 Model VE high speed De La Vergne Diesel Engine Vergne Engine Company on May 11, 1931, the De La Vergne Machine Company having been dissolved in 1929. Although Prohibition had made a serious differ- ence in the business for breweries, at the beginning of the depression De La Vergne was supplying re- frigeration equipment to a market of over two hundred industries using mechanical cooling. This was, of course, in addition to the manufacture of Diesel Engines of Marine and stationary type. Air conditioning has been De La Vergne's latest pioneering achievement. The application of this science has developed since 1931 logically and naturally out of the mechanical refrigeration in- dustry. John Scott, a chemist of Edinburgh, in 1816 be- queathed a sum of money to the City of Phila- delphia, the income from which is each year awarded Hornsby-Akroyd Engine built by De La Vergne first commercialy successful oil engine in world. |
to the inventors of the most meritorious devices for the improvement of the health and comfort of the human race. These awards have been made each year since 1869 and in 1933 the John Scott Medal for "inventions which add to the comfort of the human race" was awarded by the City of Phila- delphia to four De La Vergne engineers. These four were the inventors and designers of that unique feature, reverse cycle refrigeration, of the De La Vergne air conditioner, by means of which the same unit heats as well as cools. veloped very rapidly. During the years immediately following the purchase of the rights to manufacture the Hornsby-Akroyd engine, De La Vergne adapted the Hornsby engine to the requirements of the American market and designed engines of larger sizes than had ever before been produced. In 1904 experiments were started with a vertical two-cycle hot bulb engine with crankcase compres- sion and solid injection of the fuel oil, which al- though having the drawbacks of its type, had such an efficient combustion that it was decided to build a four cycle engine on similar lines. When it was found that the development of spray nozzles and high pressure fuel pumps for larger size engines would be a long drawn out pro- cess, De La Vergne designed a four cycle engine with air injection in which they could make use of the experience gained by the early Diesel engine builders. The first De La Vergne Diesel engine with air injection was built in 1915. While this type was being developed and larger sizes of the former type were being built, experiments with the airless or solid injection type of engine were continued. In 1913 De La Vergne brought out a solid injection type engine with hot surface ignition, and in 1917 was ready to place on the market the first Diesel engine without an air compressor. The last air (Continued on Page 28) Modern installation De La Vergne Engines in Municipal Plant at La Crosse, Kansas. |
