10.10.2023
When was the steam engine invented? Invention of the steam engine. The use of steam engines in transport
Exactly 245 years ago - January 5, 1769 - James Watt received a patent for the steam engine he invented. Why not remember the history of the creation of the steam engine from ancient times?
Actually the patent itself and its owner -
The history of the creation of a steam engine begins with the fact that the first description of a device that was driven by steam dates back to the first century and belongs to Heron of Alexandria.
Steam came out tangentially from the nozzles, which were attached to the ball, and forced it to rotate.
A real steam turbine was designed already in medieval Egypt, by the 16th century engineer, astronomer and philosopher Arab Taqi ad-Din Muhammad. The history of the creation of the steam engine continued. He invented a technique for rotating a spit using steam. It was directed at the blades fixed along the rim of the wheel.
Italian engineer Giovanni Branca proposed a similar machine in 1629. It was designed to rotate a cylindrical anchor device in mortars, which in turn raised and lowered a pair of pestles in mortars. In such steam engines the steam flow was not concentrated, and this led to large energy losses, because a significant part of the steam energy was dissipated in all directions.
To further develop the history of the creation of a steam engine - a steam device - an economic situation was needed in which engine developers could take advantage of its result. But in the ancient era, as in the Middle Ages, and even in the Renaissance, such conditions did not exist. It was only towards the end of the 17th century that steam units were created, but so far as isolated curiosities. The first machine was created by the Spanish inventor Hieronimo Ajans de Beaumont. His inventions had a significant influence on T. Severi's patent.
The Englishman Edward Somerset in 1655 described the basic principle of operation of steam engines and the range of their applications. In 1663 he printed the design and installed a device at Raglan Castle for raising water onto the wall of a large tower. This device was driven by steam (back in the 19th century you could see recesses in the wall where the engine was located). But there were no people willing to risk money for this invention, and therefore further development of the steam engine turned out to be impossible. French physicist and inventor Denis Papin also contributed to the history of the creation of the steam engine - he worked on creating a vacuum in a closed cylinder.
Collaborating with the Dutch physicist Huygens, he worked in the 1670s on a device that would expel air from a cylinder by explosion.
Papin saw the incompleteness of the vacuum produced by an explosion, so after arriving in Britain in 1680, he developed the same cylinder, but using boiling water, which formed condensation in the cylinder, he achieved a more complete vacuum.
So with this unit, he was able to lift the load attached to the piston using a rope thrown over a pulley. But the machine worked only to demonstrate its capabilities, and to re-work it had to be completely disassembled and then reassembled again. Then the inventor realized that to automate the cycle, it was necessary to produce steam in a separate boiler. Due to this, Papen is considered the inventor of the steam boiler, and thus he paved the way for Newcomen's steam engine.
But he did not propose a complete design for a functioning steam engine. Papin made a huge contribution to the history of the creation of the steam engine by working on the design of a boat that was driven by a wheel with reaction force, combined with the inventions of Severi and Taqi ad-Din. He is also credited with the invention of a number of other important devices, one of them a safety valve.
Of all the devices described for solving necessary and useful problems, not a single one has found actual application. The first steam engine (in the entire history of the creation of a steam engine) that brought real benefits was developed by a military engineer from England, Thomas Savery, in 1698. This design is " fire installation" In 1698, Severi received a patent for it. In general it was a piston pump, but rather inefficient because the heat of the steam was lost during cooling of the container. Due to the high steam pressure, pipelines and engine tanks sometimes exploded, so it was extremely dangerous in operation. This unit was used in other industries, in water mills to rotate wheels, and in mines it was used to pump out water. Therefore, the inventor gave the design another name: “miner’s friend.”
In 1712, an English blacksmith presented his invention - the “atmospheric engine”.
It was an improved model steam engine Severi, only Newcomen significantly reduced the working steam pressure. This engine was first used to pump liquid from a deep mine. In this pump, the rocker arm is connected to a draft descending to the pump chamber into the shaft. The reciprocating movements of the thrust passed to the pump piston, which supplied water upward. This Newcomen steam engine became the first engine in the history of the creation of a steam engine, which was widely used in practice. It is with the invention of this engine that the beginning of the industrial revolution in Great Britain is associated.
In 1763, the first vacuum two-cylinder steam engine was developed in Russia.
It was designed by mechanic I.I. Polzunov, and already in 1764 it was built.
It was used at the Barnaul Kolyvano-Voskresensky factories in order to bring blower bellows into working condition.
The next people who increased the efficiency of steam engines and made a huge contribution to the history of the creation of the steam engine were the Englishman Richard Trevithick and the American Oliver Evans. Trevithick built single-stroke high-pressure industrial engines.
