written like an advertisement . please help improve it by removing promotional content and inappropriate external links and by adding encyclopedic content written from a neutral point of view . february 2016 learn how and when to remove this template message ricardo plc type public lse rcdo industry automotive clean energy defence rail marine founded 1915 as engine patents ltd. headquarters shoreham by sea england key people dave shemmans ceo revenue 257.5 million 2014 2015 number of employees 2700 2015 website http www.ricardo.com ricardo plc is a british publicly listed company named after its founder sir harry ricardo originally incorporated and registered as engine patents ltd in 1915 . since 1919 the headquarters have been at shoreham by sea west sussex . ricardo develops engines transmissions vehicle systems intelligent transportation systems its and hybrid & electric systems . the industries served are in transportation defence and clean energy . contents 1 introduction 2 historical overview 3 technologies that shaped the company s first 100 years 4 some additional notable projects 5 references 6 external links introduction edit ricardo activities cover a range of market sectors including passenger car commercial vehicle rail defence motorsport motorcycle off highway marine clean energy and power generation and government . its client list includes transportation original equipment manufacturers supply chain organisations energy companies financial institutions and government agencies . as well as the shoreham uk headquarters there are technical centres in royal leamington spa cambridge chicago detroit aachen schw bisch gm nd germany prague and regional offices in shanghai yokohama seoul new delhi and moscow . historical overview edit harry later sir harry ricardo was born in london in 1885 and was educated at rugby and cambridge where he studied at trinity college . the first internal combustion engined cars were made by daimler and benz in the year of his birth and in his childhood days he was clearly highly influenced by these new forms of transport . he was renowned for his research into the problem of knock in engines ; the results of his work on fuel and reducing fuel consumption assisted alcock and brown to cross the atlantic for the first time by aircraft . over the years he was responsible for significant developments in the design of piston engines for a number of applications and derivatives of his original designs are still in production . he was elected fellow of the royal society in 1929 and in 1948 was knighted in recognition of his services to the internal combustion engine industry . he died in 1974 at the age of 89 . 1 from his earliest days harry ricardo had a fascination for engines . he had designed and built many small engines in his youth including at the age of 17 an engine to pump water at the family home in sussex . in 1906 he filed his first engine design patent while still a student at cambridge . in 1908 the two stroke engine company started to manufacture and sell a car the dolphin fitted with the same novel engine he had designed and patented earlier as a student at cambridge . this also found its way into many of the shoreham built fishing boats until almost every fisherman had a dolphin engine in his boat ; they were suited to prolonged low speed operation and proved extremely reliable . in 1915 harry ricardo formed engine patents ltd the company which is today known as ricardo plc. 2 in this year he was contacted by the royal naval air service to help with the design of a device to manoeuvre battle tanks into position aboard railway wagons . in fact he discovered numerous problems with the tank engine itself that he was able to help with . for example the existing engine a daimler 105 bhp sleeve valve gasoline engine had a poor lubrication system and many failures occurred as a result . its purely reciprocating sleeves supplied a large quantity of oil into the exhaust port and the tank s location was revealed by the pall of blue smoke . harry designed a new 4 stroke crosshead type engine producing 150 bhp with no visible smoke . around 8000 engines were produced to power the tanks making this engine the uk s first mass produced internal combustion engine . many more of these engines found applications powering generators in workshops hospitals and camps . the success of this venture yielded 30 000 in royalties and led to harry ricardo being able to buy the land and set up the company on its present site in 1919 . 3 technologies that shaped the company s first 100 years edit here is a selection of ricardo inspired developments marking advances in land sea and air environments . 4 ref 4 covers all of these in more detail 1906 the dolphin motor car started during harry ricardo s student days in cambridge the dolphin project for a range of passenger cars was technically interesting but ended in commercial collapse . ricardo himself was not involved in owning or running the company but its failure steered the young engineer away from manufacturing and towards research and development . ricardo while still at cambridge had patented an innovative split cycle two stroke layout with the first cylinder pumping the compressed fuel air mixture into the second where the combustion took place . the combustion chamber was advanced too allowing a degree of charge stratification . his cousin ralph who had the idea of starting the dolphin motor car works in shoreham and was the main partner centred the car s propulsion system on harry s engine as options for internal combustion engines in the early 1900s were very limited . both two and four cylinder versions were built along with a large car to suit the bigger engine . eight of the large cars were built mainly for family members but only a single prototype of the smaller machine . this was used by harry ricardo for his personal transport for the next ten years . the intention had always been to offer the engine to other vehicle builders but though the car business struggled a measure of success came from an unexpected quarter . the fishermen at shoreham harbour were so impressed with a prototype boat fitted with the unit that they all quickly adopted this engine in their boats . particularly appreciated was the unit s smooth and steady low idle speed which was perfect for their coastal fishing requirements . though the two stroke car company closed in 1909 the engine design lived on as a 700 cc 12 hp unit powering the lloyd vox light car of which 100 were sold in the run up to the first world war . 