IN this lecture, which Sir Harry Ricardo gave after receiving the Horning Memorial Award for 1953, he relates some of his early experiences with the internal-combustion engine.
He goes back to the days when, as an undergraduate at Cambridge, he assisted Prof. Bertram Hopkinson in research on rate of flame propagation, preignition, and knock.
He describes his early work with a 2-stroke engine of his own design, which he finally, reluctantly abandoned in favor of the 4-stroke engine. He tells of his investigations of fuels and engines for the British Air Ministry and the Ministry of Munitions during World War I, and how, in 1917, he organized a small private company to carry on his research and development work. The Ricardo variable-compression engine E35, a special fuel for racing cars, and various designs of combustion chamber are only a few of the many accomplishments of this company.