Timeline of heat engine technology

Last updated September 13, 2023

This timeline of heat engine technology describes how heat engines have been known since antiquity but have been made into increasingly useful devices since the 17th century as a better understanding of the processes involved was gained. A heat engine is any system that converts heat to mechanical energy, which can then be used to do mechanical work.They continue to be developed today.

Pre-17th century

Prehistory – The fire piston used by tribes in southeast Asia and the Pacific islands to kindle fire.
c. 450 BC – Archytas of Tarentum used a jet of steam to propel a toy wooden bird suspended on wire.^[1]
c. 50 AD – Hero of Alexandria's Engine, also known as Aeolipile. Demonstrates rotary motion produced by the reaction from jets of steam.^[2]
c. 10th century – China develops the earliest fire lances which were spear-like weapons combining a bamboo tube containing gunpowder and shrapnel like projectiles tied to a spear.
c 12th century – China, the earliest depiction of a gun showing a metal body and a tight-fitting projectile which maximises the conversion of the hot gases to forward motion.^[3]
1125 – Gerbert, a professor in the schools at Rheims designed and built an organ blown by air escaping from a vessel in which it was compressed by heated water.^[4]
1232 – First recorded use of a rocket. In a battle between the Chinese and the Mongols. ( see Timeline of rocket and missile technology for a view of rocket development through time.)
c. 1500 – Leonardo da Vinci builds the Architonnerre, a steam-powered cannon.^[5]
1543 – Blasco de Garay, a Spanish naval officer demonstrates a boat propelled without oars or sail that utilised the reaction from a jet issued from a large boiling kettle of water.^[4]
1551 – Taqi al-Din demonstrates a steam turbine, used to rotate a spit.^[6]

17th century

1629 – Giovanni Branca demonstrates a steam turbine.^[7]
1662 – Robert Boyle publishes Boyle's Law which defines the relationship between volume and pressure in a gas at a constant temperature.^[8]
1665 – Edward Somerset, the Second Marquess of Worcester builds a working steam fountain.^[9]
1680 – Christiaan Huygens publishes a design for a piston engine powered by gunpowder but it is never built.
1690 – Denis Papin – produces design for the first piston steam engine.
1698 – Thomas Savery builds a pistonless steam-powered water pump for pumping water out of mines.

18th century

1707 – Denis Papin – produces design for his second piston steam engine in conjunction with Gottfried Leibniz.
1712 – Thomas Newcomen builds the first commercially successful piston-and-cylinder steam-powered water pump for pumping water out of mines. It is known as an atmospheric engine and operates by condensing steam in a cylinder to produce a vacuum which moves the piston by atmospheric pressure.
1748 – William Cullen demonstrates the first artificial refrigeration in a public lecture at the University of Glasgow in Scotland.
1759 – John Harrison uses a bimetallic strip in his third marine chronometer (H3) to compensate for temperature-induced changes in the balance spring. This converts thermal expansion and contraction in two dissimilar solids to mechanical work.
1769 – James Watt patents his first improved atmospheric steam engine, see Watt steam engine with a separate condenser outside the cylinder, doubling the efficiency of earlier engines.
1787 – Jacques Charles formulates Charles's law which describes the relationship between a gas's volume and temperature. He does not publish this however and it is not recognised until Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac develops and references it in 1802.
1791 – John Barber patents the idea of a gas turbine.
1799 – Richard Trevithick builds the first high pressure steam engine. This used the force from pressurized steam to move the piston.

