How did the person who developed the first engine, know to use petrol?

Question

It seems to be a chicken and the egg type scenario. Was the engine built according to the fuel, in which case, how was it known that fuel could be used for that purpose? Or was it someone made an engine and had to find somehting that could run it?..... but that doesn't make sense.

I just don't understand how someone knew the potential that fuel had and then knew what they had to do in order to capture and utilise it's energy......

Cheers

Sorry, i should have made that clear.... how did the person 'know' to use fuel (petrol)...... (i'm not talking about steam engines at all) How did they know to use petrol as a fuel and then how did they know what to do to use this fuel, when nothing like it had been done before?

Answer 1

Actually, the first internal combustion engines where a modification of valves and spark added to the basic piston steam engine.

The fuel used was infact wood alchol made from the distillation of sawdust from sawmill.

In engineering its the expansion of a gas, original Steam expanded in the cylinder of a steam engine. It was also know that the combusion of alchol was an expansion of a gas too as it created great pressures when ignited inside a metal storage vessel.

History tells us that early engines were developed and some actually sold and used that utilized both steam and wood alchol as a fuel.

The discovery of petroleum in Pennsylvania rided the country of whale oil and alchol lamps and became a standard fuel for that purpose. Further distillation by American companies led to the production of a number of other products including a fuel that was called Gosopetro meaning the recondensed gas that was boiled off of kerosing and made liquid. This product was similar to our todays gasoline.

It was soon discovered that this gosopetro had a very high energy content and gassified much better thatn wood alchol. So it became the feed stock of of the developing petro engines of its time.

One last point, here in the midwest, alchol plants are poping up right and left. Some 3 billion gallons of alchol will be available as a gasoline additive within the next 18 months. That alchol fuel, on a per gallon basis will indeed reduce your gas milage as alchol does not contain the energy of gasoline. So when you go to Sams club and see 10% alchol on the pump, dont buy it go across street and get 100% gasoline until they drop that Sams gas about 25 or 30 cents below the pure gasoline.

Answer 2

The first four stroke internal combustion engines ran on town gas distilled from coal and piped about cities for lighting and other uses.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolaus_Otto

Daimler and Benz working independently, possibly others too, modified the town gas engine to run on a highly volatile waste product from kerosene distillation. The idea was to make the engine useful where there was no town gas. They soon had the idea of powering vehicles with the portable liquid fuel.

Answer 3

I dont know the history of the engine,you could probably do a search, but it seems that it gradually came into being.Usually things are not invented outright they sort of evolved over time because of the need for better technology and peoples ability to apply different knowledge of things. An engine it seems to me is a combination of mechanical technology and chemical knowledge.Before you do a search try and guess how it came about starting with the invention of the wheel.You probably wont get it right but you will have a better understanding of how technology evolves.

Answer 4

The first engine was actually a steam engine! No petrol.

Answer 5

The first cars ran on moonshine.
There were no gas stations and car
inventors were looking for something
explosive.
Now, we seem to be returning to
corn-fed cars. Today, E-85 contains
15% gasoline to make it non-drinkable.

Answer 6

Otto Diesel tried orange juice first, but it just didn't work. Then he figured out that he should use something that would burn.