Lane Woods 11/19/14 Comp 1 Argumentation Essay Diesel or Gas Our world has been drastically changed by the invention of the internal combustion engine. Try to imagine the world without it, there wouldn’t be any cars, trains, or planes. We would still be back in the old days of riding around in horse drawn wagons everywhere. Two men are responsible for pioneering and perfecting the wonderful device we call the engine, Nikolaus August Otto and Rudolf Diesel. Each has left their own mark on history by designing engines that convert the chemical energy in fuel to mechanical energy, just in different ways. Otto, with the gas engine, and Diesel, obviously with the diesel engine. Although both engines in essence do the same job they do it in …show more content…
In 1867 Nikolaus August Otto, a German inventor, took the crude design of the gas engine and turned it into the truly amazing marvel we use every day in our cars and pickup trucks. Then in 1897 Rudolf Diesel decided to give his twist on things bringing us the diesel engine, which can be found in larger vehicles such as trains and semi-trucks. The main difference in the two engines is the fuel they burn and the process by which it is ignited. In a gasoline engine a fuel and air mixture is introduced into the cylinder in what is known as the intake stroke, followed by the compression stroke, in which the piston moves upward compressing the fuel and air mixture. After the fuel and air mixture is compressed it is ignited by a spark delivered from the spark plug, driving the piston downward in what is know as the power stroke. The process of igniting the fuel in the diesel engine differs because it has no spark plug. In the diesel engine the piston moves down, taking in air, and then starts to move back up compressing it. Just as the piston is reaching the top of the cylinder the diesel fuel is directly injected, the heat from the compressed air causes the fuel to ignite creating the power