Early combustion engine by French inventors Nicephore and Claude Niepce
Pyreolophore
Ou nouvelle Machine dont le principe moteur est l'air dilate par le feu.
(
Pyreolophore
, or new Machine whose driving principle is air dilated by fire.)
The patent application written by the Niepce brothers in 1807 and granted by Napoleon Bonaparte on 20 July 1807
[1]
The
Pyreolophore
[a]
(
French:
[pi.?e.?.l?.f??]
) was an early
internal combustion engine
and the first made to power a boat. It was invented in the early 19th century in
Chalon-sur-Saone
, France, by the Niepce brothers:
Nicephore
(who went on to invent
photography
) and
Claude
. In 1807 the brothers ran a prototype internal combustion engine, and on 20 July 1807 a patent was granted by
Napoleon Bonaparte
after it had successfully powered a boat upstream on the river
Saone
.
The Pyreolophore ran on what were believed to be "controlled
dust explosions
" of various experimental fuels. The fuels included mixtures of
Lycopodium powder
(the spores of
Lycopodium, or clubmoss
), finely crushed coal dust, and resin.
Operating independently, in 1807 the Swiss engineer
Francois Isaac de Rivaz
built the
de Rivaz engine
, a hydrogen-powered internal combustion engine. These practical engineering projects may have followed the 1680 theoretical design of an internal combustion engine by the Dutch scientist
Christiaan Huygens
. The separate, virtually contemporaneous implementations of this design in different modes of transport means that the de Rivaz engine may be correctly described as the first use of an internal combustion engine in an automobile (1808), whilst the Pyreolophore was the first use of an internal combustion engine in a boat (1807).
Preliminary research
[
edit
]
The Niepce brothers were living in
Nice
when they conceived of a project to create an engine based on the newly defined principle of hot air expanding during an explosion; their challenge was to find a way to harness the energy released in a series of explosions.
[1]
In 1806 the Niepce brothers had presented a paper on their research to the French National Commission of the Academy of Science (
French
:
Institute National de Science
). The Commission's verdict was:
The fuel ordinarily used by MM. Niepce is made of lycopodium spores, the combustion of which is the most intense and the easiest; however this material being costly, they replaced it with pulverized coal and mixed it if necessary with a small portion of resin, which works very well, as was proved by many experiments. In Mm. Niepces' machine no portion of heat is dispersed in advance; the moving force is an instantaneous result, and all the fuel effect is used to produce the dilatation that causes the moving force.
?
Lazare Carnot and C. L. Berthollet, Report for the National Commission of the Academy of Science, 15 December 1806
[1]
[2]
Proof of concept
[
edit
]
In 1807 the brothers constructed and ran a prototype internal combustion engine, and received a patent for ten years from the Bureau of Arts and Trades (
French
:
Bureau des Arts et Metiers
) in Paris.
[3]
The patent was signed by
Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte
and dated 20 July 1807,
[1]
the same year that Swiss engineer
Francois Isaac de Rivaz
constructed and ran a hydrogen-powered internal combustion engine. It is not clear how much these practical engineering projects owe to the theoretical designs of 1680 by the Dutch scientist
Christiaan Huygens
.
[1]
[3]
The Pyreolophore ran on controlled dust explosions of various experimental fuels, including various mixtures of finely crushed coal dust, Lycopodium powder, and resin. De Rivaz, meanwhile, was using a mixture of hydrogen and oxygen.
[4]
To prove the utility of the Pyreolophore to the patent commission, the brothers installed it on a boat, which it powered upstream on the river
Saone
. The total weight was 9 quintals, about 900 kg (2,000 lb),
[5]
fuel consumption was reported as "one hundred and twenty-five grains per minute" (about 125 grains or 8 grams per minute), and the performance was 12?13 explosions per minute. The boat was propelled forward as the Pyreolophore sucked in the river water at the front and then pumped it out toward the rear.
[1]
Thus, the Commissioners concluded that "the machine proposed under the name Pyreolophore by Mm. Niepce is ingenious, that it may become very interesting by its physical and economical results, and deserves the approbation of the Commission."
[1]
Operation
[
edit
]
The operation of the Pyreolophore was first described in a meeting at the
Academy of Sciences
on 15 December 1806.
Lazare Carnot
noted that "there was a bright flash of the 'spores of lycopodium' inside their sealed copper machine... The Niepce brothers, by their own device and without using water, have managed to create a commotion (explosion) in a confined space which is so strong that the effects appear to be comparable to a
steam engine
or fire pump".
[1]
The Pyreolophore operated as a series of discrete burns at a frequency of about 12 per minute to power a boat. Power was delivered in pulses, each pulse forcing water from the engine's tail pipe set under the boat and pointing toward its stern. The boat was pushed forward at each pulse by the
reactive force
of the ejected mass of water.
[6]
A Pyreolophore engine consists of two principal interconnected chambers: a
firelighting
chamber and a
combustion
chamber. There is also a
bellows
for injecting air, a fuel dispenser, an ignition device, and a submerged exhaust pipe. There is a means of storing energy at each explosion in order to work the mechanism as it prepares itself for the next cycle.
