It seems quite obvious that to the Wrights vibration, or roughness,
was predominantly if not entirely caused by the explosion forces, and
they were either not completely aware of the effects of the other
vibratory forces or they chose to neglect them. Although crankshaft
counterweights had been in use as far back as the middle 1800s, the
Wrights never incorporated them in any of their engines; and despite
the inherent shaking force in the 4-inline arrangement, they continued
to use it for many years.
The choice of four cylinders was obviously made in order to get, for
smoothness, what in that day was "a lot of small cylinders"; and this
was sound judgment. Furthermore, although the majority of automobiles
at that time had engines with fewer than four cylinders, for those
that did the inline form was standard and well proven, and, in fact,
Daimler was then operating engines of this general design at powers
several times the minimum the Wrights had determined necessary for
their purpose.
What fixed the exact cylinder size, that is, the "square" 4×4-in.
form, is not recorded, nor is it obvious by supposition. Baker says it
was for high displacement and low weight, but these qualities are also
greatly affected by many other factors. The total displacement of just
over 200 cu in. was on the generous side, given the horsepower they
had determined was necessary, but here again the Wrights were
undoubtedly making the conservative allowances afterwards proven
habitual, to be justified later by greatly increased power
requirements and corresponding outputs. The Mean Effective Pressure
(MEP), based on their indicated goal of 8 hp, would be a very modest
36 psi at the speed of 870 rpm at which they first tested the engine,
and only 31 psi at the reasonably conservative speed of 1000 rpm. The
4×4-in. dimension would provide a cylinder large enough so that the
engine was not penalized in the matter of weight and yet small enough
to essentially guarantee its successful operation, as cylinders of
considerably larger bore were being utilized in automobiles. That
their original choice was an excellent one is rather well supported by
the fact that in all the different models and sizes of engines they
eventually designed and built, they never found it necessary to go to
cylinders very much larger than this.
[Illustration: _Figure 3._--First flight engine, 1903, installed in
the Kitty Hawk airplane, as exhibited in the Science Museum. (Photo
courtesy the Science Museum, London.)]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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