19th century

1802 – Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac develops Gay-Lussac's law which describes the relationship between a gas's pressure and temperature.
1807 – Nicéphore Niépce installed his 'moss, coal-dust and resin' fuelled Pyréolophore internal combustion engine in a boat and powered up the river Saone in France.
1807 – Franco/Swiss engineer François Isaac de Rivaz built the De Rivaz engine, powered by the internal combustion of hydrogen and oxygen mixture and used it to power a wheeled vehicle.^[10]
1816 – Robert Stirling invented Stirling engine, a type of hot air engine.
1824 – Nicolas Léonard Sadi Carnot developed the Carnot cycle and the associated hypothetical Carnot heat engine that is the basic theoretical model for all heat engines. This gives the first early insight into the second law of thermodynamics.
1834 – Jacob Perkins, obtained the first patent for a vapor-compression refrigeration system.
1850s – Rudolf Clausius sets out the concept of the thermodynamic system and positioned entropy as being that in any irreversible process a small amount of heat energy δQ is incrementally dissipated across the system boundary
1859 – Etienne Lenoir developed the first commercially successful internal combustion engine, a single-cylinder, two-stroke engine with electric ignition of illumination gas (not gasoline).
1861 – Alphonse Beau de Rochas of France originates the concept of the four-stroke internal-combustion engine by emphasizing the previously unappreciated importance of compressing the fuel–air mixture before ignition.
1861 – Nicolaus Otto patents a two-stroke internal combustion engine building on Lenoir's.
1867 – James Clerk Maxwell postulated the thought experiment that later became known as Maxwell's demon. This appeared to violate the second law of thermodynamics and was the beginning of the idea that information was part of the physics of heat.
1872 – Pulsometer steam pump, a pistonless pump, patented by Charles Henry Hall. It was inspired by the Savery steam pump.
1873 – The British chemist Sir William Crookes invents the light mill a device which turns the radiant heat of light directly into rotary motion.
1877 – Theorist Ludwig Boltzmann visualized a probabilistic way to measure the entropy of an ensemble of ideal gas particles, in which he defined entropy to be proportional to the logarithm of the number of microstates such a gas could occupy.
1877 – Nicolaus Otto patents a practical four-stroke internal combustion engine ( U.S. Patent 194,047 )
1883 – Samuel Griffin of Bath UK patents a six-stroke internal combustion engine.^[11]
1884 – Charles A. Parsons builds the first modern Steam turbine.
1886 – Herbert Akroyd Stuart builds the prototype Hot bulb engine, an oil fueled Homogeneous Charge Compression Ignition engine similar to the later diesel but with a lower compression ratio and running on a fuel air mixture.
1887 – Lord Rayleigh discussed the theoretical possibility of a thermoacoustic heat engine that could turn a temperature difference directly into mechanical movement using only sound waves. The Rijke tube had already demonstrated this in 1859.
1892 – Rudolf Diesel patents the Diesel engine ( U.S. Patent 608,845 ) where a high compression ratio generates hot gas which then ignites an injected fuel. After five years of experimenting and assistance from MAN company, he builds a working diesel engine in 1897.

20th century

Approx 1910 an unknown inventor produces the toy '' Drinking bird '', a toy bird that oscillates continuously on a pivot powered by the evaporation and condensation of a volatile liquid. A wet end and a dry end of the toy , produce a slight temperature difference through the evaporation of water.
1909, the Dutch physicist Heike Kamerlingh Onnes develops the concept of enthalpy for the measure of the "useful" work that can be obtained from a closed thermodynamic system at a constant pressure.
1913 – Nikola Tesla patents the Tesla turbine based on the Boundary layer effect.
1926 – Robert Goddard of the US launches the first liquid-fuel rocket.
1929 – Felix Wankel patents the Wankel rotary engine ( U.S. Patent 2,988,008 )
1929 – Leó Szilárd, in a refinement of the famous Maxwell's demon scenario conceives of a heat engine that can run on information alone, known as the Szilard engine.
1930 – Sir Frank Whittle in England patents the first design for a gas turbine for jet propulsion.
1933 – French physicist Georges J. Ranque invents the Vortex tube, a fluid flow device without moving parts, that can separate a compressed gas into hot and cold streams.
1935 – Ralph H. Fowler invents the title 'the zeroth law of thermodynamics' to summarise postulates made by earlier physicists that, thermal equilibrium between systems is a transitive relation.
1937 – Hans von Ohain builds a gas turbine
1940 – Hungarian Bela Karlovitz working for the Westinghouse company in the US files the first patent for a magnetohydrodynamic generator, which can generate electricity directly from a hot moving gas
1942 – R.S. Gaugler of General Motors patents the idea of the Heat pipe, a heat transfer mechanism that combines the principles of both thermal conductivity and phase transition to efficiently manage the transfer of heat between two solid interfaces.
1950s – The Philips company develop the Stirling-cycle Stirling Cryocooler which converts mechanical energy to a temperature difference.
1957 – the first demonstration of a practical arc-mode caesium vapor thermionic converter by V. Wilson. Electrons from a hot cathode act as a working fluid which condenses on a cold anode and produces an electric current. Several applications of it were demonstrated in the following decade, including its use with solar, combustion, radioisotope, and nuclear reactor heat sources. ^[12]

