Gunpowder engine facts for kids

A gunpowder engine is a special type of internal combustion engine. It uses gunpowder as its fuel to create power. Think of it like a tiny, controlled explosion that makes something move!

The idea for these engines first came about in the 1600s. A famous Dutch scientist named Christiaan Huygens was one of the most important people to explore this concept. Later, in the early 1800s, George Cayley also experimented with gunpowder engines. He thought they could be used to power aircraft. He even claimed to have made small models that worked for a short time.

You might hear people say that a regular gasoline engine can run on gunpowder. However, there's no real proof that anyone has successfully changed a gasoline engine to work with gunpowder.

Early Ideas for Power

The idea of using gunpowder for power came from many different discoveries. Scientists and inventors worked on these ideas independently.

Lifting Weights with Explosions

Early devices were mostly about lifting or holding heavy things. This helped scientists study how physics worked. The goal wasn't to make something work all the time, but to understand the power of explosions.

In 1508, Leonardo da Vinci described a way to "lift heavy weight with fire." He imagined using a cannon barrel and gunpowder for this.

Later, Galileo Galilei did many experiments on lifting weights using a vacuum. A vacuum is an empty space where there is no air. Otto von Guericke also studied vacuums, but he used pumps to create them.

In 1676, Robert Hooke wrote a secret message in his book. It said, "The ‘vacuum’ left by fire lifts a weight." This showed that scientists were thinking about how explosions could create a vacuum to do work.

First Gunpowder Engines

The very first mentions of a gunpowder engine come from Samuel Morland in 1661. King Charles the Second of England gave him a special letter about his invention. We don't have much information about this engine today. But it seems it used a vacuum and gunpowder to pump water.

Another inventor, Jean de Hautefeuille, mentioned a gunpowder engine in 1678. He thought it could help pump water from the Seine River to supply the Palace of Versailles. He had two ideas. One was like Morland's, using a vacuum. The second used a U-shaped tube with water on one side and air on the other. When gunpowder was lit in the air side, the pressure would push the water up the other side.

These early engines were similar to the first steam engine designs. They used the air or vacuum created by gunpowder to directly move water. They didn't have mechanical parts like modern engines. Modern engines change the gas pressure into different kinds of movement.

Huygens' Amazing Engine

This drawing shows how Christiaan Huygens imagined his gunpowder and air engine would work.

In 1671, Denis Papin started working with Christiaan Huygens in Paris. Huygens asked Papin to research air and vacuums. Papin measured the force of small amounts of gunpowder in metal containers. He published his findings in 1674.

Huygens became very interested in how a vacuum could create mechanical power. He wondered if gunpowder could be used to make a vacuum. In 1678, he described his gunpowder engine. It was a tall, vertical tube with a piston inside. A piston is a moving part that fits tightly inside a cylinder.

Gunpowder was put into the bottom of the tube and lit through a small hole. The exploding gases would push the piston up the tube. Near the top, the piston would uncover holes. These holes let the hot gases escape. Then, the weight of the piston and the vacuum created by the cooling gases would pull the piston back down. This movement could lift a weight, showing the engine's power.

In 1682, Huygens showed his gunpowder engine. A small amount of gunpowder created enough vacuum to lift eight boys into the air!

Sources say one of these engines was built around 1678 or 1679. It used a cannon as the main cylinder. The gunpowder was loaded from the bottom, like a breech-loading cannon. Hot gases escaped through two leather tubes at the top. When the piston reached them, the tubes opened. As the pressure dropped, gravity pulled the leather tubes down, sealing the holes.

Huygens wrote about his invention in 1680. By 1682, his device showed impressive results. A tiny amount of gunpowder (about 1/16th of an ounce) in a large cylinder could lift seven or eight boys into the air! That's about 1,100 pounds! The boys held onto a rope connected to the engine.

However, modern experts debate if this engine could have truly worked as described. It was very difficult to make the piston seal tightly inside the cylinder. After this, people focused more on steam engines, which became very popular after 1712.

Cayley's Flying Engine

George Cayley was an inventor who wanted to build flying machines. He worried that steam engines were too heavy for aircraft. He said, "The steam engine has proved too weighty and clumsy for most purposes of movement."

So, in 1807, Cayley started working on a new engine design. He quickly decided that a gunpowder engine was the best choice. He noted that he needed "a simple & light first mover on a small scale for the purpose of some preparatory experiments on aerial navigation." He used gunpowder and the heat from its explosion to act on air.

Cayley's designs were much better than Huygens'. One of his designs had two cylinders, one above the other. The bottom cylinder was where the gunpowder exploded. The top cylinder held a piston. A small amount of gunpowder was put into the bottom and lit by a hot rod. The expanding gases pushed the piston up. This energy was stored by pulling back a large bow, like getting ready to shoot an arrow. As the gases cooled and escaped, the bowstring pushed the piston back down, completing the cycle.

In a later design, Cayley tried to make the engine work continuously. He moved the explosion chamber to a separate cylinder next to the power cylinder. Gunpowder was stored at the top of this chamber. Small amounts would drop into the explosion area below. The hot gases then traveled through pipes to the power cylinder. This cylinder had two pistons on a single rod, making it a "double-acting" engine. This meant gases pushed on both sides of the pistons.

Cayley wrote that he built one of these designs, but he said it "did not work very well." He designed several flying machines using his engine, but it seems he never built a larger working model.

Other Gunpowder Engine Ideas

Thomas Paine, a famous writer and inventor, came up with a very different engine design. It looked more like a water wheel than a typical engine. In Paine's engine, there were cup-shaped chambers around a wheel. As the wheel turned, each cup would get a small amount of gunpowder and then be lit.

There are many other mentions of gunpowder engines in old writings. However, it doesn't seem that any of them were ever used for everyday work.

Gunpowder in Modern Engines?

The idea of running a regular gasoline engine on gunpowder is a topic that often comes up. The TV show MythBusters even tested this idea in one of their episodes. After many tries, they found that it didn't work. They called the idea "busted."