HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Timeline A timeline is a display of a list of events in chronological order. It is typically a graphic design showing a long bar labelled with dates paralleling it, and usually contemporaneous events. Timelines can use any suitable scale represen ...
of
motor An engine or motor is a machine designed to convert one or more forms of energy into mechanical energy. Available energy sources include potential energy (e.g. energy of the Earth's gravitational field as exploited in hydroelectric power g ...
and
engine An engine or motor is a machine designed to convert one or more forms of energy into mechanical energy. Available energy sources include potential energy (e.g. energy of the Earth's gravitational field as exploited in hydroelectric power ...
technology Technology is the application of knowledge to reach practical goals in a specifiable and reproducible way. The word ''technology'' may also mean the product of such an endeavor. The use of technology is widely prevalent in medicine, scien ...
* (c. 30–70 AD) –
Hero of Alexandria Hero of Alexandria (; grc-gre, Ἥρων ὁ Ἀλεξανδρεύς, ''Heron ho Alexandreus'', also known as Heron of Alexandria ; 60 AD) was a Greek mathematician and engineer who was active in his native city of Alexandria, Roman Egypt. H ...
describes the first documented steam-powered device, the ''
aeolipile An aeolipile, aeolipyle, or eolipile, from the Greek "αιολουπυλη", also known as a Hero's engine, is a simple, bladeless radial steam turbine which spins when the central water container is heated. Torque is produced by steam jets ex ...
''. * 13th century – Chinese
chronicle A chronicle ( la, chronica, from Greek ''chroniká'', from , ''chrónos'' – "time") is a historical account of events arranged in chronological order, as in a timeline. Typically, equal weight is given for historically important events and ...
s wrote about a solid-rocket motor used in warfare. * 1698 –
Thomas Savery Thomas Savery (; c. 1650 – 15 May 1715) was an English inventor and engineer. He invented the first commercially used steam-powered device, a steam pump which is often referred to as the "Savery engine". Savery's steam pump was a revolutionar ...
builds a steam-powered water
pump A pump is a device that moves fluids (liquids or gases), or sometimes slurries, by mechanical action, typically converted from electrical energy into hydraulic energy. Pumps can be classified into three major groups according to the method they ...
for pumping water out of mines. * 1712 –
Thomas Newcomen Thomas Newcomen (; February 1664 – 5 August 1729) was an English inventor who created the atmospheric engine, the first practical fuel-burning engine in 1712. He was an ironmonger by trade and a Baptist lay preacher by calling. He ...
builds a piston-and-cylinder steam-powered water pump for pumping water out of mines. * 1769 –
James Watt James Watt (; 30 January 1736 (19 January 1736 OS) – 25 August 1819) was a Scottish inventor, mechanical engineer, and chemist who improved on Thomas Newcomen's 1712 Newcomen steam engine with his Watt steam engine in 1776, which was ...
patents his first improved
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 ...
.