1959 – Geusic, Schultz-DuBois and Scoville of Bell Telephone Laboratories USA build a Three Level Maser which runs as a quantum heat engine extracting work from the temperature difference of two heat pools.
1962 – William J. Buehler and Frederick Wang discover the Nickel titanium alloy known as Nitinol which has a shape memory dependent on its temperature.
1962 – Nikolaus Rott reopened the topic.of thermoacoustic engines described by Lord Rayleigh in 1887 and produced a full theoretical analysis which led to technological development and a working device carried on the Space Shuttle in 1992.
1992 – The first practical magnetohydrodynamic generators are built in Serbia and the USA.
1996 – The Quasiturbine engine patented. A pistonless rotary engine using a rhomboidal rotor whose sides are hinged at the vertices. Similar to the Wankel engine, but the hinging at the edges allows increased volume ratio.

21st century

2011 – Shoichi Toyabe and others demonstrate a working Szilard engine using a phase-contrast microscope equipped with a high speed camera connected to a computer.^[13]
2011 – Michigan State University builds the first wave disk engine. An internal combustion engine which does away with pistons, crankshafts and valves, and replaces them with a disc-shaped shock wave generator.^[14]
2019 – A working quantum heat engine based on a spin-1/2 system and nuclear magnetic resonance techniques is demonstrated by Roberto Serra and others at the Universities of Waterloo, and the Universidade Federal do ABC and Centro Brasileiro de Pesquisas Físicas.^[15]
2020 – A nano scale device that can act either as a heat engine or as a refrigerator by utilising quantum effects, is demonstrated by engineers at RIKEN Advanced Device Laboratory.^[16]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carnot heat engine</span> Theoretical engine

A Carnot heat engine is a theoretical heat engine that operates on the Carnot cycle. The basic model for this engine was developed by Nicolas Léonard Sadi Carnot in 1824. The Carnot engine model was graphically expanded by Benoît Paul Émile Clapeyron in 1834 and mathematically explored by Rudolf Clausius in 1857, work that led to the fundamental thermodynamic concept of entropy. The Carnot engine is the most efficient heat engine which is theoretically possible. The efficiency depends only upon the absolute temperatures of the hot and cold heat reservoirs between which it operates.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Engine</span> Machine that converts one or more forms of energy into mechanical energy (of motion)

An engine or motor is a machine designed to convert one or more forms of energy into mechanical energy.

In thermodynamics and engineering, a heat engine is a system that converts heat to usable energy, particularly mechanical energy, which can then be used to do mechanical work. While originally conceived in the context of mechanical energy, the concept of the heat engine has been applied to various other kinds of energy, particularly electrical, since at least the late 19th century. The heat engine does this by bringing a working substance from a higher state temperature to a lower state temperature. A heat source generates thermal energy that brings the working substance to the higher temperature state. The working substance generates work in the working body of the engine while transferring heat to the colder sink until it reaches a lower temperature state. During this process some of the thermal energy is converted into work by exploiting the properties of the working substance. The working substance can be any system with a non-zero heat capacity, but it usually is a gas or liquid. During this process, some heat is normally lost to the surroundings and is not converted to work. Also, some energy is unusable because of friction and drag.

