Four stroke cycle gasoline engine

Of the different techniques for recovering the power from the combustion process, the most important so far has been the four-stroke cycle, a conception first developed in the late 19th century. The four-stroke cycle is illustrated in the figure. With the inlet valve open, the piston first descends on the intake stroke. An ignitable mixture of gasoline vapour and air is...

development of automobiles

The four-stroke principle upon which most modern automobile engines work was discovered by a French engineer, Alphonse Beau de Rochas, in 1862, a year before Lenoir ran his car from Paris to Joinville-le-Pont. The four-stroke cycle is often called the Otto cycle, after the German Nikolaus August Otto, who designed an engine on that principle in 1876. De Rochas held prior patents, however, and...

diesel engines

As noted earlier, diesel engines are designed to operate on either the two- or four-stroke cycle. In the typical four-stroke-cycle engine, the intake and exhaust valves and the fuel-injection nozzle are located in the cylinder head (see figure). Often, dual valve arrangements—two intake and two exhaust valves—are employed.

history of technology

...the engine was expensive to operate, and it was not until the refinement introduced by the German inventor Nikolaus Otto in 1878 that the gas engine became a commercial success. Otto adopted the four-stroke cycle of induction-compression-firing-exhaust that has been known by his name ever since. Gas engines became extensively used for small industrial establishments, which could thus...