Today in Technology History

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August 14

Yesterday we discussed the rotary internal-combustion engine, invented by a German. Today, our subject is the standard internal-combustion engine that the rotary engine was supposed to replace. It, too, was invented by a German.

This picture shows a cylinder from Otto's engine. Click the image to see more of Otto's patent.

Exactly 125 years ago, the U.S. Patent Office granted a patent for an "improvement in gas-motor engines." That design is still the basis for the internal-combustion engines used today.

The earliest engines used the power of steam to move a piston -- the motion which powered the Industrial Age. The first internal-combustion engines were built in the first half of the nineteenth century; when an ignitable gas was combined with air and a spark, the resulting explosion moved a piston. These early internal-combustion engines were very inefficient, so they never really caught on.

Nicolaus August Otto (1832-1891) was a German traveling salesman who became interested in engines in the 1860s. He designed a new internal-combustion engine which used a four-stroke cycle to suck in the mixture of air and gas vapor, compress the mixture, ignite it and then force it out. His main innovation was in compressing the mixture of fuel and air; this made his engine much more efficient than its predecessors.

Otto built a working model of his four-stroke engine as early as 1862, but he didn't perfect the ignition mechanism until 1876. He obtained patents the next year -- including U.S. Patent No. 194,047 on August 14, 1877. He patented later refinements as well.

Otto opened a factory to build and improve his engines, and he became wealthy. The Otto engine made automobiles and motorcycles practical, and it made airplanes possible. The impact of Otto's engine on our society, our lifestyles, our geography, our prosperity and our environment has been enormous.

Related link:

• Click here for a picture and biography of Otto.

 

 

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