their use was hindered until the commercial drilling and production of petroleum began

in the mid-1850s. By the late 19th century, engineering advances led to their widespread

adoption in a variety of applications.

Timeline of development Various scientists and engineers contributed

to the development of internal combustion engines:

Prior to 1860

3rd century: The earliest evidence of a crank and connecting rod mechanism dates to the

3rd century AD Hierapolis sawmill in Asia Minor as part of the Roman Empire.

5th century: Roman engineers documented several crankshaft-connecting rod machines used for

their sawmills. 9th century: The crank appears in the mid-9th

century in several of the hydraulic devices described by the Banū Mūsā brothers in

their Book of Ingenious Devices. In 1206, al-Jazari invented an early crankshaft,

which he incorporated with a crank-connecting rod mechanism in his twin-cylinder pump. Like

the modern crankshaft, Al-Jazari's mechanism consisted of a wheel setting several crank

pins into motion, with the wheel's motion being circular and the pins moving back-and-forth

in a straight line. The crankshaft described by al-Jazari transforms continuous rotary

motion into a linear reciprocating motion, 17th century: Christiaan Huygens designs gunpowder

to drive water pumps, to supply 3000 cubic meters of water/day for the Versailles palace

gardens, essentially creating the first idea of a rudimentary internal combustion piston

engine. 1780s: Alessandro Volta built a toy electric

pistol in which an electric spark exploded a mixture of air and hydrogen, firing a cork

from the end of the gun. 1791: John Barber receives British patent

#1833 for A Method for Rising Inflammable Air for the Purposes of Producing Motion and

Facilitating Metallurgical Operations. In it he describes a turbine.

1794: Robert Street built a compressionless engine whose principle of operation would

dominate for nearly a century. 1807: Nicéphore Niépce installed his 'moss,

coal-dust and resin' fueled Pyréolophore internal combustion engine in a boat and powered

up the river Saône in France. A patent was subsequently granted by Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte

on 20 July 1807. 1807: Swiss engineer François Isaac de Rivaz

built an internal combustion engine powered by a hydrogen and oxygen mixture, and ignited

by electric spark. 1823: Samuel Brown patented the first internal

combustion engine to be applied industrially. It was compressionless and based on what Hardenberg

calls the "Leonardo cycle", which, as the name implies, was already out of date at that

time. 1824: French physicist Sadi Carnot established

the thermodynamic theory of idealized heat engines.

1826 April 1: American Samuel Morey received a patent for a compressionless "Gas or Vapor

Engine." 1833: Lemuel Wellman Wright, UK patent 6525,

table-type gas engine. Double-acting gas engine, first record of water-jacketed cylinder.

1838: A patent was granted to William Barnett. According to Dugald Clerk, this was the first

recorded use of in-cylinder compression. 1853-57: Eugenio Barsanti and Felice Matteucci

invented and patented an engine using the free-piston principle that was possibly the

first 4-cycle engine.

1856: in Florence at Fonderia del Pignone, Pietro Benini realized a working prototype

of the Italian engine supplying 5 HP. In subsequent years he developed more powerful engines—with

one or two pistons—which served as steady power sources, replacing steam engines.

1857: Eugenio Barsanti and Felice Matteucci describe the principles of the free piston

engine where the vacuum after the explosion allows atmospheric pressure to deliver the

power stroke. Otto and Langen were the first to make a marketable engine based on this

concept 10 years later. 1860-1920

1860: Belgian Jean Joseph Etienne Lenoir produced a gas-fired internal combustion engine similar

in appearance to a horizontal double-acting steam engine, with cylinders, pistons, connecting

rods, and flywheel in which the gas essentially took the place of the steam. This was the

first internal combustion engine to be produced in numbers.

1861 The earliest confirmed patent of the 4-cycle engine, by Alphonse Beau de Rochas.

A year earlier, Christian Reithmann made an engine which may have been the same, but it's

unknown since his patent wasn't clear on this point.

1862: The German Nikolaus Otto begins to manufacture a gas engine. Actually, it was a no compression

Lenoir engine with a free piston. 1863: Nikolaus Otto, patented in England and

other countries his first atmospheric gas engine. Otto was the first to build and sell

this type of compressionless engine designed with an indirect-acting free-piston, whose

great efficiency won the support of Eugen Langen and then most of the market, which

at that time was mainly for small stationary engines fuelled by lighting gas. Eugen Langen

collaborated with Otto in the design and they began to manufacture it in 1864.

1865: Pierre Hugon started production of the Hugon engine, similar to the Lenoir engine,

but with better economy, and more reliable flame ignition.

