I. Historical Background

In 1892, engineer Rudolf Diesel applied for a patent at the Imperial Patent Office in Berlin for his invention, which claimed that in a cylinder, pure air is compressed so strongly by the working piston that the resulting temperature far exceeds the ignition temperature of the fuel to be used, after which the fuel supply gradually occurs from the dead center. Every diesel engine still operates today based on this principle, viewed on a large scale. Although Diesel built upon the work of his predecessors and utilized the technological state of the time, his idea was innovative and revolutionary. The steam engine undeniably dominated the field, while gas engines and the internal combustion engine were still in the early stages of their development. While the steam engine achieved efficiencies of...