Kerosene - A Tractor Fuel

In the early 20th century, kerosene was commonly used as tractor fuel. Within a decade, kerosene had advanced to the ranks as fuel for agricultural tractors. A large number of tractors are burning kerosene.

The four classes of commercial liquid fuels that can be used in internal combustion engines are alcohol, gasoline, ordinary kerosene, and low-cost heavy-oil fuels. Alcohol has the lowest heat value per pound. Under the current economic conditions, alcohol or fuel oils need not be considered as available fuel for tractors. Oil engines are no longer inferior to gasoline engines, but in the future tractors that burn oil should burn without wasting oil. The full combustion requirements for both kerosene and gasoline are in principle the same, but in practice, wider latitude is allowed in providing more favorable conditions for gasoline than kerosene.

Kerosene tractors use less fuel than gasoline tractors because kerosene has a higher thermal value per gallon. The problem of using oil for fuel in a throttle-ridden engine is complicated because the control factors change when the power or engine speed changes. Kerosene is heavy, relatively unstable, and has a higher viscosity coefficient than gasoline; these are due to the heterogeneous nature of the compounds that make up kerosene.

The art of burning kerosene is understood by the fact that the ratio of the fuel mixture and all control factors of combustion, including its temperature during ignition and during operation, must always be kept in physical correlation with air density. When compression is variable, other control factors must also be varied in the coordination of compression to maintain an effective working relationship between compression, mixing ratio, and temperature at different loads. To use kerosene requires a precise mechanical mixture of fuel, air, and water.