The fuel industry is paramount to the functioning of our world and without fuel our lives would be very different, but how did some of the most influential people in the history of fuel develop their theories and innovations into what the fuel industry is today?

Nikolaus Otto

Nikolaus August Otto, born 10^th June 1832, was a German engineer who developed the four-stroke internal-combustion engine. This offered the first practical alternative to the steam engine as a power source.

In 1860, Otto and his brother learned of an illuminating gas engine manufactured by Jean Joseph Etienne Lenoir. The brothers built a copy of the Lenoir engine. In 1861, they applied for a patent for a liquid-fuelled engine. It was based on the Lenoir engine with the Prussian Ministry of Commerce, however they were rejected.

In 1861, Otto built his first gasoline-powered engine and, in 1864, he formed a partnership with the Eugen Langen. Named ‘NA Otto & Cie’, they formed the world’s first company focused on the design and production of internal combustion engines. This led to the development of an improved engine that won a gold medal at the Paris Exposition of 1867. The Otto/Langen Atmospheric Engine was a significant improvement to earlier engines. It used a free piston and the explosion of gas created a vacuum, thusly causing power from atmospheric pressure to return to the piston. Therefore, Otto and Langen’s engine allowed a greater expansion ratio and increased efficiency.

Throughout his career, Otto built the following engines:

• 1861: copy of Lenoir’s atmospheric engine
• 1862: a four-cycle compressed charge engine, which failed
• 1864: the first successful atmospheric engine
• 1876: the four-stroke compressed charge engine – the ‘Otto Cycle Engine’

Originally, the four-stroke cycle was patented in 1862 by French engineer Alphonse Beau de Rochas. However, since Otto was the first to build such engine, it became known as the ‘Otto Cycle’. However, in 1886, Otto’s patent was revoked when Beau de Rochas’ earlier patent was highlighted.

John D. Rockefeller

John Davison Rockefeller, born 8^th July 1839, was an American industrialist, philanthropist, and founder of the Standard Oil Company, which was the first great U.S. business trust.

After establishing his first business enterprise in hay, grain, and meats, Rockefeller realised the potential for oil production in Pennsylvania. Thusly, Rockefeller built his first oil refinery near Cleveland in 1863. After two years of operation, Rockefeller’s Cleveland refinery was the largest in its area. Therefore, Rockefeller devoted himself to the oil industry and incorporated the Standard Oil Company in Ohio in 1870. The Standard Oil Company was hugely successful as it began buying out all their competitors. By 1872, the company controlled almost all refineries in Cleveland. Over the years, the Standard Oil Company continued to expand through the development of the railroad systems as well as expansions of new Standard Oil refineries in more cities and states across the U.S.

In 1881, the Standard Oil Company was placed under the control of a board of nine trustees, with Rockefeller at the top. By 1882, the Standard Oil Company had almost a monopoly over other competing oil businesses in the United States, causing some states to introduce antimonopoly laws and the Sherman Antitrust Act was passed by the U.S. Congress in 1890. Due to the imposed antitrust laws, the Standard Oil Company was deemed to violate an Ohio law that prohibited monopolies, which led to the dissolvement and transfer of the trust to affiliated companies in other states. In 1899, the affiliated companies were regrouped as ‘Standard Oil Company New Jersey.’ They operated until 1911 when it was declared to violate the Sherman Antitrust Act.

After its dissolution, eight companies maintained the ‘Standard Oil’ name. Over the years, they developed into some of the oil companies we recognise today: BP, Chevron Corporation, ExxonMobil, and Texaco.

Rudolf Diesel

Rudolf Christian Karl Diesel, born 18^th March 1858, was a German inventor and mechanical engineer famous for inventing the Diesel engine.

Diesel was top of his class in basic education. In 1873, Diesel enrolled at the Industrial School of Augsburg where he accepted a scholarship from the Royal Bavarian Polytechnic of Munich to study thermodynamics. Around the time that Diesel was a student, both the steam engine and the internal combustion engine were very inefficient, converting only approximately 10% of heat into useful work.

Diesel, however, was determined that he could invent a more efficient engine. He was particularly inspired by one of the Royal Bavarian Polytechnic of Munich’s professor’s lecturers, Carl von Linde. Linde suggested that it was theoretically possible to make a combustion engine that would convert all heat into work. Diesel graduated with the highest academic honours and went on to assist Linde with the development of a modern refrigeration and ice plant at the Linde Ice Machine Company Paris firm in 1880.

Diesel continued to experiment with designs. He initially worked with steam, which led him to build a steam engine using ammonia vapour. The ammonia was more volatile than water vapour and produced greater heat. This meant it was more dangerous to work with as the engine exploded and almost killed him.

In 1890, Diesel moved to a new post with the Linde firm in Berlin. After months of recovery, Diesel rethought his engine designs, in which he envisaged the idea for a ‘diesel engine’. In 1892, Diesel applied for and received a German development patent for his diesel engine. The following year, Diesel published a paper under the title ‘Theory and Construction of a Rational Heat Motor’ detailing an engine with combustion within a cylinder.

With support from the Maschinenfabrik Augsburg and the Krupp firms, Diesel continued to improve his engine designs. His 1987 demonstration showcased his invention: a 25-horsepower, four-stroke, single vertical cylinder compression engine.

