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History of the internal combustion engine

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Samuel Brown patented the first internal combustion engine to be applied industrially in the United States in 1823. Brown also demonstrated a boat using his engine on the Thames in 1827, and an engine-driven carriage in 1828. Father Eugenio Barsanti, an Italian engineer, together with Felice Matteucci of Florence invented the first real internal combustion engine in 1853. Their patent request was granted in London on 12 June 1854, and published in London's Morning Journal under the title "Specification of Eugene Barsanti and Felix Matteucci, Obtaining Motive Power by the Explosion of Gasses". In 1860, Belgian Jean Joseph Etienne Lenoir produced a gas-fired internal combustion engine. In 1864, Nicolaus Otto patented the first commercially successful gas engine.

George Brayton invented the first commercial liquid-fueled internal combustion engine in 1872. In 1876, Nicolaus Otto, working with Gottlieb Daimler and Wilhelm Maybach, patented the compressed charge, four-stroke cycle engine. In 1879, Karl Benz patented a reliable two-stroke gas engine. In 1892, Rudolf Diesel developed the first compressed charge, compression ignition engine. In 1954 German engineer Felix Wankel patented a "pistonless" engine using an eccentric rotary design.

The first liquid-fuelled rocket was launched in 1926 by Robert Goddard. The Heinkel He 178 became the world's first jet aircraft by 1939, followed by the first ramjet engine in 1949 and the first scramjet engine in 2004.

Prior to 1850

  • Before 100 AD: The fire piston is invented in Southeast Asia, and its use is concentrated in Austronesia. This device and the aforementioned Diesel's experiences with pneumatic pumps, inspired the Diesel engine, which also uses compression ignition (as opposed to spark ignition).
  • Sometime between the 10th and 13th centuries (dating uncertain): The fire arrow, a gunpowder-fuelled form of rocket engine, is invented in China.
  • 1678–1679: The Huygens' engine, a prototype single-cylinder gunpowder engine is built by Dutch inventor Christiaan Huygens.
  • 1745 : Abbot Agostino Ruffo of Verona testing a pump for leaks noticed that, after pressurization the wood plug had been scorched. Later he made an apparatus to further study timber ignition by pumps.
  • 1780s: An "electric pistol", which used an electric spark to ignite hydrogen gas in an enclosed vessel, is invented by Italian chemist Alessandro Volta. This is possibly the first example of a spark-ignition heat engine.
  • 1791: The principle for a gas turbine engine is described in the patent A Method for Rising Inflammable Air for the Purposes of Producing Motion and Facilitating Metallurgical Operations by British inventor John Barber.
  • 1794: A reciprocating piston engine is built by Robert Street. This engine was fuelled by gas vapours, used the piston's intake stroke to draw in outside air, and the air/fuel mixture was ignited by an external flame. Another gas engine was also patented in 1794 by Thomas Mead.
  • 1801: The concept of using compression in a two-stroke gas engine was theorised by French engineer Philippe LeBon D’Humberstein.
  • 1807: One of the first known working internal combustion engines – called the Pyréolophore – is built by French inventors Claude Niépce and Nicéphore Niépce. This single prototype engine used a series of controlled dust explosions and was used to power a boat upstream in the river Saône in France.
  • 1807: The hydrogen-fuelled De Rivaz engine is built by Swiss engineer François Isaac de Rivaz and fitted to a wheeled carriage, possibly creating the first known automobile. This prototype engine used spark-ignition (as per the 1780s Alessandro Volta design above).
  • 1823: The concept of a gas vacuum engine is patented by British engineer Samuel Brown. One of Brown's engines was used to pump water at a canal in London from 1830 to 1836.
  • 1824: The Carnot cycle – a thermodynamic theory for heat engines – is published in a research paper by French physicist Nicolas Léonard Sadi Carnot.
  • 1826: A patent for the principle of a "gas or vapor engine" is granted to American inventor Samuel Morey. The patent includes the first known design for a carburetor.
  • 1833: A patent for a double-acting gas Lemuel Wellman Wright, UK patent no. 6525, table-type gas engine. Double-acting gas engine, first record of water-jacketed cylinder.
  • 1838: A patent for the principle of a double-acting gas engine is granted to British inventor William Barnett. This is the first known design to propose in-cylinder compression and the use of a water jacket for cooling.

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