This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1911 Excerpt: ...can burn are likewise explosive up to another limit, the extra gas behaving as neutral because it is inactive. Mixtures, then, may be explosive through quite a wide range of proportions of air to fuel, or quite a wide range of proportions of active and inactive diluent materials. The range of proportions of explosive ...
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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1911 Excerpt: ...can burn are likewise explosive up to another limit, the extra gas behaving as neutral because it is inactive. Mixtures, then, may be explosive through quite a wide range of proportions of air to fuel, or quite a wide range of proportions of active and inactive diluent materials. The range of proportions of explosive mixtures is greater the richer the original fuel. Thus, for kerosene, gasolene, natural gas, and similar rich substances, the range of proportions of air to fuel is very great; while with blast furnace gas, which is a very weak gas, the range is not so great. In every case, however, the range of explosive proportions becomes wider and wider the more the mixture is compressed. Whenever fuel is in excess, it is entirely wasted, but excess air can do little harm if the mixture will still explode. The piston speed of the engine is zero every time the piston is at the end of the stroke, because it comes to a dead stop; the speed rises to a maximum somewhere about mid stroke and falls again to zero, so that it is constantly and regularly changing. It is found in practice that the best results are obtained when the combustion is completed as nearly as possible before the piston begins its working stroke. It would seem from this that complete combustion should take place between the time when compression is completed and when expansion should begin, that is to say, it would seem as if the explosion should be completed in zero time or be instantaneous. Now, as a matter of fact, the conditions are not quite so severe, for it is found that by igniting the charge a little before compression is finished, the flame acceleration which is natural to the mixture will be in most cases quite enough to practically complete the combustion before the expansion strok...
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