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 The steam engine is classed as an external combustion engine because the fuel is burned away from the engine. The fuel heats water which turns to steam. The steam is supplied to a cylinder by a system of pipes where it drives the piston and supplies power. Although the engine worked well for locomotives and ships, the steam engine required a lot of labor to keep running. Heavy boilers were required to heat the water in, and the solid nature of the fuel made the engine somewhat cumbersome to operate and somewhat impractical for smaller vehicles. A smaller, more powerful engine was needed. The internal combustion engine is more efficient than the steam engine because the fuel is actually burned in the engine. The fuel is ignited in the cylinder by the spark plug. The resulting explosion drives the piston down, which turns the crankshaft and supplies power. The need for a smaller, more powerful engine to replace steam power is what initially drove the research into the internal combustion engine. The concept for the engine was partly inspired by the ability of gunpowder to eject a cannonball from a cannon. Indeed, gunpowder was the first fuel tried in an internal combustion engine - unsuccessfully. A search for a suitable fuel remained futile until natural gas came into use in the cities in the middle of the 19th century. Natural gas was an ideal fuel, but it needed a pipeline to deliver it. Since it’s a little hard to build a pipeline to a moving locomotive, the engine was still impractical for use to power trains. Another problem confronting the engine was the dilemma of maintaining the ignition of the engine. A French inventor named Lenoir partially solved this in 1859 , and built the first operating internal combustion engine in history in Paris, France. The modern four stroke engine came into being in 1878 with the genius of German inventor Nikolaus Otto. His engine could be used by small industries to drive equipment. Because it was less expensive and labor intensive to operate, it began replacing steam engines in that application. As these engines were still dependent on natural gas, the engines were useful for stationary situations only because natural gas is not a ‘portable’ fuel. As sometimes happens in revolutionary discoveries, the fuel problem for the internal combustion engine was solved in the search for another fuel. Kerosene was found to be a superior fuel for lighting homes in this pre-electric age, and the demand for it was increasing. This demand inspired Edwin Drake to drill the world’s first oil well in Pennsylvania in 1859, firing the first salvo in what was to become the world’s largest industry - the oil industry. Gasoline at first was an unwanted byproduct of refining kerosene, until it was discovered that it was the ideal fuel for the new internal combustion engine. It was portable, making the engine free from the natural gas lines it had been tethered to. This made the engine suitable for many more purposes, such as the automobile. The marriage of the internal combustion engine and the "horseless carraige" was another important milestone in the saga of transportation history. Fast and economical the automobile soon took over the would as the primary means of transportation for millions of people. History Of The Automobile Back To Transportation History |