A reciprocating engine, also often known as a piston engine, is typically a heat engine that uses one or more reciprocating pistons to convert high temperature and high pressure into a rotating motion. This article describes the common features of all types. The main types are: the internal combustion engine, used extensively in motor vehicles; the steam engine, the mainstay of the Industrial Revolution; and the Stirling engine for niche applications. Internal combustion engines are further classified in two ways: either a spark-ignition (SI) engine, where the spark plug initiates the combustion; or a compression-ignition (CI) engine, where the air within the cylinder is compressed, thus heating it, so that the heated air ignites fuel that is injected then or earlier.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Steam engine</span> Heat engine that performs mechanical work using steam as its working fluid

A steam engine is a heat engine that performs mechanical work using steam as its working fluid. The steam engine uses the force produced by steam pressure to push a piston back and forth inside a cylinder. This pushing force can be transformed, by a connecting rod and crank, into rotational force for work. The term "steam engine" is generally applied only to reciprocating engines as just described, not to the steam turbine. Steam engines are external combustion engines, where the working fluid is separated from the combustion products. The ideal thermodynamic cycle used to analyze this process is called the Rankine cycle. In general usage, the term steam engine can refer to either complete steam plants, such as railway steam locomotives and portable engines, or may refer to the piston or turbine machinery alone, as in the beam engine and stationary steam engine.

Timeline of motor and engine technology

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Four-stroke engine</span> Internal combustion engine type

A four-strokeengine is an internal combustion (IC) engine in which the piston completes four separate strokes while turning the crankshaft. A stroke refers to the full travel of the piston along the cylinder, in either direction. The four separate strokes are termed:

Intake: Also known as induction or suction. This stroke of the piston begins at top dead center (T.D.C.) and ends at bottom dead center (B.D.C.). In this stroke the intake valve must be in the open position while the piston pulls an air-fuel mixture into the cylinder by producing a partial vacuum in the cylinder through its downward motion.
Compression: This stroke begins at B.D.C, or just at the end of the suction stroke, and ends at T.D.C. In this stroke the piston compresses the air-fuel mixture in preparation for ignition during the power stroke (below). Both the intake and exhaust valves are closed during this stage.
Combustion: Also known as power or ignition. This is the start of the second revolution of the four stroke cycle. At this point the crankshaft has completed a full 360 degree revolution. While the piston is at T.D.C. the compressed air-fuel mixture is ignited by a spark plug or by heat generated by high compression, forcefully returning the piston to B.D.C. This stroke produces mechanical work from the engine to turn the crankshaft.
Exhaust: Also known as outlet. During the exhaust stroke, the piston, once again, returns from B.D.C. to T.D.C. while the exhaust valve is open. This action expels the spent air-fuel mixture through the exhaust port.

A Stirling engine is a heat engine that is operated by the cyclic compression and expansion of air or other gas between different temperatures, resulting in a net conversion of heat energy to mechanical work.

The Brayton cycle is a thermodynamic cycle that describes the operation of certain heat engines that have air or some other gas as their working fluid. The original Brayton Ready Motor used a piston compressor and piston expander, but modern gas turbine engines and airbreathing jet engines also follow the Brayton cycle. Although the cycle is usually run as an open system, it is conventionally assumed for the purposes of thermodynamic analysis that the exhaust gases are reused in the intake, enabling analysis as a closed system.

A compressor is a mechanical device that increases the pressure of a gas by reducing its volume. An air compressor is a specific type of gas compressor.

For fluid power, a working fluid is a gas or liquid that primarily transfers force, motion, or mechanical energy. In hydraulics, water or hydraulic fluid transfers force between hydraulic components such as hydraulic pumps, hydraulic cylinders, and hydraulic motors that are assembled into hydraulic machinery, hydraulic drive systems, etc. In pneumatics, the working fluid is air or another gas which transfers force between pneumatic components such as compressors, vacuum pumps, pneumatic cylinders, and pneumatic motors. In pneumatic systems, the working gas also stores energy because it is compressible.

The Ericsson cycle is named after inventor John Ericsson who designed and built many unique heat engines based on various thermodynamic cycles. He is credited with inventing two unique heat engine cycles and developing practical engines based on these cycles. His first cycle is now known as the closed Brayton cycle, while his second cycle is what is now called the Ericsson cycle. Ericsson is one of the few who built open-cycle engines, but he also built closed-cycle ones.