Although Diesel’s first working engine was only just over 25% efficient, it was, however, over twice as good as the rival engines at the time. Set on improving his engine invention further, Diesel’s work discovered that his engines could use a heavier fuel than petrol engines: the fuel known as ‘diesel’. The diesel fuel was cheaper than petrol to refine from crude oil and gave off fewer fumes, meaning it was less likely to cause explosions. These advantages made Diesel’s engines particularly attractive for military transport and, by 1904, Diesel had got engines into France’s submarines. The high efficiency of Diesel’s engine, as well as its simplicity of design, made it an immediate commercial success. Diesel also continued to design engines that could run on waste material as, at the 1900 World’s Fair in Paris, Diesel presented an engine that could run on peanut oil.

On the evening of 29^th September 1913, Diesel boarded the SS Dresden in Antwerp to begin his journey to a meeting for a new diesel-engine plant, as well as British Navy representatives about installing his engine on their submarines. When Diesel retired to his cabin at 10pm that night, it was the last time he was seen alive. Ten days later, Diesel’s body was spotted by a Dutch tugboat floating in the North Sea.

Conspiracy theories began to surround the mysterious circumstances of Diesel’s death:

• Diesel ‘turned to suicide’: after being long plagued by health and money troubles, Diesel may have turned to taking his own life. Allegedly, most evidence points to this explanation.
• Diesel ‘fell overboard’: his struggle with insomnia may have caused him to pace the deck and fall overboard. The sea, however, had been calm that night.
• Diesel was ‘murdered’: the success of the Diesel Engine was rapidly increasing, and some conspiracy theorists argued that big petroleum companies felt threatened due to Diesel’s belief in using vegetable oils. Moreover, some believed that other countries did not want Diesel’s patents to aid the British Government, or that the German military was worried that he was going to share their new U-boat designs.

Despite Diesel’s death, the Diesel Engine continued to increase in success. It became a great replacement for the steam piston engine and was ideal for stationary engines, agricultural machines, off-highway, automotives, and marine applications. It is Diesel’s inventions that earned him the nickname ‘The Father of the Diesel Engine’.

Jonas Hesselman

Knut Jonas Elias Hesselman, born 9^th April 1877, was a Swedish engineer. He built the first spark ignition engine with direct injection of fuel into the cylinder.

In 1899, Hesselman graduated from the KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Department of Mechanics. He worked from 1899 to 1916 for AB Diesel Engines (later Atlas Diesel, now Atlas Copco) in Nacka. From 1901, Hesselman worked as Head of Construction.

Hesselman was determined to improve the works of Rudolf Diesel and his Diesel Engine further. From the early 1900s, Hesselman went on to invent new valves and fuel pumps so that fuel consumption and overall mass of the engine was significantly reduced. The engine developed was reversible, meaning that the engine could change direction of rotation when moving from forward to reverse. These adaptations made Hesselman’s engine concept very advantageous for more shipping applications, so much so that Roald Amundsen’s 1911 South Pole Expedition selected engines from Atlas Diesel.

In 1916, Hesselman opened his own factory. In 1925, he presented the ‘Hesselman Engine’, which was a hybrid between an Otto engine and Diesel engine. Hesselman also designed electrical vehicle components, which became the basis for his company ‘Hesselman Elhydraulik’, now Haldex AB. In 1970, Hesselman Elhydraulik developed the hydraulic power unit that still serves as the prototype for the existing lifts for trucks.

Felix Wankel

Felix Wankel, born 13^th August 1902, was a German engineer and inventor of the Wankel rotary engine.

Wankel believed he could design a practical rotary engine. Therefore, he set up a small engineering business in Heidelberg in 1924. Ideally, Wankel wanted the engine to attain intake, compression, combustion, and exhaust whilst rotating.

During World War II, Wankel took his knowledge of rotary valves and designed for seals, unconventional rotary valves and engines. Wankel also worked for the Daimler-Benz and BMW automobile companies and the German Air Force and. In 1951, he began working for a leading German motorcycle company, NSUMotorenwerk AG.

Wankel’s first rotary-piston engine design was completed in 1954. The first unit of the engine was tested in 1957. In traditional internal-combustion engines, the moving pistons act as the catalyst for the combustion process. In the Wankel engine, an orbiting rotor shaped like a curved equilateral triangle also did this job. The fewer moving parts in the Wankel engine meant that it was lightweight, compact, low-cost, and required fewer repair parts, allowing the engine to perform more smoothly. In later 1959, NSU announced the completion of the Wankel engine. Around 100 companies, including Mazda, Daimler-Benz, Alfa Romeo, Rolls Royce, Porsche, General Motors, Suzuki and Toyota, applied for partnerships to use the Wankel engine in their products.

After creating his own research establishment in Lindau, Germany, Wankel continued to work on developing his rotary engine for further future applications.

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Keywords: history, fuel, industry, fuel industry, Merlin, Merlin Diesel Systems, kerosene, oil, paraffin, inventions, automotive, engine, pumps, Nikolaus Otto, John Rockefeller, John D Rockefeller, Rudolf Diesel, Jonas Hesselman, Felix Wankel