Eugenio Barsanti
Encyclopedia
Father Eugenio Barsanti (12 October 1821 – 19 April 1864), also named Nicolò, was an Italian engineer, who invented a form of the internal combustion engine
Internal combustion engine
The internal combustion engine is an engine in which the combustion of a fuel occurs with an oxidizer in a combustion chamber. In an internal combustion engine, the expansion of the high-temperature and high -pressure gases produced by combustion apply direct force to some component of the engine...

. It is not known whether he was the first to develop such an engine, as the patent request in question has been lost.

Barsanti was born in Pietrasanta
Pietrasanta
Pietrasanta is a town and comune on the coast of northern Tuscany in Italy, in the province of Lucca. Pietrasanta is part of Versilia, on the last foothills of the Apuan Alps, about 32 km north of Pisa...

, Tuscany
Tuscany
Tuscany is a region in Italy. It has an area of about 23,000 square kilometres and a population of about 3.75 million inhabitants. The regional capital is Florence ....

. Lean and low of stature, he studied in a religious scientific oriented institute near Lucca
Lucca
Lucca is a city and comune in Tuscany, central Italy, situated on the river Serchio in a fertile plainnear the Tyrrhenian Sea. It is the capital city of the Province of Lucca...

, in Tuscany
Tuscany
Tuscany is a region in Italy. It has an area of about 23,000 square kilometres and a population of about 3.75 million inhabitants. The regional capital is Florence ....

, and became a novitiate
Novitiate
Novitiate, alt. noviciate, is the period of training and preparation that a novice monastic or member of a religious order undergoes prior to taking vows in order to discern whether they are called to the religious life....

 in Florence
Florence
Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....

 in 1838 of the Piarist Fathers or Scolopi, who were known for their opening to scientific study.

In 1841 Barsanti began teaching in the Collegio San Michele, situated in Volterra
Volterra
Volterra, known to the ancient Etruscans as Velathri, to the Romans as Volaterrae, is a town and comune in the Tuscany region of Italy.-History:...

. Here, during a lecture describing the explosion of mixed Hydrogen
Hydrogen
Hydrogen is the chemical element with atomic number 1. It is represented by the symbol H. With an average atomic weight of , hydrogen is the lightest and most abundant chemical element, constituting roughly 75% of the Universe's chemical elemental mass. Stars in the main sequence are mainly...

 and air, he realised the potential for using the energy of the expansion of combusting gases within a motor.

Subsequently, when teaching in a college level institute in Florence he met Felice Matteucci
Felice Matteucci
Felice Matteucci was an Italian hydraulic engineer who co-invented an internal combustion engine with Eugenio Barsanti. It is not known whether they were the first to do so, as the patent in question was lost....

, an hydraulic engineer. Matteucci appreciated the idea for the engine, and the two men worked together on it for the rest of their lives.

They patented their invention in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

, on 12 June 1854 as Italian law at that time could not guarantee sufficient international protection on the patent. The construction of the prototype was later completed in the 1860s.

The main advantage of the Barsanti-Matteucci engine
Barsanti-Matteucci Engine
In late 1851 or early 1852 Eugenio Barsanti, a professor of mathematics, and Felice Matteucci, an engineer and expert in mechanics and hydraulics, joined forces on a project to exploit the explosion and expansion of a gaseous mix of hydrogen and atmospheric air to transform part of the energy of...

 was the use of the return force of the piston due to the cooling of the gas. Other approaches based on the pushing force of the explosion, like the one developed by France's
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 Etienne Lenoir
Etienne Lenoir
-Sources:* Georgano, G.N. Cars: Early and Vintage 1886-1930. London: Grange-Universal, 1990 . ISBN 0-9509620-3-1....

, were slower. The Barsanti-Matteucci engine was proven to be much more efficient, and won a silver medal from the institute of science of Lombardy
Lombardy
Lombardy is one of the 20 regions of Italy. The capital is Milan. One-sixth of Italy's population lives in Lombardy and about one fifth of Italy's GDP is produced in this region, making it the most populous and richest region in the country and one of the richest in the whole of Europe...

.

In 1856 they developed a two-cylinder 5 HP
Horsepower
Horsepower is the name of several units of measurement of power. The most common definitions equal between 735.5 and 750 watts.Horsepower was originally defined to compare the output of steam engines with the power of draft horses in continuous operation. The unit was widely adopted to measure the...

 motor and two years later they built a counter-working two-piston engine.

Barsanti thought that the new engine was a great improvement over the steam engine
Steam engine
A steam engine is a heat engine that performs mechanical work using steam as its working fluid.Steam engines are external combustion engines, where the working fluid is separate from the combustion products. Non-combustion heat sources such as solar power, nuclear power or geothermal energy may be...

, it was much safer, less cumbersome and quick to operate. It was however not light enough for use as automotive engine. The main target was to provide mechanical energy in factories and for naval propulsion.

After some searching, Barsanti and Matteucci selected the John Cockerill foundry in Seraing
Seraing
Seraing is a Walloon municipality of Belgium in Province of Liege. The municipality of Seraing includes the old communes of Boncelles, Jemeppe-sur-Meuse, and Ougrée. With Liège, Herstal, Saint-Nicolas, Ans, and Flémalle it forms the greater Liège agglomeration...

, Belgium
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...

 to mass-produce a four HP engine. Orders for the engine soon followed from many countries within Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

.

Barsanti died suddenly at Seraing of typhoid fever
Typhoid fever
Typhoid fever, also known as Typhoid, is a common worldwide bacterial disease, transmitted by the ingestion of food or water contaminated with the feces of an infected person, which contain the bacterium Salmonella enterica, serovar Typhi...

, on 30 March 1864, and Matteucci alone was not able to lead the business. The development of the engine failed and Matteucci returned to his first occupation, hydraulics
Hydraulics
Hydraulics is a topic in applied science and engineering dealing with the mechanical properties of liquids. Fluid mechanics provides the theoretical foundation for hydraulics, which focuses on the engineering uses of fluid properties. In fluid power, hydraulics is used for the generation, control,...

.

When Nikolaus Otto patented his engine, Matteucci unsuccessfully argued that he and his partner Barsanti were the originators.

See also

  • Reciprocating engine
    Reciprocating engine
    A reciprocating engine, also often known as a piston engine, is a heat engine that uses one or more reciprocating pistons to convert pressure into a rotating motion. This article describes the common features of all types...

  • Two-stroke cycle
    Two-stroke cycle
    A two-stroke engine is an internal combustion engine that completes the process cycle in one revolution of the crankshaft...

  • Internal combustion engine
    Internal combustion engine
    The internal combustion engine is an engine in which the combustion of a fuel occurs with an oxidizer in a combustion chamber. In an internal combustion engine, the expansion of the high-temperature and high -pressure gases produced by combustion apply direct force to some component of the engine...

  • History of the internal combustion engine
    History of the internal combustion engine
    Although various forms of internal combustion engines were developed before the 19th century, their use was hindered until the commercial drilling and production of petroleum began in the mid-1850s...

  • List of Roman Catholic scientist-clerics
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