A hot air engine is any heat engine that uses the expansion and contraction of air under the influence of a temperature change to convert thermal energy into mechanical work. These engines may be based on a number of thermodynamic cycles encompassing both open cycle devices such as those of Sir George Cayley and John Ericsson and the closed cycle engine of Robert Stirling. Hot air engines are distinct from the better known internal combustion based engine and steam engine.

Turbomachinery, in mechanical engineering, describes machines that transfer energy between a rotor and a fluid, including both turbines and compressors. While a turbine transfers energy from a fluid to a rotor, a compressor transfers energy from a rotor to a fluid.

In thermodynamics, the thermal efficiency is a dimensionless performance measure of a device that uses thermal energy, such as an internal combustion engine, steam turbine, steam engine, boiler, furnace, refrigerator, ACs etc.

Economizers, or economisers (UK), are mechanical devices intended to reduce energy consumption, or to perform useful function such as preheating a fluid. The term economizer is used for other purposes as well. Boiler, power plant, heating, refrigeration, ventilating, and air conditioning (HVAC) uses are discussed in this article. In simple terms, an economizer is a heat exchanger.

Engine efficiency of thermal engines is the relationship between the total energy contained in the fuel, and the amount of energy used to perform useful work. There are two classifications of thermal engines-

Internal combustion and
External combustion engines.

A free-piston engine is a linear, 'crankless' internal combustion engine, in which the piston motion is not controlled by a crankshaft but determined by the interaction of forces from the combustion chamber gases, a rebound device and a load device.

Internal combustion engines date back to between the 10th and 13th centuries, when the first rocket engines were invented in China. Following the first commercial steam engine in 1698, various efforts were made during the 18th century to develop equivalent internal combustion engines. In 1791, the English inventor John Barber patented a gas turbine. In 1794, Thomas Mead patented a gas engine. Also in 1794, Robert Street patented an internal-combustion engine, which was also the first to use liquid fuel (petroleum) and built an engine around that time. In 1798, John Stevens designed the first American internal combustion engine. In 1807, French engineers Nicéphore and Claude Niépce ran a prototype internal combustion engine, using controlled dust explosions, the Pyréolophore. This engine powered a boat on the river in France. The same year, the Swiss engineer François Isaac de Rivaz built and patented a hydrogen and oxygen-powered internal-combustion engine. Fitted to a crude four-wheeled wagon, François Isaac de Rivaz first drove it 100 meters in 1813, thus making history as the first car-like vehicle known to have been powered by an internal-combustion engine.

An internal combustion engine is a heat engine in which the combustion of a fuel occurs with an oxidizer in a combustion chamber that is an integral part of the working fluid flow circuit. In an internal combustion engine, the expansion of the high-temperature and high-pressure gases produced by combustion applies direct force to some component of the engine. The force is typically applied to pistons, turbine blades, a rotor, or a nozzle. This force moves the component over a distance, transforming chemical energy into kinetic energy which is used to propel, move or power whatever the engine is attached to.

