U n I t 4

Text: combustion Engine.

Grammar: Modal Verbs.

Vocabulary

Purely	– совершенно; чисто.
In essence	– по существу.
Gunpowder	– черный порох.
Rudimentary	– элементарный, зачаточный.
To utilize	– использовать, утилизировать.
Ignition	– зажигание, воспламенение.
Contemporaneously	– одновременно
Scholar	– ученый
Inflammable	– легко воспламеняющийся.
An electric spark	– электрическая искра.
Notable (studies)	– выдающиеся (исследования).
Diverse	– разнообразный, разный.
Benzene	– бензол.
Coal tar	– каменноугольная смола.
A three-stroke cycle	– трехтактный цикл.
(without) compression	– (без) сжатия.
Carburetor	– карбюратор.
Inlet	– впускной.
Valve	– клапан.
Exhaust	– выхлоп, выпуск
To be water – cooled	– быть охлаждаемым водой.
Flame	– пламя.

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Text

The Birth of the Internal Combustion Engine

It is possible to find the first idea of such an engine in the studies of Christian Huygens who, in 1678 described – although as a purely theoretical exercise – the first internal combustion engine in history. In essence, this consisted of a piston moving in a cylinder, at one end of which was introduced a small quantity of gunpowder which, when exploded, caused the movement of the piston.

A similar idea was designed, and actually built, more than a century later by a Swiss, De Rivaz, who succeeded in constructing a sort of rudimentary vehicle which utilised the energy of explosive gases. In this case ignition was by means of a Volta's gun, that is to say, somewhat similarly to the present method.

Almost contemporaneously with De Rivaz, another scholar, named Robert Street, experimented in England using inflammable gas in cylinder, white in France an engineer called Lebon made the first experiments with the ignition of explosive mixtures by means of an electric spark.

Another enthusiastic experimenter in the early years of the 19th century was an American, Peter Cooper, whose efforts to create an internal combustion engine, which would be adequately efficient from the point of view of power developed, were dramatically interrupted by an explosion which blinded him.

A further step forward was taken in 1825, when Michael Faraday, the author of notable studies in very diverse fields of science, discovered benzene in coal tar. This was the first liquid fuel capable of being utilised with success in internal combustion engines and its possibilities were quickly explored by the inventors.

Then in 1856, two Italians, Eugenio Barsanti and Felice Matteucci, built the first practical internal combustion engine. This utilised the explosion of a mixture of air and gas in two cylinders and worked on a three-stroke cycle, without compression. The introduction of this mixture, created in an ingenious carburettor, was by means of a positive actuated inlet valve, as was that for exhaust. Ignition was by means of an electric spark or momentary contact with a flame. The cylinders were water-cooled. To the prototype of 1856 they added a second engine, built in 1858 in the Benini workshops in Florence. Two years later they formed a company, Barsanti and Matteucci, which commissioned the construction of a third motor in the Zurich factory.

The success obtained by them in the first national exhibition in 1861 was spoiled by public recognition in France of Lenoir as inventor of the first gas engine. The Italians' protests were disregarded outside Italy.