Automotive History - Catalog - Page 16
Nicolaus
August
Otto
Gas-Motor Engine
U.S. Patent No. 194,047
Inducted in 1981
Born June 10, 1832 - Died Jan. 26, 1891
E
ngineer Nicolaus August Otto invented the first
practical alternative to the steam engine.
Born in Holzhausen, Germany, Otto built his first gas
engine in 1861. Then, in partnership with German
industrialist Eugen Langen, they improved the design
and won a gold medal at the Paris Exposition of 1867.
In 1876, Otto, then a traveling salesman, chanced upon
a newspaper account of the Lenoir internal combustion
engine.
Before year's end, Otto had built an internal
combustion engine, utilizing a four-stroke piston cycle.
Now called the "Otto cycle" in his honor, the design
called for four strokes of a piston to draw in and
compress a gas-air mixture within a cylinder resulting
in an internal explosion.
Although an earlier patent by French engineer
Alphonse de Rochas was found, Otto built the first
practical and successful four-stroke cycle engine.
Because of its reliability, efficiency, and relative quiet,
more than 30,000 Otto cycle engines were built in the
next ten years.
Reference: National Inventors Hall of Fame (2024, 29. March):
Inductee: Nicolaus August Otto Gas-Motor Engine.
NIHF. https://www.invent.org/inductees/nicolaus-august-otto
