PC/WI: Internal Combustion engine before steam engine?

Suppose that the internal combustion engine is invented before the steam engine is; the IC engine comes earlier than IOTL, while the steam engine arrives later. What are the effects on the industrial revolution?

Or is this even possible; did the internal combustion engine require lessons learned from the steam engine before it? Or, perhaps, did the steam engine need to be invented to create the ability to invent the internal combustion engine?
 
Isnt this a bit like having the transistor before the diode?

Ya. Internal combustion engines require fine tolerances, precision engineering, and good metallurgy. None of which will develop without an industrial revolution, which requires steam engines.

So, quite close to asb if it isnt there.


At least as anything useful. I could see a one off ic engine produced using thousands of hours of time by incredibly skilled craftsmen in the court of Justinian, say. But it would cost as much as a medium sized army, at a guess, and would be a toy.
 
The earliest internal combustion engines date from the first decade of the 19th century (De Rivaz engine and the Pyréolophore)... so, they don't require technology too much more advanced than that needed for effective steam engines. Problem is, thought, ICEs are much more finiky about the types of fuel they'll take... you need something that'll mix easily with air and so burn quickly; coal dust is probably the only really afforadable option until large scale petroleum production starts.
 
Time to revisit this. Would a typical four-stroke engine powered by coal dust be a feasible source of power? Also, if it could be so, when is the earliest it could be invented? It doesn't have to before the steam engine in this case.
 

amphibulous

Banned
The earliest internal combustion engines date from the first decade of the 19th century (De Rivaz engine and the Pyréolophore)... so, they don't require technology too much more advanced than that needed for effective steam engines.

Yes, you can build impractical toy IC engines with steam engine level tech. But no one would bother. To quote wikipedia the problem with these early engines was

In 1824, after the brothers had lost the project's momentum, the French physicist Nicolas Léonard Sadi Carnot scientifically established the thermodynamic theory of idealized heat engines. This highlighted the flaw in the design of the Pyréolophore, whereby it needed a compression mechanism to increase the difference between the upper and lower working temperatures and potentially unlock sufficient power and efficiency.


Until you get that compression, IC engines are only toys - and that compression does need advanced lathes. Otoh, many advances in lathes were inspired by steam engines on OTL - but it doesn't have to be this way; you'd still end up with decent lathes eventually from gun-making etc. The question is why the steam engine would get missed by for a century or more by an advancing technical culture?
 
So, I just did some research. Turns out this guy was making IC engines 50 years ahead of their time. They were crude, but could easily have been improved. Unfortunately, he was assassinated in 1804. What might have happened if he had lived, though?

Also, does anyone have a diagram/animation of how his engine worked?
 
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