A carburetor is a device that blends air and fuel for an internal combustion engine.
It was invented by Karl Benz before 1885 and patented in 1886.[2] It is colloquially
called a carb (in North America and the United Kingdom) or carby (chiefly
in Australia).
The word carburetor comes from the French carbure,
meaning 'carbide'. To carburete means to combine with carbon. In fuel chemistry,
the term has the more specific meaning of increasing the carbon (and therefore
energy) content of a fuel by mixing it with a volatile hydrocarbon.
The
carburetor was invented by the Hungarian engineer Donát Bánki in 1893.
Frederick William Lanchester of Birmingham, England experimented early on with
the wick carburetor in cars. In 1896 Frederick and his brother built the first
petrol driven car in England, a single cylinder 5 hp (4 kW) internal combustion
engine with chain drive. Unhappy with the performance and power, they re-built
the engine the next year into a two cylinder horizontally opposed version using
his new wick carburetor design. This version completed a 1,000 mile (1600 km)
tour in 1900 successfully incorporating the carburetor as an important step forward
in automotive engineering.. |
