View source for History of german combustion engine construction from 1860 to 1918

By DR.-ING. DR.-ING. E. H. FRIEDRICH SASS

PROFESSOR AN DER TECHNISCHEN UNIVERSITAT BERLIN


'''Inhaltsverzeichnis'''

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From the beginnings to Lenoir (1673-1860) 

Christian Huygens p. 2 

Jean de Hautefeuille p. 3  

Denis Papin p. 3 

John Barber p. 4 

Robert Street p. 4 

Philippe Lebon p. 5 

Isaac de Rivaz p. 5 

William Cecil p. 5 

Samuel Brown p. 6 

Wellman L. Wright p. 6 

William Barnett p. 7 

Alfred Drake p. 8 

Barsanti and Matteucci p. 8

Degrand p. 10

Lenoir and his engine p. 11

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=== I. From the beginnings to Lenoir (1673-1860) ===
The beginning of the history of the internal combustion engine has not been wrongly associated with the name Christian Huygens (1629-1695). The ingenious idea of the powder engine, which the great mathematician and physicist communicated to his brother in a letter in 1673<sup>5</sup>, can indeed be seen as a precursor to the invention of the atmospheric gas engine, which Otto and Langen built 200 years later in Deutz. Huygens was living in Paris at the time, where he was busy pumping water from the Seine into the gardens of the newly built Palace of Versailles for the water features of Louis XIV. Figure I shows how HUYGENS thought of the solution to the problem. In the cylinders A-B, which are open at the top, The lower opening of which could be closed by the powder pan C, the piston D was suspended from a rope D-K that ran over the roller H; the payload G hung from the free end of the rope. If gunpowder was poured into the pan C and ignited by a fuse, the gas pressure had to throw the piston D at the bottom of the cylinder upwards. In its highest position, the piston opened the openings E and the powder gases flowed out through the leather tubes E-F, which acted as valves. A vacuum was created in the cylinder, so that the external air pressure compressed the leather tubes and moved the piston downwards, lifting the payload G. The weight of the piston increased the effective power. The device was implemented; Huygens demonstrated it to the French Academy of Sciences and to the Minister Colbert in 1673.
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