19th Century

* 1806 –
François Isaac de Rivaz François Isaac de Rivaz (Paris, December 19, 1752 – Sion, July 30, 1828) was a French-born Swiss inventor and a politician. He invented a hydrogen-powered internal combustion engine with electric ignition and described it in a French paten ...
invented a hydrogen powered engine, the first successful
internal combustion engine An internal combustion engine (ICE or IC engine) is a heat engine in which the combustion of a fuel occurs with an oxidizer (usually air) in a combustion chamber that is an integral part of the working fluid flow circuit. In an internal co ...
. * 1807 –
Nicéphore Niépce Joseph Nicéphore Niépce (; 7 March 1765 – 5 July 1833), commonly known or referred to simply as Nicéphore Niépce, was a French inventor, usually credited with the invention of photography. Niépce developed heliography, a technique he us ...
and his brother Claude build a fluid piston internal combustion engine, the Pyréolophore and use it to power a boat up the river
Saône The Saône ( , ; frp, Sona; lat, Arar) is a river in eastern France. It is a right tributary of the Rhône, rising at Vioménil in the Vosges department and joining the Rhône in Lyon, at the southern end of the Presqu'île. The name d ...
. * 1816 – Robert Stirling invented his hot air
Stirling engine A Stirling engine is a heat engine that is operated by the cyclic compression and expansion of air or other gas (the ''working fluid'') between different temperatures, resulting in a net conversion of heat energy to mechanical work. More specif ...
, and what we now call a " regenerator". * 1821 –
Michael Faraday Michael Faraday (; 22 September 1791 – 25 August 1867) was an English scientist who contributed to the study of electromagnetism and electrochemistry. His main discoveries include the principles underlying electromagnetic inducti ...
builds an electricity-powered motor. * 1824 –
Nicolas Léonard Sadi Carnot ''Sous-lieutenant'' Nicolas Léonard Sadi Carnot (; 1 June 1796 – 24 August 1832) was a French mechanical engineer in the French Army, military scientist and physicist, and often described as the "father of thermodynamics". He published o ...
first publishes that the efficiency of a
heat engine In thermodynamics and engineering, a heat engine is a system that converts heat to mechanical energy, which can then be used to do mechanical work. It does this by bringing a working substance from a higher state temperature to a lower stat ...
depends on the temperature difference between an engine and its environment. * 1837 – First American patent for an electric motor (). * 1850 – The first explicit statement of the first and
second law of thermodynamics The second law of thermodynamics is a physical law based on universal experience concerning heat and energy interconversions. One simple statement of the law is that heat always moves from hotter objects to colder objects (or "downhill"), unle ...
, given by
Rudolf Clausius Rudolf Julius Emanuel Clausius (; 2 January 1822 – 24 August 1888) was a German physicist and mathematician and is considered one of the central founding fathers of the science of thermodynamics. By his restatement of Sadi Carnot's princip ...
. * 1860 - Lenoir 2 cycle engine * 1872 - Brayton Engine * 1877 –
Nicolaus Otto Nicolaus August Otto (10 June 1832, Holzhausen an der Haide, Nassau – 26 January 1891, Cologne) was a German engineer who successfully developed the compressed charge internal combustion engine which ran on petroleum gas and led to the mo ...
patents a four-stroke
internal combustion engine An internal combustion engine (ICE or IC engine) is a heat engine in which the combustion of a fuel occurs with an oxidizer (usually air) in a combustion chamber that is an integral part of the working fluid flow circuit. In an internal co ...
(). * 1882 – James Atkinson invents the
Atkinson cycle The Atkinson-cycle engine is a type of internal combustion engine invented by James Atkinson in 1882. The Atkinson cycle is designed to provide efficiency at the expense of power density. A variation of this approach is used in some modern auto ...
engine, now common in some hybrid vehicles. * 1885 –
Gottlieb Daimler Gottlieb Wilhelm Daimler (; 17 March 1834 – 6 March 1900) was a German engineer, industrial designer and industrialist born in Schorndorf ( Kingdom of Württemberg, a federal state of the German Confederation), in what is now Germany. He w ...
patents the first
supercharger In an internal combustion engine, a supercharger compresses the intake gas, forcing more air into the engine in order to produce more power for a given displacement. The current categorisation is that a supercharger is a form of forced indu ...
. * 1886 – Hot bulb engine was established by
Herbert Akroyd Stuart Herbert Akroyd-Stuart (28 January 1864 – 19 February 1927) was an English inventor who is noted for his invention of the hot bulb engine, or heavy oil engine. Life Akroyd-Stuart was born in Halifax, Yorkshire, but lived in Australia for a p ...
,
Gottlieb Daimler Gottlieb Wilhelm Daimler (; 17 March 1834 – 6 March 1900) was a German engineer, industrial designer and industrialist born in Schorndorf ( Kingdom of Württemberg, a federal state of the German Confederation), in what is now Germany. He w ...
invents the
Petrol engine A petrol engine (gasoline engine in American English) is an internal combustion engine designed to run on petrol (gasoline). Petrol engines can often be adapted to also run on fuels such as liquefied petroleum gas and ethanol blends (such as ' ...
. * 1888 – An AC
induction motor An induction motor or asynchronous motor is an AC electric motor in which the electric current in the rotor needed to produce torque is obtained by electromagnetic induction from the magnetic field of the stator winding. An induction motor ...
is featured in a paper published by
Galileo Ferraris Galileo Ferraris (31 October 1847 – 7 February 1897) was an Italian university professor, physicist and electrical engineer, one of the pioneers of AC power system and inventor of the induction motor although he never patented his work. Many ...
and is patented in the U.S. by
Nikola Tesla Nikola Tesla ( ; ,"Tesla"
''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''.
; 1856 – 7 January 1943 ...
.Bill Drury, Control Techniques Drives and Controls Handbook, page xiv
/ref> * 1892 – Rudolf Diesel patents the
Diesel engine The diesel engine, named after Rudolf Diesel, is an internal combustion engine in which ignition of the fuel is caused by the elevated temperature of the air in the cylinder due to mechanical compression; thus, the diesel engine is a so-cal ...
(). * 1899 –
Ferdinand Porsche Ferdinand Porsche (3 September 1875 – 30 January 1951) was an Austrian-German automotive engineer and founder of the Porsche AG. He is best known for creating the first gasoline–electric hybrid vehicle (Lohner–Porsche), the Volksw ...
creates the
Lohner–Porsche The Lohner–Porsche Mixed Hybrid (sometimes incorrectly referred to as ''Löhner–Porsche'') was the first gasoline-electric hybrid vehicle. It was developed by Ferdinand Porsche at Lohner-Werke. The first prototypes were two-wheel drive, ...
, the first
hybrid vehicle A hybrid vehicle is one that uses two or more distinct types of power, such as submarines that use diesel when surfaced and batteries when submerged. Other means to store energy include pressurized fluid in hydraulic hybrids. The basic princi ...
.