1867: Otto and Langen exhibited their free piston engine at the Paris Exhibition in 1867,

and they won the greatest award. It had less than half the gas consumption of the Lenoir

or Hugon engines. 1870: In Vienna, Siegfried Marcus put the

first mobile gasoline engine on a handcart. 1872: In America George Brayton invented Brayton's

Ready Motor and went into commercial production, this used constant pressure combustion, and

was the first commercial liquid fuelled internal combustion engine.

1876: Nikolaus Otto, working with Gottlieb Daimler and Wilhelm Maybach, started the genesis

of the four-cycle engine. The German courts, however, did not hold his patent to cover

all in-cylinder compression engines or even the four-stroke cycle, and after this decision,

in-cylinder compression became universal. 1878: Dugald Clerk designed the first two-stroke

engine with in-cylinder compression. He patented it in England in 1881.

1879: Karl Benz, working independently, was granted a patent for his internal combustion

engine, a reliable two-stroke gas engine, based on the same technology as De Rochas's

design of the four-stroke engine. Later, Benz designed and built his own four-stroke engine

that was used in his automobiles, which were developed in 1885, patented in 1886, and became

the first automobiles in production. 1882: James Atkinson invented the Atkinson

cycle engine. Atkinson’s engine had one power phase per revolution together with different

intake and expansion volumes, potentially making it more efficient than the Otto cycle,

but certainly avoiding Otto's patent. 1884: British engineer Edward Butler constructed

the first petrol internal combustion engine. Butler invented the spark plug, ignition magneto,

coil ignition and spray jet carburetor, and was the first to use the word petrol.

1885: German engineer Gottlieb Daimler received a German patent for a supercharger

1889: Félix Millet begins development of the first vehicle to be powered by a rotary

engine in transportation history. 1891: Herbert Akroyd Stuart built his oil

engine, leasing rights to Hornsby of England to build them. They built the first cold-start

compression-ignition engines. In 1892, they installed the first ones in a water pumping

station. In the same year, an experimental higher-pressure version produced self-sustaining

ignition through compression alone. 1892: Rudolf Diesel developed his Carnot heat

engine type motor . 1887: Gustaf de Laval introduces the de Laval

nozzle 1893 February 23: Rudolf Diesel received a

patent for his compression ignition engine. 1896: Karl Benz invented the boxer engine,

also known as the horizontally opposed engine, or the flat engine, in which the corresponding

pistons reach top dead center at the same time, thus balancing each other in momentum.

1898: Fay Oliver Farwell designs the prototype of the line of Adams-Farwell automobiles,

all to be powered with three or five cylinder rotary internal combustion engines.

1900: Rudolf Diesel demonstrated the diesel engine in the 1900 Exposition Universelle

using peanut oil fuel. 1900: Wilhelm Maybach designed an engine built

at Daimler Motoren Gesellschaft—following the specifications of Emil Jellinek—who

required the engine to be named Daimler-Mercedes after his daughter. In 1902 automobiles with

that engine were put into production by DMG. 1903 - Konstantin Tsiolkovsky begins a series

of theoretical papers discussing the use of rocketry to reach outer space. A major point

in his work is liquid fueled rockets. 1903: Ægidius Elling builds a gas turbine

using a centrifugal compressor which runs under its own power. By most definitions,

this is the first working gas turbine. 1905 Alfred Buchi patents the turbocharger

and starts producing the first examples. 1903-1906: The team of Armengaud and Lemale

in France build a complete gas turbine engine. It uses three separate compressors driven

by a single turbine. Limits on the turbine temperatures allow for only a 3:1 compression

ratio, and the turbine is not based on a Parsons-like "fan", but a Pelton wheel-like arrangement.

The engine is so inefficient, at about 3% thermal efficiency, that the work is abandoned.

1908: New Zealand inventor Ernest Godward started a motorcycle business in Invercargill

and fitted the imported bikes with his own invention – a petrol economiser. His economisers

worked as well in cars as they did in motorcycles. 1908: Hans Holzwarth starts work on extensive

research on an "explosive cycle" gas turbine, based on the Otto cycle. This design burns

fuel at a constant volume and is somewhat more efficient. By 1927, when the work ended,

he has reached about 13% thermal efficiency. 1908: René Lorin patents a design for the

ramjet engine. 1916: Auguste Rateau suggests using exhaust-powered

compressors to improve high-altitude performance, the first example of the turbocharger.

1920-1980 1920: William Joseph Stern reports to the

Royal Air Force that there is no future for the turbine engine in aircraft. He bases his

argument on the extremely low efficiency of existing compressor designs. Due to Stern's

eminence, his paper is so convincing there is little official interest in gas turbine

engines anywhere, although this does not last long.

