MCL345: Reciprocating IC Engines

Krishnakant Agrawal
Assistant Professor
Mechanical Engineering Department

Classroom Lecture 3
 IC engine as a start-up
• Concepts started floating around in 1700s and early 1800s
Atmospheric engines firing gunpowder and creating Huygen's gunpowder
vacuum to lift load engine (1680 AD)
• Struggle to burn whale oil, coal gas, mineral oils, coal etc.
• Necessary complementary technology
Discovery of crude oil in Pennsylvania in 1859
• Rapid development curve after 1860
Improved hydrocarbons and IC engine development
• The first real breakthrough
Four stroke cycle prototype by Otto in 1876
• Big push from supportive technology
Pneumatic Rubber tyre by Dunlop in 1888
• Challenging status quo
Electricity and Steam were state of art for automobile,
completely displaced by IC engines by early 1900s
 The first automotive engine by Lenoir (1860)

• Inventor- Étienne Lenoir, France

• Part of 1st stroke: intake
• Charge ignited by spark
• Rest of 1st stroke: expansion
• Return stroke exhaust
• Low expansion ratio
• Thermal efficiency ~5%
• 1862 automobile : 3 km/h
• 1863 Hippomobile : 11 km from
Paris to Joinville-le-Pont in ~90
minutes
• Also used for press, pumps,
machine tools
 Free Piston Otto-Langen engine (1866)
• Inventors- Nikolaus Otto and Carls
Langen, Germany
• Free piston on a rack assembly
• Combustion of fuel charge early in
outward stroke
• Unrestricted piston movement;
Advantage of complete expansion →
Thermal efficiency ~11%
• Vacuum by accelerating piston, Piston
coming back by atmospheric pressure
and gravity, rack engages clutch to get
power
• Won Gold medal in 1867`s Paris
world fair for halving gas usage
• Otto got hint on importance of Atmospheric pressure engines till now
compression of fuel charge
1st breakthrough: 4-stroke Otto engine (1876)
• 1st compressed charge IC engine
• Introduction of a separate compression
stroke, pre-combustion pressures above
atmospheric

• Also called Petrol engine or SI engine

or Rings-Schumm engine
• Eliminated excessive weight in rack-
piston by crank-piston, yet achieved
thermal efficiency of ~14%

• Deutz patent ran till 1886, after discovery of an earlier patent by Rochas
in 1861 → ~50 companies started making such engines
• Foundation of automotive industry was laid using this ``low cost, low
weight, fuel efficient`` engine
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwqghGs25cg