20th Century

* 1903 �
The Exploration of Cosmic Space by Means of Reaction Devices
was published by
Konstantin Tsiolkovsky Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky (russian: Константи́н Эдуа́рдович Циолко́вский , , p=kənstɐnʲˈtʲin ɪdʊˈardəvʲɪtɕ tsɨɐlˈkofskʲɪj , a=Ru-Konstantin Tsiolkovsky.oga; – 19 September 1935) ...
* 1905 – Alfred Büchi patents the
turbocharger In an internal combustion engine, a turbocharger (often called a turbo) is a forced induction device that is powered by the flow of exhaust gases. It uses this energy to compress the intake gas, forcing more air into the engine in order to pro ...
. * 1913 – René Lorin invents the
ramjet A ramjet, or athodyd (aero thermodynamic duct), is a form of airbreathing jet engine that uses the forward motion of the engine to produce thrust. Since it produces no thrust when stationary (no ram air) ramjet-powered vehicles require an ass ...
. * 1915 –
Leonard Dyer Leonard H. Dyer (1897–1955) was an inventor, patent attorney, and yachtsman from Washington, DC. Inventions The most remarkable of his inventions was a patented six-stroke engine using water injected as a 5th stroke for extra power and cooling ...
invents a
six-stroke engine The term six-stroke engine has been applied to a number of alternative internal combustion engine designs that attempt to improve on traditional two-stroke and four-stroke engines. Claimed advantages may include increased fuel efficiency, reduced ...
, now known as the Crower six-stroke engine named after his reinventor
Bruce Crower The English language name Bruce arrived in Scotland with the Normans, from the place name Brix, Manche in Normandy, France, meaning "the willowlands". Initially promulgated via the descendants of king Robert the Bruce (1274−1329), it has been ...
. * 1926 - Robert H. Goddard launched the first liquid-fueled rocket. * 1929 –
Felix Wankel Felix Heinrich Wankel (; 13 August 1902 – 9 October 1988) was a German mechanical engineer and inventor after whom the Wankel engine was named. Early life Wankel was born in 1902 in Lahr in what was then the Grand Duchy of Baden in the Upper R ...
patents the Wankel rotary engine (). * Late 1930s –
Hans von Ohain Hans Joachim Pabst von Ohain (14 December 191113 March 1998) was a German physicist, engineer, and the designer of the first operational jet engine. Together with Frank Whittle he is called the "father of the jet engine". His first test unit ra ...
and
Frank Whittle Air Commodore Sir Frank Whittle, (1 June 1907 – 8 August 1996) was an English engineer, inventor and Royal Air Force (RAF) air officer. He is credited with inventing the turbojet engine. A patent was submitted by Maxime Guillaume in 1921 fo ...
separately build pioneering
gas turbine A gas turbine, also called a combustion turbine, is a type of continuous flow internal combustion engine. The main parts common to all gas turbine engines form the power-producing part (known as the gas generator or core) and are, in the directio ...
engines intended for aircraft propulsion, leading to the pioneering
turbojet The turbojet is an airbreathing jet engine which is typically used in aircraft. It consists of a gas turbine with a propelling nozzle. The gas turbine has an air inlet which includes inlet guide vanes, a compressor, a combustion chamber, a ...
powered flights in 1939 Germany and 1941 England. * 1939 – The BMW company's
BMW 801 The BMW 801 was a powerful German air-cooled 14-cylinder- radial aircraft engine built by BMW and used in a number of German Luftwaffe aircraft of World War II. Production versions of the twin-row engine generated between 1,560 and 2,000 P ...
aviation
radial engine The radial engine is a reciprocating type internal combustion engine configuration in which the cylinders "radiate" outward from a central crankcase like the spokes of a wheel. It resembles a stylized star when viewed from the front, and is ...
pioneers the use of an early form of an
