Who invented the internal combustion engine?

Development history of internal combustion engine

Since the piston internal combustion engine came out in the 1960s, it has been a relatively perfect machine through continuous improvement and development. It is widely used because of its high thermal efficiency, wide range of power and speed, convenient matching and good maneuverability. All kinds of cars, tractors, agricultural machinery, construction machinery, small mobile power stations and chariots around the world are powered by internal combustion engines. Marine merchant ships, inland river ships and conventional ships, as well as some small aircraft are also propelled by internal combustion engines. The number of internal combustion engines ranks first in the world's power machinery and occupies a very important position in human activities.

Piston internal combustion engine originated from powder explosion to gain power, but it was not successful because the powder combustion was difficult to control. 1794, streeter, an Englishman, put forward the concept of mixing fuel with air for the first time. 1833, British Wright put forward the design of directly using combustion pressure to push the piston to do work.

After that, people put forward various internal combustion engine schemes, but they were not put into practice until the middle of the nineteenth century. Until 1860, the Frenchman Lenoir imitated the structure of the steam engine and designed and manufactured the first practical gas engine. This is an internal combustion engine with no compression, electric ignition and gas ignition. Lenoir first adopted elastic piston rings in internal combustion engines. The thermal efficiency of this gas turbine is about 4%.

Barnett of Britain once advocated compressing combustible mixture before ignition, and then someone wrote an article to discuss the important role of compressing combustible mixture, and pointed out that compression can greatly improve the efficiency of lenoir internal combustion engine. 1862, French scientist Rosa theoretically analyzed the thermal process of internal combustion engine, and put forward the requirement of improving the efficiency of internal combustion engine, which is the earliest four-stroke working cycle.

1876, the German inventor Otto successfully manufactured the first reciprocating piston, single cylinder, horizontal, 3.2 kW (4.4 HP) four-stroke internal combustion engine, still using gas as fuel, using flame ignition, rotating speed 156.7 rpm, compression ratio 2.66 and thermal efficiency 14. At that time, both power and thermal efficiency were the highest.

Otto internal combustion engine has been popularized and its performance is improving. 1880, the single machine power reached1~15kw (15 ~ 20hp), and 1893 increased to 150 kW. With the increase of compression ratio, the thermal efficiency also increases. The thermal efficiency in 1886 is 15.5%, and it has reached 20 ~ 26% in 1897. 188 1 year, British engineer Clark successfully developed the first two-stroke gas engine and exhibited it at the Paris Expo.

With the development of petroleum, people pay attention to gasoline and diesel which are easier to transport and carry than gas. First of all, volatile gasoline has been tried. 1883, Daimler Company of Germany successfully manufactured the first vertical gasoline engine, which is characterized by light weight and high speed. At that time, the speed of other internal combustion engines did not exceed 200 rpm, but jumped to 800 rpm, which was especially suitable for the requirements of transportation machinery. From1885 to1886, the gasoline engine successfully operated as the automobile power, which greatly promoted the development of the automobile. At the same time, the development of automobile promotes the improvement and improvement of gasoline engine. Soon, the gasoline engine was used as the power of the ship again.

1892, inspired by the dust explosion in the flour mill, German engineer Diesel imagined that the air sucked into the cylinder would be highly compressed to make its temperature exceed the self-ignition temperature of the fuel, and then the fuel would be blown into the cylinder with high-pressure air to ignite it. His first compression-ignition internal combustion engine (diesel engine) was successfully developed in 1897, which opened up a new road for the development of internal combustion engines.

The diesel engine began to try to make the internal combustion engine realize Carnot cycle in order to obtain the highest thermal efficiency, but in fact it realized approximate isobaric combustion with a thermal efficiency of 26%. The advent of compression ignition internal combustion engine has aroused great interest in the world machinery industry, and compression ignition internal combustion engine is also named diesel engine after the inventor.

This kind of internal combustion engine will use diesel as fuel in the future, so it is also called diesel engine. 1898 diesel engine was first used for stationary generator sets, 1903 was used as power for merchant ships, 1904 was installed on ships, 19 13 was the first diesel locomotive driven by diesel engine, and it began to be used in automobiles and agriculture around 1920.

Long before the birth of reciprocating piston internal combustion engine, people tried to make rotary piston internal combustion engine, but all failed. It was not until 1954 that Wankel, a German engineer, solved the sealing problem and developed a rotary piston engine called Wankel engine in 1957. It has an approximately triangular rotating piston, which rotates in a cylinder with a specific profile and works according to the Otto cycle. This kind of engine has the advantages of high power, small volume, small vibration, stable operation, simple structure and convenient maintenance. However, due to its poor fuel economy, low low-speed torque and unsatisfactory exhaust performance, it is only used on individual vehicles.