| Date | Text | |
|---|---|---|
09 Apr 1815
Alphonse(-Eugène) Beau de Rochas |
birth Alphonse(-Eugène) Beau de Rochas Born 9 Apr 1815; died 27 Mar 1893 at age 77. French railway engineer who originated the theoretical principle of the four-stroke internal-combustion engine and provide a theoretical pressure diagram (1862). His achievement lay partly in his emphasizing the previously unappreciated importance of compressing the fuel-air mixture before ignition. (French patent #52,593, 16 Jan 1862). However, he never built such an engine, nor defended his patent when the German Nikolaus August Otto produced a four-stroke engine in 1876. Beau de Rochas proposed other ideas: a rail tunnel beneath the English Channel, a submarine telegraph, a new kind of drive for canal boats, the use of steel for high-pressure boilers, and a method of improving the adhesion of locomotive wheel on Alpine tracks. |
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