 12 | 87·5 | Hopkinson | 1908 | 11·5″ | × 21″ | 36·8 | 32·2 | Crossley |
Thermal Efficiency of Two-Cycle Engines.—It has been found that two-cycle engines present greater practical difficulties in regard to obtaining high indicated and brake thermal efficiencies, but the thermodynamic considerations are not affected by the practical difficulties. As shown by Table II., these engines improved in indicated thermal efficiency from the value of 16·4% attained in 1884 to 38% in 1903, while the brake thermal efficiency rose in the same period from 14% to 29%. The numbers in Table II. are not so well established as those in Table I. The four-cycle engines have been so far subjected to much more rigid and authoritative tests
than those of the two-cycle. It is interesting to see from the table