Arturo Caprotti (22 March 1881 – 9 February 1938) was an Italian

engineer Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who invent, design, analyze, build and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while considering the l ...

and

architect An architect is a person who plans, designs and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...

. In 1915 or 1916 he invented the

Caprotti valve gear The Caprotti valve gear is a type of steam engine valve gear invented in the early 1920s by Italian architect and engineer Arturo Caprotti. It uses camshafts and poppet valves rather than the piston valves used in other valve gear. While basi ...

rotary cam poppet valve gear for

steam engine A steam engine is a heat engine that performs mechanical work using steam as its working fluid. The steam engine uses the force produced by steam pressure to push a piston back and forth inside a cylinder. This pushing force can be trans ...

s of all kinds, but in practice it was employed almost exclusively in railway locomotives.

External links

Continental engineers
at www.steamindex.com 1881 births 1938 deaths Locomotive builders and designers 20th-century Italian architects Italian mechanical engineers 20th-century Italian engineers 20th-century Italian inventors {{Italy-architect-stub