Early Daimler petrol engine
Object No. B1067
This is a rare example of an early high-speed petrol engine made by Daimler, the company that introduced petrol as a fuel and made the first practical internal combustion motor car engine. Although it is a stationary engine, of a type used in boats and airships, it shares design features with early car engines designed by Gottlieb Daimler and Wilhelm Maybach. The Daimler petrol engine was a development from the four-stroke gas engine manufactured by Nicolaus Otto's Deutz AG Gasmotorenfabrik. Both Daimler and Maybach worked for Otto from 1872 to 1882; they then left Deutz with the intention of designing and making lightweight high-speed engines for transport applications. Daimler's first patent (DRP 28 022), issued in 1885, was for a single cylinder, horizontal, heat-insulated engine with hot tube ignition and cam-operated exhaust valves. Its simple carburettor, also a feature of the later stationary engine, was devised by Maybach. In the same year the partners made a vertical single cylinder engine capable of developing one horsepower at 600 rpm. In 1887 they made an engine for the motorboat Neckar. A two cylinder engine having a piston diameter of 90 mm and a stroke of 120 mm, and developing 4.5 horsepower at 800 rpm, was first manufactured in 1897 and was the first in a series of such engines they made for use in cars, airships and boats. Daimler and Maybach established Daimler Motoren Gesellschaft (DMG) in 1890. This company later merged with Benz and continued, under the name Daimler AG, to make Mercedes Benz cars into the twenty-first century. The company became renowned for quality engineering, and the name Maybach was perpetuated in Daimler's luxury cars. Debbie Rudder, Curator, and Noel Svensson, Powerhouse Volunteer, 2009 References: "Gas, Oil, and Air Engines", Bryan Donkin Jr, Charles Griffin & Co, London, 1894 "A Practical Treatise on Modern Gas and Oil Engines", F Grover, Technical Publishing Co, Manchester, 1897. "Engine Development - The Vertical Type", A History of Aeronautics, Part IV Chap I, E Charles Vivian, World Wide School www.worldwideschool.org/library/books/tech/engineering/Historyof Aeronautics/chap34.html
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Summary
Object Statement
Petrol engine, stationary vertical two cylinder four stroke, steel / cast iron, Daimler Motor Company, Cannstatt, Germany, 1897-1900
Physical Description
The engine has two single-acting water-cooled side-by-side cylinders, with the cranks at 180 degrees to each other so that there is a working stroke every revolution of the crankshaft. It has two flywheels to maintain momentum between working strokes. Fuel is contained in a small rectangular tank near the top of the engine. Air is drawn into the engine through a specially shaped nozzle, forming a simple carburettor, at the top of the fuel tank. The intake valve is opened by suction created by the downward motion of the piston, and the exhaust valve is activated from an auxiliary shaft running at half engine speed. In the original Daimler engine design, ignition of the combustible mix was achieved through a platinum tube heated by an external oil burner. This later engine has spark plugs. The engine speed is governed by a hit-and-miss system: when the speed is higher than required, the exhaust valve is held open and the inlet valve is prevented from opening. The engine operates on the four stroke cycle. On the down stroke of the piston, air flows past a nozzle, drawing fuel from the tank and vaporising it. The air/fuel mixture is compressed during the return stroke and is ignited by the spark plug when the piston is close to the top dead centre position. After the power stroke, the returning piston expels the products of combustion through the exhaust valve. A metal stand has been made for the engine.
DIMENSIONS
Height
1100 mm
Width
650 mm
Depth
600 mm
PRODUCTION
Notes
The engine was manufactured by Daimler Motoren Gesellschaft at Cannstatt (near Stuttgart) in Germany between 1897 and 1900. Although the nameplate suggests the patent number was 1329, this appears to be unrelated to other patent information. The wording might instead mean that it was engine number 1329 and that the engine was patented. Gottlieb Wilhelm Daimler was born in March 1834 in Schorndorf, Germany. In 1857 he began studies at the Stuttgart Polytechnic, after which he travelled through several European countries. In France, he studied the novel gas engine of J J Lenoir and worked in factories, including one in Strasbourg that made locomotives. In the United Kingdom, Daimler helped start engineering works in Oldham, Leeds and Manchester (with Joseph Whitworth). Later, he also worked in Belgium. Finally he returned to Germany and worked as technical designer in a metal factory at Geislingen an der Steige, with the father of his friend Heinrich Straub. In 1863, Daimler began work in a special factory, a Bruderhaus in Reutlingen. It had charitable purposes, with a staff made up of orphans, invalids and poor people. One of the orphans was Wilhelm Maybach a qualified industrial designer aged 19 who would become his lifelong business partner. In 1869, Daimler moved to Karlsruhe, to work for the engineering manufacturer Maschinenbau-Gesellschaft Karlsruhe AG. Six months later, Maybach joined him as technical designer. In 1872, Daimler and Maybach began working for Nikolaus Otto at Deutz-AG-Gasmotorenfabrik in Cologne, then the world's largest manufacturer of stationary engines. Both Daimler and Otto focused on gas engine development, while Maybach was chief designer. In 1885 Daimler and Maybach patented a petrol engine and fitted it to a two-wheeler (now considered to be the first motorcycle) and, in the next year, to a stagecoach and a boat. They experimented with fuels, including an obscure by-product of petroleum then known as benzine, which was used mainly for cleaning rather than as a fuel, but which is now known as gasoline or petrol. In 1890 Daimler Motoren Gesellschaft (Daimler Engines Company) or DMG, was founded in Cannstatt with Maybach as chief designer. The factory was destroyed by fire, and the company moved to Stuttgart in 1908. Its purpose was the construction of small, high speed engines for land, water and air transport. Daimler died in 1900, and Maybach quit DMG in 1907. In 1926, DMG merged with Karl Benz's Benz & Cie., becoming Daimler-Benz AG. This company merged with Chrysler in 1998, becoming Daimler Chrysler, but a demerger in 2007 left Daimler AG as the manufacturer of Mercedes-Benz cars.
HISTORY
Notes
The engine was acquired for the University of Sydney by Henry Barraclough and used in the teaching of mechanical engineering students until 1947, when it was donated to the museum.
SOURCE
Credit Line
Gift of The University of Sydney, 1947
Acquisition Date
8 December 1947
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