The American Picture — Diesel Fuel Research

PRIMARILY intended as a discussion and am-JL plification of the paper of Messrs. Boerlage and Broeze presented at the April, 1936, meeting of the American Chemical Society, this paper reviews fuel research conducted at the San Leandro laboratory of the Caterpillar Tractor Co. and, therefore, is limited to the precombustion-chamber type of Diesel engine burning California-base fuels. The paper describes investigations of ignition quality, fuel-spray characteristics, and injection phenomena by means of a single-cylinder test unit fitted with a quartz observation window, stroboscope, timing disc and phase-changing device. A discussion of the products of incomplete combustion as influenced by compounded lubricants and ring-belt temperatures concludes the paper.