engine control unit An engine control unit (ECU), also commonly called an engine control module (ECM), is a type of electronic control unit that controls a series of actuators on an internal combustion engine to ensure optimal engine performance. It does this by ...
, the ''Kommandogerät''. * 1940s – Ralph Miller patents his
Miller cycle In engineering, the Miller cycle is a thermodynamic cycle used in a type of internal combustion engine. The Miller cycle was patented by Ralph Miller, an American engineer, dated Dec 24, 1957. The engine may be two- or four-stroke and may be r ...
engine. * 1954 –
Felix Wankel Felix Heinrich Wankel (; 13 August 1902 – 9 October 1988) was a German mechanical engineer and inventor after whom the Wankel engine was named. Early life Wankel was born in 1902 in Lahr in what was then the Grand Duchy of Baden in the Upper R ...
creates the first working
Wankel engine The Wankel engine (, ) is a type of internal combustion engine using an eccentric rotary design to convert pressure into rotating motion. It was invented by German engineer Felix Wankel, and designed by German engineer Hanns-Dieter Paschke. ...
. * 1957 – Rambler Rebel announce
Electrojector
electronic fuel injection option, however no production models were offered with the option. * 1964 –
Ion engine An ion thruster, ion drive, or ion engine is a form of electric propulsion used for spacecraft propulsion. It creates thrust by accelerating ions using electricity. An ion thruster ionizes a neutral gas by extracting some electrons out of ...
invented. * 1966 – RD-0410 nuclear thermal rocket engine was ground-tested. * 1960s –
alternator An alternator is an electrical generator that converts mechanical energy to electrical energy in the form of alternating current. For reasons of cost and simplicity, most alternators use a rotating magnetic field with a stationary armature.Gor ...
s replace generators on automobile engines. * 1970s – electronically controlled ignition appears in automobile engines. * 1975 –
Catalytic converter A catalytic converter is an exhaust emission control device that converts toxic gases and pollutants in exhaust gas from an internal combustion engine into less-toxic pollutants by catalyzing a redox reaction. Catalytic converters are usual ...
s are first widely introduced on production automobiles in the US to comply with tightening EPA regulations on auto exhaust. * 1980s – electronically controlled ignition improved to reduce pollution. * 1980s – electronic
fuel injection Fuel injection is the introduction of fuel in an internal combustion engine, most commonly automotive engines, by the means of an injector. This article focuses on fuel injection in reciprocating piston and Wankel rotary engines. All com ...
appears on gasoline automobile engines. * 1989 – The Bajulaz Six-Stroke Engine was invented by the Bajulaz S A company, based in
Geneva Geneva ( ; french: Genève ) frp, Genèva ; german: link=no, Genf ; it, Ginevra ; rm, Genevra is the second-most populous city in Switzerland (after Zürich) and the most populous city of Romandy, the French-speaking part of Switzerland. Situa ...
, Switzerland; it has and . * 1990s –
Hybrid vehicle A hybrid vehicle is one that uses two or more distinct types of power, such as submarines that use diesel when surfaced and batteries when submerged. Other means to store energy include pressurized fluid in hydraulic hybrids. The basic princi ...
s that run on an internal combustion engine (ICE) and an electric motor charged by
regenerative braking Regenerative braking is an energy recovery mechanism that slows down a moving vehicle or object by converting its kinetic energy into a form that can be either used immediately or stored until needed. In this mechanism, the electric traction mo ...
.


See also

* Timeline of heat engine technology for a view of the human understanding of the interchangeability of work and heat.


References

{{reflist
Motor An engine or motor is a machine designed to convert one or more forms of energy into mechanical energy. Available energy sources include potential energy (e.g. energy of the Earth's gravitational field as exploited in hydroelectric power g ...