[6]
A mechanically operated bellows injects a jet of air into the first chamber where ignition will take place. Mechanical timing lets fall a measured amount of powder fuel into the jet so that it is blown along and mixed with it. Under the control of the mechanical
timing mechanism
a smoldering
fuse
is introduced to this fuel air jet at the precise moment it passes the fuse location. The fuse then withdraws behind a metal plate. The now burning ball of powder and air travels through a wide nozzle into the main combustion chamber where a fast, almost explosive, burn takes place. The whole system now being almost airtight, a build-up of pressure follows. The pressure acts against the column of water in the exhaust pipe and expels it from the system. As the flow of exhaust gas moves into the tail pipe, it moves a loose piston in the combustion chamber which extracts and stores sufficient power to work the machine's timing mechanisms. Energy from this piston is stored by lifting weights attached to a balance wheel. The return of this wheel to its lower position under the pull of the weights governs the timing for the next cycle by operating the bellows, fuel dispenser, the fuse and valves at the correct points in the cycle. The tail pipe, being under the boat, fills with water ready for the next discharge. The fall of the timing piston also expels the exhaust gases via a pipe above the ignition chamber, which is closed off by a valve during the burn part of the cycle.
[6]
Further development
[
edit
]
On 24 December 1807, the brothers reported to
Lazare Carnot
that they had developed a new, highly flammable fuel (powder) by mixing one part resin with nine parts of crushed coal dust.
[1]
[7]
In 1817 the brothers achieved another first by using a rudimentary
fuel injection
system.
[8]
By 1817 there was insufficient progress to attract subsidy and investment, so the ten-year patent expired. Worried about losing control of the engine, Claude traveled first to Paris and then to England in an attempt to further the project. He received the patent consent of
King George III
on 23 December 1817.
[9]
This was not the key to success. Over the next ten years, Claude remained in London, settled in
Kew
and descended into
delirium
, whereby he squandered much of the family fortune chasing inappropriate business opportunities for the Pyreolophore.
[10]
[11]
Nicephore, meanwhile, was also occupied with the task of
inventing photography
.
[12]
Design flaw
[
edit
]
In 1824, after the brothers' project had lost momentum, the French physicist
Nicolas Leonard Sadi Carnot
scientifically established the
thermodynamic
theory of idealized heat engines. This highlighted the flaw in the design of the Pyreolophore, whereby it needed a compression mechanism to increase the difference between the upper and lower working temperatures and potentially unlock sufficient power and efficiency.
[
citation needed
]
Reconstruction
[
edit
]
To celebrate the bicentenary, the Paris Photographic Institute (Speos) and the Niepce House Museum produced a 3D animation of the working machine in 2010. Manuel Bonnet and Jean-Louis Bruley of the Maison Nicephore Niepce and Hadrien Duhamel of the
Ecole Nationale Superieure d'Arts et Metiers
(ENSAM) created the video.
[6]
See also
[
edit
]
References
[
edit
]
- ^
a
b
c
d
e
f
g
h
i
"Other Inventions: The Pyrelophore"
. Niepce House Museum
. Retrieved
31 March
2017
.
- ^
Berthollet and Carnot (1807).
"Rapport sur une nouvelle machine inventee par MM. Niepce et nommee par eux pyreolophore"
[Report on a new machine invented by Messrs. Niepce and named by them the "pyreolophore"].
Memoires de la Classe des Sciences Mathematiques et Physiques de l'Institut National de France
(in French): 146?153, see p. 151.
- ^
a
b
Coulibaly, T. (2007).
Il y a une siecle, l'Automobile
[
A Century of the Automobile
] (in French). Ouest France. p. 10.
- ^
Eckermann, Erik (2001).
World History of the Automobile
. Warrendale, Pennsylvania: Society of Automotive Engineers. p. 18.
ISBN
0-7680-0800-X
. Retrieved
17 August
2010
.
- ^
"Le Pyreolophore : Un nouveau principe de moteur"
.
- ^
a
b
c
d
Bonnet, Manuel; Bruley, Jean-Louis; Duhamel, Hadrien (19 July 2010).
Pyreolophore
.
youtube.com
. Maison Nicephore Niepce / Ecole Nationale Superieure d'Arts et Metiers (ENSAM)
. Retrieved
17 August
2010
.
- ^
Hardenberg, Horst O.; Niepce, Claude; Niepce, Nicephore (1993).
The Niepce brothers' boat engines
. Warrendale, PA: Society of Automotive Engineers.
ISBN
978-1560914464
.
OCLC
29443448
.
- ^
The Pyreolophore at photo-museum.org
Accessed 5 July 2017
- ^
"Licence issued by George III of England on 23 December 1817"
(in French). Niepce House Museum
. Retrieved
19 August
2010
.
[
permanent dead link
]
- ^
"Nicephore Niepce NB Subtitled (From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)"
. all-art.org
. Retrieved
19 August
2010
.
Accessed 5 July 2017
- ^
"Joseph Nicephore Niepce Biography (1765?1833)"
. madehow.com
. Retrieved
19 August
2010
.
- ^
"The First Photograph ? Heliography"
. Archived from
the original
on 6 October 2009
. Retrieved
29 September
2009
.
from Helmut Gernsheim's article, "The 150th Anniversary of Photography," in History of Photography, Vol. I, No. 1, January 1977: ... In 1822, Niepce coated a glass plate ... The sunlight passing through ... This first permanent example ... was destroyed ... some years later.
Accessed 5 July 2017
External links
[
edit
]
Gallery and archive at the Niepce House Museum
[
edit
]
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