Clerget-Blin
Société Clerget-Blin & Cie
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legal form | company |
founding | 1913 |
resolution | 1947 |
Reason for dissolution | Sale to Snecma |
Seat | Levallois-Perret |
management | Pierre Clerget |
Branch | Aircraft engines |
Clerget-Blin (full name: Société Clerget-Blin & Cie ) was a French precision engineering company founded in 1913 by the engineer and inventor Pierre Clerget and the industrialist Eugène Blin . The company headquarters and production were in Levallois-Perret , north-west of Paris . The Clerget-Blin company mainly produced aircraft engines . Due to the increasing demand for military aircraft , the Clerget engines were also manufactured under license in England during the two world wars .
Originally radial engines were only produced in a single row. When more power was required, for which one could not arrange enough cylinders side by side, two-row radial engines and in- line engines were developed. The main customer was the aviation industry. There were also a small number of users who fitted boats and land vehicles with cleget-blin engines.
Products (extract)
Rotary radial engines
- Clerget 7Z - 7-cylinder rotary engine with 80 HP, the first aircraft engine developed by Pierre Clerget in 1911. Numbers: 347. Most engines were in the two-seat biplane - training aircraft Avro 504 of the British manufacturer Avro installed.
- Clerget 9B - 9 cylinder 130 hp rotary engine, developed in 1913 and manufactured in both France and Great Britain. Use in the Sopwith Camel . Quantities: 1,300 produced under license from Ruston Proctor & Co Ltd, Lincoln , England.
- Clerget 9Bf - 9-cylinder rotary engine with 140 hp, 1915 further development of the 9B version with an extended stroke (172 mm) and a larger displacement of 17.5 liters. Gwynnes Ltd and 600 Ruston Proctor produced 1,750 units .
- Clerget 9Z - 9-cylinder rotary engine with 110 hp. This nine-cylinder with aluminum pistons, tubular connecting rods and revised valve timing was built in 1917.
- Clerget 11Eb - 11-cylinder rotary engine with 215 HP, most powerful version, which Clerget developed especially for the models Sopwith Bulldog , Sopwith Hippo and Sopwith Salamander .
Types 7, 9 and 11 were air-cooled engines. Fuel type: gasoline with castor oil as a lubricant.
Diesel radial engines
In the 1920s, Pierre Clerget developed radial engines to use diesel fuel.
- Clerget 9A - 1929, 9 cylinder radial engine, single row, 100 hp.
- Clerget 14F-01 - developed in 1937, 14-cylinder twin radial engine, was used in the Potez 25 biplane .
Multi-row engines
- Clerget X-16 - water-cooled 16-cylinder X-engine developed by Clerget in 1911.
The structure of the X16 is basically a double V-motor . In the X-shape, the individual cylinder banks are each offset by an angle of 90 °. This configuration is extremely unusual, mainly because of its weight and the complexity compared to a radial engine, the development was not pursued further. In the early 20th century, this X-shape was taken up again by Henry Ford and Daimler-Benz type DB 604 .
- Clerget H-16 - the last development by Pierre Clerget before he died in 1943.
In early 1940, Clerget developed a water-cooled 16-cylinder H-engine. This series was also known as the Transatlantique type . Clerget saw this H-design as an advantage for aircraft construction , since compared to radial engines, flatter and also compact engines can be built with the same number of cylinders. The flight tests showed a lower air resistance compared to the radial engines, which had a larger frontal area due to the circular cylinder arrangement.
With four turbochargers, the H-16 achieved a shaft output of 2,000 hp (1,500 kW). The rows of cylinders looked like a horizontal H when viewed in the direction of the crankshafts. In principle, this H-engine consisted of two 180-degree V-engines one above the other, each with its own crankshaft, which were connected to gear wheels on the drive side.
The H-engine design was taken up again in 1966 by the British BRM team and used in Formula 1 .
Individual evidence
- ^ Bill Gunston: World Encyclopaedia of Aero Engines. Patrick Stephens Limited, Cambridge 1989, p. 41.
- ↑ Alec Lumsden: British piston engines and their aircraft. Airlife Publishing, Marlborough 2003, ISBN 1-85310-294-6 , p. 134.
- ^ Henry Ford's Weird Old Engines. Popular Science, August 1960, pp. 64-67.
literature
- Gérard Hartmann: Pierre Clerget, un motoriste de génie 1875–1943. Éditions de l'Officine, ISBN 2-914614-64-0 .
- Bill Gunston: World Encyclopaedia of Aero Engines. Patrick Stephens Limited, Cambridge 1989, ISBN 1-85260-163-9 .
- Alec Lumsden: British Piston Engines and their Aircraft. Airlife Publishing, 2003, ISBN 1-85310-294-6 .
- Stefan Zima: Unusual engines. Vogel Verlag, 2004, ISBN 3802319958 .