History of Engines

Automobile Engineering developed only after the invention of Internal combustion engines. Internal combustion engines are the devices in which the combustion occurs inside the cylinder, particularly a combustion chamber and the conversion of energy occurs. An IC engine converts chemical energy into mechanical energy. When the fuel like petrol, diesel or a gas burns inside the engine, exothermic reaction occurs, this results in the release of lots of heat and pressure which pushes the piston in the cylinder down, and hence the chemical energy is converted into mechanical energy.

Engine Disassembled.

The development in the field of engines dates back to 19th century and before. Because only in the mid-1850's people invented machines and drills to harness crude oil and extract fossil fuels. So which made availability of fuels easily around the 19th century. This inturn helped the scientists and the inventors to work with the machines and different types of fuels.

Even though there were attempts to find a successful internal combustion engines in late 1600's and 1700's, it was Francois Issac de Rivaz in 1804 who made a reciprocating engine similar to the ones used in the modern automobiles. This IC engine is considered as the world's first IC engine because it had a spark ignition technology and used Hydrogen as a fuel. This was used as a pumping device.

Then in 1823, Sadi Carnot, a French Engineer proposed Carnot cycle. I think this is one of the important proposal in the field of automobile engineering because this cycle emphasizes the importance and need for the compression in the engines to gain the maximum efficiency.

The mid and the late 1800's were the importance phase in the growth and development of the engine technology because during the time period, many types of engines were invented. There was the development of the water-jacketed engine,a four-cycled engine, gas engines and compression engines.

Lenoir Motor

In 1860, Belgian Engineer named Jean Joseph Etienne Lenoire invented a commercially produced engine. It used the parts in the modern engines like connecting rod, piston and cylinders. It used Ruhmkorff ignition system to burn the mixture of coal gas and air. It also used a primitive carburetor.

Lenoir's Engine

Nikolaus Otto invented a compressionless engine which used a free-piston in 1862. Then in 1867, Otto along with Eugene Langen produced an engine which consumed only half the fuel consumed by Lenoir's engine.

In 1876, Nikolaus Otto, Gottlieb Daimler and Wilhelm Maybach worked on the four-cycle in-cylinder compression engines. But they were denied of the patent rights.

In 1879,Karl Benz worked independently to develop a two-stroke engine and later he got the patent rights for it. In 1885, Benz developed a four-cycle engine which he patented in 1886. These engines were used in the automobiles produce later. Benz's engines were considered reliable at that point of time.

First Automobile made

Daimler and Benz

Wilhelm Maybach

Daimler, Maybach and Benz

One of the important invention in the field of Automobile Engineering is the compression ignition engine or the CI engine. It was developed by Rudolph Diesel in 1893. This engine uses the heat of compression to ignite the fuel.

Rudolph's Diesel Engine

Rudolf Diesel

Another type of engine is the rotary engine which was patented by Felix Wankel in the year 1929, and he made a working prototype with NSU in the year 1957.

In 1925, Hesselmen Engine demonstrated the direct injection of gasoline into the cylinder.


I personally think that the above inventions were very important and they played a major role in development of the engines, however there were many inventions in the history of the engine development. Thanks for reading this post and I will make more in the coming days. Stay tuned.

Vishanth.

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