1915 the mark v tank engine the background to harry ricardo s development of a new engine for the mk v tank is well known . top military officials had long been divided over the merits of these so called land ships which were originally designed to allow an advance in the face of machine gun fire from the enemy lines . it fell in the end to the admiralty with the strong support of winston churchill to make the case for tanks and by 1915 the go ahead had been given for a limited development programme albeit with a low priority in the use of scarce resources such as aluminium and high grade fuel . the early tanks suffered from many problems from uncertainty about battlefield tactics and communication to unreliability tricky manoeuvring and the tendency to emit thick smoke under acceleration . the element of surprise had been sacrificed and the tanks needed significant improvement if they were to influence the course of the war . through his contacts in government circles harry ricardo was entrusted with the design of a wholly new engine for the 28 tonne machines and the creation of a network of factories to build the units in large numbers . more than 8000 units were built and saw service in everything from tanks and transports to railway engines boats and stationary applications making this britain s first mass produced internal combustion engine . 1919 turbulent head the side valve engines of the immediate post ww1 era were inefficient and the intrinsic limitations of their combustion chamber geometries prevented them from achieving high enough compression ratios to develop reasonable power outputs . only the more complex and much less reliable overhead valve engines could manage respectable power figures ; these were generally confined to sports and expensive luxury cars . harry ricardo s contribution was to understand the combustion process and develop a cylinder head that retained the simplicity and the low cost of the side valve layout but which rethought the shape of the combustion chamber to provide both the greater compression required for power and the improved gas mixing that he realised was essential for stable combustion and the avoidance of damaging detonation . this he achieved with an asymmetric profile to the combustion chamber which used a squish effect to induce turbulence in the gases above the rising piston compressing them into the chamber to one side where they were ignited by the spark plug . the quickly patented design was simple and very effective giving low cost side valve engines the performance of the much pricier ohv units of that day . the development was immediately popular with a wide variety of vehicle makers from vauxhall and triumph to harley davidson hillman humber ford austin and many others . soon it was to be found on almost every side valve engine in production and charged at around 37 pence per engine earned ricardo substantial royalties until improved fuel quality eventually allowed overhead valves to take over in the 1950s . 1931 indirect injection diesel the comet chamber inspired though it was the comet diesel cylinder head which provided ricardo with so much of its royalty income from the 1930s until almost the turn of the century was not a single isolated invention . as befitted harry ricardo s ever inventive turn of mind comet was a concept that evolved and improved continuously right through to the 1990s keeping pace with market and legislative demands and adapting itself to new vehicle categories . invariably at least one of the many single cylinder test engines in the shoreham laboratories would be evaluating a new variant on the comet principle . the original comet mk1 which first appeared in aec s engine for london bus fleets in the early 1930s was followed by improved versions giving more economy better cold starting for some while a weak point of comet engines and more power . by 1936 18 uk companies and 14 foreign firms had taken up licences for the technology among these organizations were well known brand names such as citro n berliet man armstrong siddeley and de havilland aircraft . fiat was quick to sign up after its technical director was given a demonstration by aec and london s bus operator . development progressed apace with the principle spreading into other sectors such as agriculture where the standard triumph 23 diesel proved a big success in massey ferguson tractors . comet diesels also powered successive generations of land rovers and a large number of peugeots including the big selling 403 . by the 1960s fiat was the biggest licensee . japan and india were fertile ground too and by the time the comet patents began to expire in the 1970s nearly all diesel cars on the market were using the system . one fresh application even appeared just after the millennium . 1934 citroen rosalie the world s first production diesel passenger car andr citro n was a pioneer in many more ways than just the front wheel drive streamlining and unitary construction he is best known for today . in the late 1920s he had been quick to