References

Citations

↑ Hellemans, Alexander; et al. (1991). ""The Timetables of Science: A Chronology of the Most Important People and Events in the History of Science"". New York: Touchstone/Simon & Schuster, Inc., 1991.
↑ Hero (1851) [reprint of 1st century CE original], "Section 50 – The Steam Engine". Translated from the original Greek by Bennet Woodcroft (Professor of Machinery in University College London.
↑ Needham, Joseph (1986), Science & Civilisation in China, V:7: The Gunpowder Epic, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0-521-30358-3
1 2 Reid, Hugo (1838). The Steam-engine: Being a Popular Description of the Construction and Action of that Engine; with a Sketch of Its History, and of the Laws of Heat and Pneumatics. Edinburgh: William Tait. p. 74.
↑ Thurston, Robert Henry (1996). A History of the Growth of the Steam-Engine (reprint ed.). Elibron. p. 12. ISBN 1-4021-6205-7.
↑ Hassan, Ahmad Y. "Taqi al-Din and the First Steam Turbine". History of Science and Technology in Islam. Archived from the original on 2008-02-18. Retrieved 2008-03-29.
↑ Lardner, Dionysius (1840). The Steam Engine Explained and Illustrated. Taylor and Walton. p. 22. Full title: Le Machine volume nuovo, et di molto artificio da fare effetti maravigliosi tanto Spiritali quanto di Animale Operatione, arichito di bellissime figure. Del Sig. Giovanni Branco, Cittadino Romano. In Roma, 1629
↑ R. Boyle, A Defence of the Doctrine Touching the Spring and Weight of the Air, … (London: Thomas Robinson, 1662). Available on-line at: Spain's La Biblioteca Virtual de Patrimonio Bibliográfico. Boyle presents his law in "Chap. V. Two new experiments touching the measure of the force of the spring of air compress'd and dilated.", pp. 57–68. On p. 59, Boyle concludes that " … the same air being brought to a degree of density about twice as that it had before, obtains a spring twice as strong as formerly." That is, doubling the density of a quantity of air doubles its pressure. Since air's density is proportional to its pressure, then for a fixed quantity of air, the product of its pressure and its volume is constant. On page 60, he presents his data on the compression of air: "A Table of the Condensation of the Air." The legend (p. 60) accompanying the table states: "E. What the pressure should be according to the Hypothesis, that supposes the pressures and expansions to be in reciprocal relation." On p. 64, Boyle presents his data on the expansion of air: "A Table of the Rarefaction of the Air."https://bvpb.mcu.es/en/consulta/registro.cmd?id=406806
↑ The Century of Inventions, written in 1655; by Edward Somerset, Marquis of Worcester. Being a verbatim reprint of the first edition, published in 1663. Archived 21 February 2006 at the Wayback Machine archive https://web.archive.org/web/20060221151830/http://www.history.rochester.edu/steam/dircks/
↑ "The History of the Automobile – Gas Engines". About.com. 2009-09-11. Retrieved 2009-10-19.
↑ The Griffin Engineering Company, of Bath, Somerset Archived 2007-05-13 at the Wayback Machine University Of Bath, 15 December 2004. Accessed May 2011
↑ Rasor, N. S. (1983). "Thermionic Energy Converter". In Chang, Sheldon S. L. (ed.). Fundamentals Handbook of Electrical and Computer Engineering. Vol. II. New York: Wiley. p. 668. ISBN 0-471-86213-4.
↑ Shoichi Toyabe; Takahiro Sagawa; Masahito Ueda; Eiro Muneyuki; Masaki Sano (2010-09-29). "Information heat engine: converting information to energy by feedback control". Nature Physics. 6 (12): 988–992. arXiv : 1009.5287. Bibcode : 2011NatPh...6..988T. doi : 10.1038/nphys1821. We demonstrated that free energy is obtained by a feedback control using the information about the system; information is converted to free energy, as the first realization of Szilard-type Maxwell’s demon.
↑ Michigan State University: Wave Disk Engine U.S. Department of Energy, Advanced Research Projects Agency, March 2011
↑ "The experimental demonstration of a spin quantum heat engine". phys.org. Retrieved 2020-01-01.
↑ "New quantum nanodevice can simultaneously act as a heat engine and a refrigerator". phys.org. Retrieved 2020-12-29.

Sources

The Growth Of The Steam-Engine Robert H. Thurston, A. M., C. E., New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1878.
Thermal Engineering in Power Systems By Ryoichi Amano, Bengt Sundén, Page 40, chapter 'Brief History of energy conversion'. Volume 22 of Developments in Heat Transfer Series, International series on developments in heat transfer, v. 22, WIT Press, 2008. ISBN 1-84564-062-4; ISBN 978-1-84564-062-0.

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[Hellemans-1] Hellemans, Alexander; et al. (1991). ""The Timetables of Science: A Chronology of the Most Important People and Events in the History of Science"". New York: Touchstone/Simon & Schuster, Inc., 1991.

[2] Hero (1851) [reprint of 1st century CE original], "Section 50 – The Steam Engine". Translated from the original Greek by Bennet Woodcroft (Professor of Machinery in University College London.

[3] Needham, Joseph (1986), Science & Civilisation in China, V:7: The Gunpowder Epic, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0-521-30358-3

[:0-4] 1 2 Reid, Hugo (1838). The Steam-engine: Being a Popular Description of the Construction and Action of that Engine; with a Sketch of Its History, and of the Laws of Heat and Pneumatics. Edinburgh: William Tait. p. 74.