1921: Maxime Guillaume patents the axial-flow gas turbine engine. It uses multiple stages

in both the compressor and turbine, combined with a single very large combustion chamber.

1923: Edgar Buckingham at the United States National Bureau of Standards publishes a report

on jets, coming to the same conclusion as W.J. Stern, that the turbine engine is not

efficient enough. In particular he notes that a jet would use five times as much fuel as

a piston engine. 1925: The Hesselman engine is introduced by

Swedish engineer Jonas Hesselman represented the first use of direct gasoline injection

on a spark-ignition engine. 1925: Wilhelm Pape patents a constant-volume

engine design. 1926: Alan Arnold Griffith publishes his groundbreaking

paper Aerodynamic Theory of Turbine Design, changing the low confidence in jet engines.

In it he demonstrates that existing compressors are "flying stalled", and that major improvements

can be made by redesigning the blades from a flat profile into an airfoil, going on to

mathematically demonstrate that a practical engine is definitely possible and showing

how to build a turboprop. 1926 - Robert Goddard launches the first liquid-fueled

rocket 1927: Aurel Stodola publishes his "Steam and

Gas Turbines" - basic reference for jet propulsion engineers in the USA.

1927: A testbed single-shaft turbo-compressor based on Griffith's blade design is tested

at the Royal Aircraft Establishment. 1929: Frank Whittle's thesis on jet engines

is published 1930: Schmidt patents a pulse-jet engine in

Germany. 1935: Hans von Ohain creates plans for a turbojet

engine and convinces Ernst Heinkel to develop a working model. Along with a single mechanic

von Ohain develops the worlds first turbojet on a test stand.

1936: French engineer René Leduc, having independently re-discovered René Lorin's

design, successfully demonstrates the world's first operating ramjet.

1937: The first successful run of Sir Frank Whittle's gas turbine for jet propulsion.

March, 1937: The Heinkel HeS 1 experimental hydrogen fueled centrifugal jet engine is

tested at Hirth. 27 August 1939: Flight of the world's first

turbojet power aircraft. Hans von Ohain's Heinkel He 178 V1 pioneer turbojet aircraft

prototype makes its first flight, powered by an He S 3 von Ohain engine.

15 May 1941: The Gloster E.28/39 becomes the first British jet-engined aircraft to fly,

using a Power Jets W.1 turbojet designed by Frank Whittle and others.

1942: Max Bentele discovers in Germany that turbine blades can break if vibrations are

in its resonance range, a phenomenon already known in the USA from the steam turbine experience.

July 18, 1942: The Messerschmitt Me 262 first jet engine flight

1946: Sam Baylin develops the Baylin Engine a three cycle internal combustion engine with

rotary pistons. A crude but complex example of the future Wankel engine.

In the early 1950s engineers for The Texas Company—i.e. now Chevron—developed a four

stroke engine with a fuel injector that employed what was called the Texco Combustion Process,

which unlike normal four stroke gasoline engines which used a separate valve for the intake

of the air-gasoline mixture, with the T.C.P. engine the intake valve with a built in special

shroud delivers the air to the cylinder in a tornado type fashion at then the fuel is

injected and ignited by a spark plug. The inventors claimed their engine could burn

on almost any petroleum based fuel of any octane and even some alcohol based fuels—e.g.

kerosine, benzine, motor oil, tractor oil, etc.—without the pre-combustion knock and

the complete burning of the fuel inject into the cylinder. While development was well advanced

by 1950, there is no records of the T.C.P. engine being used commercially.

1950s development begins by US firms of the Free-piston engine concept which is a crankless

internal combustion engine. 1954: Felix Wankel's first working prototype

DKM 54 of the Wankel engine 1980 to present

1986 Benz Gmbh files for patent protection for a form of Scotch yoke engine and begins

development of same. Development subsequently abandoned.

2004 Hyper-X first scram-jet to maintain altitude 2004 Toyota Motor Corp files for patent protection

for new form of Scotch yoke engine. 2014 Ford Motor Company files patent for compact

turbine engine. Engine starting

Early internal combustion engines were started by hand cranking. Various types of starter

motor were later developed. These included: An auxiliary petrol engine for starting a

larger petrol or diesel engine. The Hucks starter is an example

Cartridge starters, such as the Coffman engine starter, which used a device like a blank

shotgun cartridge. These were popular for aircraft engines

Pneumatic starters Hydraulic starters

Electric starters Electric starters are now almost universal

for small and medium-sized engines, while pneumatic starters are used for large engines.

Modern vs. historical piston engines The first piston engines did not have compression,

but ran on an air-fuel mixture sucked or blown in during the first part of the intake stroke.

The most significant distinction between modern internal combustion engines and the early

designs is the use of compression and, in particular, in-cylinder compression.