Ian Malcolm wrote:

Harry Krause wrote:

I read somewhere that a diesel fire truck engine "ran away" because of
its "inhalation" of fumes and smoke from a fire of some sort that was
spewing an incredible amount of carbon. Is this a possibility or was the
article pulling our legs?


I remember reading about Niklaus Diesel's original engine design, one
prototype being intended to run on finely ground coal dust. I read about
it a long time ago and could have mis-remembered it but powder explosions
are well known, and just about any carbon containing powder is potentially
extremely explosive if fine enough to stay airborne.

OK Google is good for this sort of stuff. Here is what I found

Patent No. 67,207 dated February 28, 1892, issued to Dr Diesel
Specifies an engine with compression ignition using coal dust as fuel.

I guess that would be a German patent. His ten foot high prototype
exploded due to problems metering the coal dust and apparently nearly
killed him.

It does seem that it is plausible that a diesel could run on a high enough
concentration of soot and it also seems that it would be extremely
dangerous and might trigger an explosion comparable to igniting gas or
petrol fumes in your bilge.




Fascinating! Now...an engine that runs on used kitty litter...that's
what the world needs.

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