Why Was The Internal Combustion Engine Invented?

Okay, a bit of a strange question but bear with me on this one, because it’s really a bit of a philosophical musing, and I’m sure will be right up Saviem’s and Berwick’s street.

Late yesterday afternoon in the traffic office whilst having a brew (of tea) to calm my frayed nerves after hearing that a driver had shunted a car and that all the carefully planned traffic for Monday would have to be done again beacuse of customers’ changing their minds (in other words quite a normal day), I got to musing about the invention of the internal combustion engine and the fuel that powers it. Really it’s a simple question. Why did Mr Benz invent (or perfect) the internal combustion engine? What was he going to fuel it with? Because back then in the day there was no oil industry, so how did he know that there were trillions of billions of barrels of oil underground that could be used to fuel the billions of engines that have seen service in that past 120 years or so? It got me thinking that the Supreme Being (if you believe in such an entity) must have told Mr. Benz to invent something that would use all these oil resources that said entity had carefully provided for Mankind, and of course without Mr Benz, his engine, and oil, we would never have had Jeremy Clarkson to keep us all entertained.

Do you think that after 40 odd years in this crazy industry that it’s finally driving me bonkers■■? :question: :question: :question:

gingerfold:
Okay, a bit of a strange question but bear with me on this one, because it’s really a bit of a philosophical musing, and I’m sure will be right up Saviem’s and Berwick’s street.

Late yesterday afternoon in the traffic office whilst having a brew (of tea) to calm my frayed nerves after hearing that a driver had shunted a car and that all the carefully planned traffic for Monday would have to be done again beacuse of customers’ changing their minds (in other words quite a normal day), I got to musing about the invention of the internal combustion engine and the fuel that powers it. Really it’s a simple question. Why did Mr Benz invent (or perfect) the internal combustion engine? What was he going to fuel it with? Because back then in the day there was no oil industry, so how did he know that there were trillions of billions of barrels of oil underground that could be used to fuel the billions of engines that have seen service in that past 120 years or so? It got me thinking that the Supreme Being (if you believe in such an entity) must have told Mr. Benz to invent something that would use all these oil resources that said entity had carefully provided for Mankind, and of course without Mr Benz, his engine, and oil, we would never have had Jeremy Clarkson to keep us all entertained.

Do you think that after 40 odd years in this crazy industry that it’s finally driving me bonkers■■? :question: :question: :question:

What was it exactly, that you slipped into that brew (tea), after you received news of the ‘shunt of the day’? Mr. Benz and his cronies did know about the oil (perhaps not the quantity) that lay beneath his feet. But in those days it was just used for burning in oil lamps and lubricating cart axles. Oh, and the Industrial Revolution was well under way by then, so there was quite a bit of machinery about to lubricate. I wonder what made him think of squashing it and setting fire to it though… Robert :slight_smile:

gingerfold:
Do you think that after 40 odd years in this crazy industry that it’s finally driving me bonkers■■? :question: :question: :question:

We must all have been bonkers to enter the industry in the first place! :wink:
Herr Diesel was in his shed one evening messing with one of Benz’s engines when he had a brainwave- “If we make the fuel a bit oilier then belt it with a 16lb hammer, we can do away with the spark”.

gingerfold:
Okay, a bit of a strange question but bear with me on this one, because it’s really a bit of a philosophical musing, and I’m sure will be right up Saviem’s and Berwick’s street.

Late yesterday afternoon in the traffic office whilst having a brew (of tea) to calm my frayed nerves after hearing that a driver had shunted a car and that all the carefully planned traffic for Monday would have to be done again beacuse of customers’ changing their minds (in other words quite a normal day), I got to musing about the invention of the internal combustion engine and the fuel that powers it. Really it’s a simple question. Why did Mr Benz invent (or perfect) the internal combustion engine? What was he going to fuel it with? Because back then in the day there was no oil industry, so how did he know that there were trillions of billions of barrels of oil underground that could be used to fuel the billions of engines that have seen service in that past 120 years or so? It got me thinking that the Supreme Being (if you believe in such an entity) must have told Mr. Benz to invent something that would use all these oil resources that said entity had carefully provided for Mankind, and of course without Mr Benz, his engine, and oil, we would never have had Jeremy Clarkson to keep us all entertained.

Do you think that after 40 odd years in this crazy industry that it’s finally driving me bonkers■■? :question: :question: :question:

The internal combustion engine was invented because these animals were getting fed up with pulling heavy loads around.
Cheers Dave.

Dave the Renegade:

gingerfold:
Okay, a bit of a strange question but bear with me on this one, because it’s really a bit of a philosophical musing, and I’m sure will be right up Saviem’s and Berwick’s street.

Late yesterday afternoon in the traffic office whilst having a brew (of tea) to calm my frayed nerves after hearing that a driver had shunted a car and that all the carefully planned traffic for Monday would have to be done again beacuse of customers’ changing their minds (in other words quite a normal day), I got to musing about the invention of the internal combustion engine and the fuel that powers it. Really it’s a simple question. Why did Mr Benz invent (or perfect) the internal combustion engine? What was he going to fuel it with? Because back then in the day there was no oil industry, so how did he know that there were trillions of billions of barrels of oil underground that could be used to fuel the billions of engines that have seen service in that past 120 years or so? It got me thinking that the Supreme Being (if you believe in such an entity) must have told Mr. Benz to invent something that would use all these oil resources that said entity had carefully provided for Mankind, and of course without Mr Benz, his engine, and oil, we would never have had Jeremy Clarkson to keep us all entertained.

