The Steam Engine
One of the most important inventions born out during the Industrial Revolution was a new source of power – the steam engine.
Many of the new factories were reliant on either wind- or water-driven devices, but they were undependable because of changing weather. What if there was no wind or the river flowed too low? Or a storm blew the wheel away?
Steam Engines in contrast could be run everywhere and made the factories more flexible.
Many of the new factories were reliant on either wind- or water-driven devices, but they were undependable because of changing weather. What if there was no wind or the river flowed too low? Or a storm blew the wheel away?
Steam Engines in contrast could be run everywhere and made the factories more flexible.
In 1712 the English inventor Thomas Newcomen took a design of a two and a half inch high standing model of a steam engine from the French scientist Denis Papin and built the first full-sized steam engine. The mechanism of this steam engine was relatively simple:
Animation of a schematic Newcomen steam engine.
– Steam is shown pink and water is blue. – Valves move from open (green) to closed (red) |
File:Newcomen atmospheric engine animation.gif
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia |
- Water was boiled to make steam, which filled a tank called cylinder.
- In the cylinder a piston was placed, which was pushed upward by the steam.
- Then a spray of cold water cooled the steam so that it became liquid water again.
- Because water takes up less space than steam, a vacuum was created within the cylinder and the piston was pulled back down the cylinder.
The process was repeated so that the piston was steadily pumping up and down.
Because fire boiled the water to run the steam engine, the machine was at first called a "Fire Engine". Nowadays it is known as a "Atmospheric Steam Engine" or "Newcomen Engine".
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Photograph of "Fairbottom Bobs" (Newcomen Engine) in around 1880.
It was built in an area known as Fairbottom, England, possibly around 1760, to pump water out of the Cannel coal pits, which were about 200 feet deep. The engine ceased to be used in 1834. |
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Julianna Schiemann
Julianna Schiemann