Supercharger

A supercharger is a device on an internal combustion engine that compresses the intake air before it reaches the cylinders, forcing more air in to produce more power from the same engine displacement, and unlike a turbocharger it is driven mechanically, usually by a belt from the engine's own crankshaft, rather than by the engine's exhaust gases. The German engineer Heinrich Krigar patented the first screw-type compressor in March 1878, the same year the Scottish engineer Dugald Clerk paired the first supercharger with a two-stroke gas engine, and Gottlieb Daimler patented a supercharged internal combustion engine in 1885. Louis Renault patented a centrifugal supercharger in France in 1902, aircraft began using superchargers in the 1910s, and the first series-production supercharged cars were Mercedes models introduced in 1923.