Identifier: conquestofnature00will (find matches)
Title: The conquest of nature
Year: 1911 (1910s)
Authors: Williams, Henry Smith, 1863- Williams, Edward Huntington, 1868-1944, joint author
Subjects: Industrial arts Machinery
Publisher: New York and London, The Goodhue company
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: The Library of Congress

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rked by an eccentric on the crank-shaft. This en-gine could be operated satisfactorily, except as to cost,but the heavy gas consumption made it uneconomical. An important improvement in this regard was intro-duced by the Germans, Herrn. E. Langen and N. A.Otto, who under patents bearing date of 1866 introduceda so-called ^free piston arrangement—that is to sayan arrangement by which the piston depends for its ac-tion partly upon the momentum of a fly-wheel. Thisprinciple had been proposed for a gas engine as earlyas 1857, but the first machine to demonstrate its feasibil-ity was that of Langen and Otto. Their engine greatlydecreased the gas consumption and hence came to beregarded as the first commercially successful gas engine.It was, however, noisy and limited to small sizes. Thecycle of operations of an engine of this type is de-scribed as follows: (a) The piston is lifted about one-tenth of its travelby the momentum of the fly-wheel, thus drawing in acharge of gas and air. (136)
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GAS AND OIL ENGINES. Lower right-hand figure, a very early type of commercially successful gas engine. Ithas a free piston, an arrangement that was first proposed for a gas engine in 1857, but onlybrought into practical form by Langen & Otto under their patent of 1866. Upper figure, thegas engine patented by Lenoir in i860, one of the very first practically successful engines.Lower left-hand figure, a sectional view of a modern gas engine of the type used as the motor J. 1_ _•! . GAS AND OIL ENGINES (b) The charge is ignited by flame carried in by aslide valve. (c) Under the impulse of the explosion, the pistonshoots upward nearly to the top of the cylinder, thepressure in which falls by expansion to about 4 lbs.absolute, while absorbing the energy of the piston. (d) The piston descends by its own weight and theatmospheric pressure, and in doing so causes a roller-clutch on a spur-wheel gearing with a rack on the piston-rod to engage, so that the fly-wheel shaft shall be drivenb

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