The Otto engine was a large stationary single-cylinder internal combustion four-stroke engine designed by the German Nicolaus Otto. It was a low-RPM machine, and only fired every other stroke due to the Otto cycle, also designed by Otto.
Types
Three types of internal combustion engines were designed by German inventors Nicolaus Otto and his partner Eugen Langen. The models were a failed 1862 compression engine, an 1864 atmospheric engine, and the 1876 Otto cycle engine known today as the petrol engine. The engines were initially used for stationary installations, as Otto had no interest in transportation. Other makers such as Daimler perfected the Otto engine for transportation use.
Timeline
Nicolaus August Otto as a young man was a traveling salesman for a grocery concern. In his travels he encountered the internal combustion engine built in Paris by Belgian expatriate Jean Joseph Etienne Lenoir. In 1860 Lenoir succeeded in creating a double-acting engine which ran on illuminating gas at 4% efficiency. The 18 liter Lenoir engine was able to produce only 2 horsepower.
In testing a replica of the Lenoir engine in 1861 Otto became aware of the effects of compression on the fuel charge. In 1862 Otto attempted to produce an engine to improve on the poor efficiency and reliability of the Lenoir engine. He tried to create an engine which would compress the fuel mixture prior to ignition, but failed, as that engine would run no more than a few minutes prior to its destruction. Many engineers were also trying to solve the problem with no success.
In 1864 Otto and Eugen Langen founded the first internal combustion engine production company NA Otto and Cie (NA Otto and Company). Otto and Cie succeeded in creating a successful atmospheric engine that same year.
The factory ran out of space and was moved to the town of Deutz, Germany in 1869 where the company was renamed to Gasmotoren-Fabrik Deutz (The Gas Engine Manufacturing Company Deutz).
Gottlieb Daimler was technical director and Wilhelm Maybach was the head of engine design. Daimler was a gunsmith who had also worked on the Lenoir engine previously.
By 1876 Otto and Langen succeeded in creating the first internal combustion engine that compressed the fuel mixture prior to combustion for far higher efficiency than any engine created to this time.
Atmospheric engine
The first version of the atmospheric engine used a fluted column design which was the design of Eugen Langen. The atmospheric engine has its power stroke delivered upward using a rack and pinion to convert the piston's linear motion to rotary motion. The expansion ratio of this engine was much more effective than that of the 1860 Lenoir engine and gave the engine its superior efficiency.
The Lenoir engine was an engine that burned fuel without first trying to compress the fuel/mixture. The Otto/Langen atmospheric engine ran at 12% efficiency and produced at 80 RPM. In competition at the 1867 World's Fair in Paris, it easily bested the efficiency of the Lenoir engine and won the gold medal, thus paving the way for production and sales which funded additional research.
The first version used a frame to stabilize the rack. This was soon dispensed with as the design was simplified. Later engines dispensed with the fluted cylinder as well. The atmospheric engine used a gas flame ignition system and was made in output sizes from .
When in 1872 N.A. Otto & Cie reorganized as Gasmotoren-Fabrik Deutz, management picked Daimler as factory manager, bypassing even Otto, and Daimler joined the company in August, taking Maybach with him as chief designer. While Daimler managed to improve production, the weakness in the Otto's vertical piston design, coupled to Daimler's stubborn insistence on atmospheric engines, led the company to an impasse.
For all its commercial success, with the company producing 634 engines a year by 1875, the Otto and Langen engine had hit a technical dead end: it produced only , yet required headroom to operate. In 1882, after producing 2,649 engines, the atmospheric engine production was discontinued. This was also the year that Gottlieb Daimler and Wilhelm Maybach left the company.