Further Development of the Prechamber Technology for Diesel Engines

The compressorless diesel combustion method (prechamber method) developed by Dipl.-Ing. Prosper L’Orange at Benz & Cie. in 1909 and 1919 was continually further developed. The goal was to operate MWM diesel engines with different fuels, but with the same or lower consumption and less noise. The efforts were successful and resulted in much lower fuel consumption and measurable noise reduction. The goal was reached in 1956 through a modification of the prechamber into a constant-pressure prechamber. The engineering overhead did not exceed that of the conventional prechamber method. The new procedure was also suitable for air and water-cooled MWM diesel engines.

The new MWM constant-pressure prechamber method provided various advantages, such as low fuel consumption in a wide speed range, low noise, low ignition pressure, more independence from fuel type and quality with almost the same output and the same consumption, optimized cold start behavior, and application for air and water-cooled engines without any extra engineering overhead.