Historical Development of Huygens Gunpowder Engine

HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT :--

Huygens Gunpowder Engine  (1680) :-   The earliest internal combustion      engine can be credited to famous Dutch physiciat Christian Huygens in the year 1680. Huygens engine employing gunpowder, is shown in Fig                            

It consisted of a vertical cylinder having a sliding fit type of piston.Explosion of a gunpowder in te cylinder drove the piston on its upward stroke and teh return stroke was caused by atmospheric pressure acting on the piston and arising from the drop of pressure in the cylinder as the gaseous of the explosion began to cool. The useful power was produced on the downward stroke of the piston and arrangement of ropes and pulleys, was applied to raise loaded platfor. Huygens took  a one foot (30.5 cm ) diameter tube and evacuated half the air. With this he lifted the platform with four men on it into the air. That engine worked with single explosive charge but it was not found possible to produce means for delivering the sequence of charges necessary for continuous operation and controlling the rate of explosion. These difficulties prevented the development of this early concept of an internal combustion engine.