See Steam engine, Steam power during the Industrial Revolution.
Steam power developed slowly over a period of several hundred years, progressing through expensive and fairly limited devices in the early 1600s, to useful pumps for mining in 1700, and then to Watt s improved designs in the late 1700s. It is these later designs, introduced just when the need for practical power was growing due to the Industrial Revolution, that truly made steam power commonplace.
*~130 BC: Hero of Alexandria builds a small steam turbine, the aeolipile, as an example of the power of heated air or water. The device produced little power and had no practical application, but is nevertheless the first true steam engine. He also describes a way to pump water from one container to another, higher, one using steam pressure. The weight of the water was intended to open temple doors magically .
describes a new pump which uses steam pressure to drive water out of a container. It is similar to Hero s design.
, publishes a book showing a device similar to that of Porta.
-like device for power, intending it to be used as a power source for mills.
is granted a patent on a steam pump, although no description is given and the patent also covers a number of unrelated inventions. He refers to the device as a fire engine , and this term is used for many years.
, apparently the first industrial scale steam engine. He has plans to build them for mining, but dies before he can set up his company.
introduces a steam pump he calls the Miner s Friend. it is almost certainly a direct copy of Somerset s design. One key improvement is added later, replacing the cold water flow on the outside of the cylinder with a spray directly inside it. A small number of his pumps are built, but like any system based on suction to lift the water, they have a maximum height of 32 feet (and typically much less). In order to be practical, his design also often uses pressure to force the water out the top as well, but many mine owners were afraid of the risk of explosion and avoided this option.
for rotary power. The study also proposes replacing the water of a Savery engine with a piston, which is pulled on by the vacuum in a cylinder after steam inside is condensed, but he was unable to build the device.
share the initial patent.
, and is also used for municiple water supply and draining wetlands. It was later stated that the Newcomen engine allowed mines to be made twice as deep as before.
, a boy charged with operating a Newcomen engine, installs a simple system to automatically open and close the operating valves. The engine can now be run at 15 strokes a minute with little work other than loading the fuel.
introduces an improved and much more reliable version of Potter s operating system.
*1718: Desaguliers introduces an improved version of the Savery engine, which includes safety valves and a two-way valve that operated both the steam and cold water (as opposed to two separate valves).
designs an engine based on expansion, which he attributes to Papin, in which two cylinders alternately receive steam and then vent to the atmosphere. Although likely a useful design, it appears none were built.
.
experimented with Newcomen engines, and also starts building engines with much longer cylinders than normal. Later designs delivered about 80 horsepower (60 kW).
*1775: Watt builds his first double acting engine, which blows steam on one side of the piston, then allows it to move to the other where it finally enters the condensor. This change doubles the engine power for little extra complexity or space.
patents a two-cylinder compound engine, in which the steam pushes on one piston (as opposed to pulling via vacuum as in previous designs), and when it reaches the end of its stroke it is valved into a second piston that works with a condenser, as normal . Hornblower s design is considerably more efficient than Watt s single-acting designs, but is similar enough to his double-acting system that his patent is later broken.
, and mercury steam gauges.
designs a new type of condenser that sits around the main cylinder and makes the engine as a whole considerably smaller. It appears none were built, however.
makes an obvious (in retrospect) design change, and inverts the steam engine directly above the mine pumps, eliminating the large beam used since Newcomen s designs.
re-introduces Hornblower s double-cylinder designs now that Watt s patents have expired. He goes on to build a number of examples with up to nine cylinders as boiler pressures increase.
boiler designs become almost universal in new installations.
, which was used to power a ship. The turbine works like a multi-cylinder steam engine, but with any number of cylinders in series, built of simple bladed wheels. The efficiency of the turbine is considerably better than the best compound engines, while also being much simpler, more reliable, smaller and lighter all at the same time. Steam turbines have replaced pistons for extracting power almost universally since then.
, using 24 Babcock and Wilcox boilers driving Parsons turbines. Almost all modern power generation is based on this basic design.
.
=External links=
*[
http://www.history.rochester.edu/steam/thurston/1878/Chapter1.html The Growth of the Steam Engine]