[5] Thurston, Robert Henry (1996). A History of the Growth of the Steam-Engine (reprint ed.). Elibron. p. 12. ISBN 1-4021-6205-7.

[Hassan-6] Hassan, Ahmad Y. "Taqi al-Din and the First Steam Turbine". History of Science and Technology in Islam. Archived from the original on 2008-02-18. Retrieved 2008-03-29.

[7] Lardner, Dionysius (1840). The Steam Engine Explained and Illustrated. Taylor and Walton. p. 22. Full title: Le Machine volume nuovo, et di molto artificio da fare effetti maravigliosi tanto Spiritali quanto di Animale Operatione, arichito di bellissime figure. Del Sig. Giovanni Branco, Cittadino Romano. In Roma, 1629

[8] R. Boyle, A Defence of the Doctrine Touching the Spring and Weight of the Air, … (London: Thomas Robinson, 1662). Available on-line at: Spain's La Biblioteca Virtual de Patrimonio Bibliográfico. Boyle presents his law in "Chap. V. Two new experiments touching the measure of the force of the spring of air compress'd and dilated.", pp. 57–68. On p. 59, Boyle concludes that " … the same air being brought to a degree of density about twice as that it had before, obtains a spring twice as strong as formerly." That is, doubling the density of a quantity of air doubles its pressure. Since air's density is proportional to its pressure, then for a fixed quantity of air, the product of its pressure and its volume is constant. On page 60, he presents his data on the compression of air: "A Table of the Condensation of the Air." The legend (p. 60) accompanying the table states: "E. What the pressure should be according to the Hypothesis, that supposes the pressures and expansions to be in reciprocal relation." On p. 64, Boyle presents his data on the expansion of air: "A Table of the Rarefaction of the Air."https://bvpb.mcu.es/en/consulta/registro.cmd?id=406806

[9] The Century of Inventions, written in 1655; by Edward Somerset, Marquis of Worcester. Being a verbatim reprint of the first edition, published in 1663. Archived 21 February 2006 at the Wayback Machine archive https://web.archive.org/web/20060221151830/http://www.history.rochester.edu/steam/dircks/

[10] "The History of the Automobile – Gas Engines". About.com. 2009-09-11. Retrieved 2009-10-19.

[11] The Griffin Engineering Company, of Bath, Somerset Archived 2007-05-13 at the Wayback Machine University Of Bath, 15 December 2004. Accessed May 2011

[12] Rasor, N. S. (1983). "Thermionic Energy Converter". In Chang, Sheldon S. L. (ed.). Fundamentals Handbook of Electrical and Computer Engineering. Vol. II. New York: Wiley. p. 668. ISBN 0-471-86213-4.

[13] Shoichi Toyabe; Takahiro Sagawa; Masahito Ueda; Eiro Muneyuki; Masaki Sano (2010-09-29). "Information heat engine: converting information to energy by feedback control". Nature Physics. 6 (12): 988–992. arXiv : 1009.5287. Bibcode : 2011NatPh...6..988T. doi : 10.1038/nphys1821. We demonstrated that free energy is obtained by a feedback control using the information about the system; information is converted to free energy, as the first realization of Szilard-type Maxwell’s demon.

[14] Michigan State University: Wave Disk Engine U.S. Department of Energy, Advanced Research Projects Agency, March 2011

[15] "The experimental demonstration of a spin quantum heat engine". phys.org. Retrieved 2020-01-01.

[16] "New quantum nanodevice can simultaneously act as a heat engine and a refrigerator". phys.org. Retrieved 2020-12-29.

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v t e Heat engines
Carnot engine Fluidyne Gas turbine Hot air Jet Minto wheel Photo-Carnot engine Piston Pistonless (Rotary) Rijke tube Rocket Split-single Steam (reciprocating) Steam turbine Aeolipile Stirling Thermoacoustic Manson engine
Beale number West number
Timeline of heat engine technology
Thermodynamic cycle