Kettering, Charles Franklin

(b. Loudon ville, Ohio, 25 November 1876; d. Loudonville 25 November 1958)

engineering, invention.

Kettering’s genius lay in his ability to adopt new methods and concepts in solving technical problems. He was a questioner with a fondness for challenging the apparently obvious: Why is grass green? Have you ever been a piston in a diesel engine?

Kettering was one of five children of Jacob Kettering, a farmer and carpenter, and the former Mary Hunter. As a boy his schooling was interrupted by poor eyesight, but the eventually graduated from the Ohio State University in 1904 with a degree in electrical engineering. He joined the inventions staff of the National Cash Register Company, working there for five years;then he left to found the Dayton Engineering Laboratories Company (Delco) with Edward A. Deeds. The company subsequently became part of General Motors.

Kettering’s first great achievement was the electric starter for automobiles, installed on the Cadillac car in 1912. His contribution was motor powerful enough to turn the engine over but small enough to fit in motor vehicle. The concept originated when he was working on an electric cash register and realized that the motor he required need not carry a constant load but merely had to deliver an occasional surge of power. Kettering was invited to work on the starter because his company had designed a successful wet-battery ignition system for Cadillac. This system was alleged to be a cause of engine knock; and to refute this criticism Kettering undertook to find the real cause of knock—which, with remarkable insight, he de4cided was imperfect combustion o9f the fuel. After long research in cooperation with Thomas Midgley, Jr., and T. A. Boyd, he found a remedy in the addition of tetraethyl lead to gasoline. The resulting product, ethyl gasoline, was put on the market in 1922. At the same time Kettering was working with Du Pont chemists to develop a Quick-drying lacquer finish for motor vehicle bodies, thereby eliminating a troublesome source of delay in production.

In 1919 Kettering became head of the General Motors Research Corporation, an assignment designed to give greater scope and resources for his talents. It was in this capacity that he completed his work on antiknock gasoline and quick-drying finishes. He also tried to design an engine with an air-cooling system using copper fins on the cylinders over which air was blown by a fan. Some cars using this system were built in 1922 but were subsequently withdrawn, and the experiment was discontinued as impractical in the existing state of the art. A search for a nontoxic refrigerant had a happier outcome, the result being the fluorine compounds known as Freon.

During the 1930’s Kettering was active in the refinement and improvement of the diesel engine. The specific steps involved using a two-cycle system, better fuel injection, and prevention of piston overheating. The result was the replacement of steam by diesel power on railroads and the use of diesel engines in trucks and buses. Subsequently, through the Charles F. Kettering Foundation and the Sloan-Kettering Institute for Cancer Research, Kettering encouraged and took an active interest in various fields of medical research, as well as basic research in photosynthesis and magnetism. He was not, however, a pure research scientist; his interest in photosynthesis and magnetism lay in a hope of finding new sources of energy for human use.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Kettering delivered many lectures and addresses, but they have not been collected. During the 1930’s he wrote frequently for the Saturday Evening Post.

Secondary sources are T. A. Boyd, Professional Amateur. The Biography of Charles F. Kettering (New York. 1957); Mrs. Wilfred C. Leland. Master of Precision. Henry M. Leland (Detroit, 1960), written with Minnie D. Millbrook, which challenges Kettering’s claim to be the inventor of the electric starter; Arthur Pound, The Turning Wheel (New York, 1934); John B. Rae, Amercian Automobile Manufacturers: The Fist Forty Years (Philadelphia, 1959), PP. 109-114, 155-157, 198-199; and Alfred P. Sloan, Jr., My Years with General Motors (Garden City, N.Y., 1964), PP. 108-111, 222-225, 249-261, 341-359.

John B. Rae