Do you think that after 40 odd years in this crazy industry that it’s finally driving me bonkers■■? :question: :question: :question:

The internal combustion engine was invented because these animals were getting fed up with pulling heavy loads around.
Cheers Dave.

That made me laugh Dave after avery long day,well done mate !! :laughing: :laughing:

And no doubt they were a bit fed up with having to overnight in smelly, expensive MSAs, as well. :wink: :wink:

There seems to be a lot of confusion here between Dr Rudolf Diesels oil C,I, (combustion ignition ) engine and the original bensin or petrol motors , some say Dr Diesel was murdered by the oil companies as his new engine used much less oil and Diesel was sold at its true refining costs then ,IE 50% LESS than petrol ! , if you go to Gayden see the replica of the worlds first motor car ,its first long trip undertaken by herr Benz`s wife and her two sons , no gas stations then , and she broke down three times and used hair grips and knicker elastic ect to get home , another two great German inventions , der Personvagen und der Lastkraftvagen .

One very early version that didn’t do to well was the gun powder powered engine ( not a joke ) . As it was mentiond earlier they didn’t know how much oil there was and various options were tryed round the end of the 19th century by propper inventive nutters. It ran as a 3 cylinder engine, in a configuration much like we know to day but there weren’t any electrics. Cylinder block with 3 pistons connected by a crank shaft. Instead of liquid fuel it was fed black powder via a shoot or hopper. The charge from the powder made the cylinder go down, and the rest worked like a modern liquid fuel engine.
The big problem was getting a constant flow of powder, there were various methods used, including a pressurised feed system.

I suppose if you had a can of petrol blow up in your face you would think that a bag of black powder couldn’t be much worse.

Jeff…

The timelines involved,between the early days of the internal combustion engine and the fuels used to run it,aren’t as simple as just using Benz’s inventions as a start point. :bulb: :wink:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Rivaz_engine

greatachievements.org?id=3677

And petrol is not explosive , only in T.V. and movies !

Except if you mix it with air, squeeze it and set fire to it!

The internal combustion engine was invented to generate TAX.

Retired Old ■■■■:
Except if you mix it with air, squeeze it and set fire to it!

sorry NOT EVEN THEN mate , its technically a rapid burning Diesel has a LOWER flash point , dont even need a spark !

I refer my friend lilladan to the posts further up the page. :unamused:

I cannot see anything on petrol ? up the page ? , but i know you need 14 to 1 ratio (air =14 petrol =1 ) to burn the gas , petrol does not even burn as its too rich , only the gas coming of it is hazardous and flammable

Lilladan:

Retired Old ■■■■:
Except if you mix it with air, squeeze it and set fire to it!

sorry NOT EVEN THEN mate , its technically a rapid burning Diesel has a LOWER flash point , dont even need a spark !

The issues concerning the properties of high cetane fuels like diesel,as opposed to high octane ones like petrol,under diesel type compression pressures,aren’t quite as simple as that.IE petrol will probably blow a big hole in the piston/s whereas diesel won’t.The detonation which causes that damage will happen at far lower pressures/temperature in the case of petrol than it would in the case of diesel.The word ‘detonation’ being a clue that petrol burns much faster ( ie explosively ) than diesel does.Which is what the term cetane is all about in describing that property of resistance to detonation and slower burning in the case of diesel.While the spark used to ignite petrol in a spark ignition engine is all about controlling the timing,location and rate of the flame not because petrol won’t ‘burn’ under compression ignition.

Lilladan:
I cannot see anything on petrol ? up the page ? , but i know you need 14 to 1 ratio (air =14 petrol =1 ) to burn the gas , petrol does not even burn as its too rich , only the gas coming of it is hazardous and flammable

Both petrol and diesel need to be mixed with air/oxygen to burn in an internal combustion engine.However the fact is you’re likely to get a much faster moving,more violent bang,in the case of igniting a petrol/air mixture than a diesel/air one.

Carryfast:

Lilladan:
I cannot see anything on petrol ? up the page ? , but i know you need 14 to 1 ratio (air =14 petrol =1 ) to burn the gas , petrol does not even burn as its too rich , only the gas coming of it is hazardous and flammable

However the fact is you’re likely to get a much faster moving,more violent bang, .

oooh errr :stuck_out_tongue:

OMG! I can’t believe I agree with carryfast.
I’ll arrange for Bewick to assist in removing me to a place of safety for the terminably confused. :blush:

Retired Old ■■■■:
OMG! I can’t believe I agree with carryfast.
I’ll arrange for Bewick to assist in removing me to a place of safety for the terminably confused. :blush:

Some say that they heard someone shout don’t worry it’s only petrol thank zb it’s not not dies… just before it went Kaboom. :smiling_imp: :laughing: :laughing:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buncefield_fire