They are known to many as "Cornish engines". Their operating pressure was 50 pounds per square inch, or 345 kPa (3.405 atmospheres). But the increase in pressure led to an increase in the danger of explosions in boilers and machines, and this in turn led to multiple accidents. Therefore, one of the main parts on steam engines was considered a safety valve. Its purpose is to release excess pressure. The safe and reliable operation of these units began with the accumulation of experience and after the standardization of construction, operation and maintenance operations.
People were able to put steam to the service of humanity only at the very end of the 17th century. But even at the beginning of our era, the ancient Greek mathematician and mechanic Heron of Alexandria clearly showed that one can and should be friends with steam. A clear confirmation of this was the Geronovsky aeolipile, in fact, the first steam turbine - a ball that rotated with the power of jets of water vapor. Unfortunately, many amazing inventions of the ancient Greeks were firmly forgotten for many centuries. Only in the 17th century is there a description of something similar to a steam engine. The Frenchman Salomon de Caus, who was at one time a builder and engineer for Frederick V of the Palatinate, in his essay dated 1615, described a hollow iron ball with two tubes: one receiving and one releasing liquid. If you fill the ball with water and heat it up, then through the second tube the water will begin to rise to the top, obeying the influence of vapors. In 1663, the Englishman Edward Somerset, Marquess of Worchester, wrote a brochure in which he spoke about a machine that could lift water upward. At the same time, Somerset received a patent (“privilege”) for the described machine. As we see, all the thoughts of the inventors of the New Age revolved around pumping water from mines and mines, which, it should be noted, stemmed from an urgent task. It is therefore not surprising that the next three inventors, discussed below, were also primarily concerned with creating a steam engine for pumping water. Towards the very end of the 17th century, two people in Europe worked more effectively on taming steam - Denis Papin and Thomas Savery.
Savery's "fire" car.
On July 2, 1698, the Englishman Savery received a patent for a machine for pumping water from mines. The patent stated: “Privilege is claimed to Thomas Savery for his alone testing a new invention for raising water, turning all kinds of mills by the forces of fire, which will be very important for draining mines, supplying cities with water and turning all kinds of mills.” A prototype called the Fire Engine was exhibited at the Royal Palace in 1699. Scientific Society in London. Savery's machine operated in this way: a sealed tank was filled with steam, and then the outer surface of the tank was cooled with cold water, which caused the steam to condense, creating a partial vacuum in the tank. Then water from the bottom of the shaft was sucked into the tank through the intake pipe and, after a new portion of steam was introduced, it was pushed out through the outlet pipe. It is worth noting that Savery's invention was similar to Somerset's machine, and many believe that Savery was directly inspired by the latter. Unfortunately, Savery's "fiery" machine had its shortcomings. The most important of them is the inability to raise water from a depth of more than 15 meters, although at that time there were already mines whose depth exceeded 100 meters. In addition, the car consumed a lot of fuel, which was not justified even by the proximity of a large amount of coal at the mine. The Frenchman Denis Papin, a physician by training, moved to London in 1675. Papen made several discoveries that forever inscribed his name in history. To begin with, Papen invents a pressure cooker - "Papen's Cauldron". The former physician was able to establish the relationship between pressure and boiling point of water. A sealed boiler with a safety valve, due to the increased pressure inside, brought the water to a boil much later, so the processing temperature of the products increased and the latter were cooked many times faster. In 1674, Papin created a gunpowder engine: gunpowder was ignited in a cylinder, causing the piston inside the cylinder to move. One “batch” of gases was released from the cylinder through a special valve, and the other was cooled. A vacuum (albeit weak) was formed in the cylinder, and atmospheric pressure pushed the piston down. In 1698, Papin invented a steam engine using water that was heated inside a vertical cylinder - the resulting steam moved the piston upward. The cylinder was then cooled with water, the steam condensed and a vacuum was created. The same atmospheric pressure forced the piston down. Despite the progressiveness of his machine (the presence of a piston), Papin was unable to extract any significant dividends from it, since Savery patented a steam pump, and there were no other applications for steam engines at that time (although Savery’s patent indicated the possibility of “rotation mills"). In 1714, in the capital of the British Empire, Papen died in poverty and loneliness. Another Englishman, Thomas Newcomen, born in 1663, turned out to be much more successful. Newcomen carefully read the works of both Savery and Papin, which is why he was able to understand weak points previous cars, while taking the best from them. In 1712, together with glassmaker and plumber John Calley, he built his first steam engine. It used a vertical cylinder with a piston, like Papin's machine. However, the steam was generated in a separate steam boiler, which was similar to the operating principle of Savery's "fire" engine. Sealing inside steam cylinder was enhanced by leather that was secured around the piston. Newcomen's machine was also steam-atmospheric, i.e. The rise of water from the mine was carried out under the influence of atmospheric pressure. It was quite bulky and “ate” a lot of coal. Nevertheless, Newcomen’s machine brought incomparably more practical benefits, which is why it was used in mines for almost half a century. In England, for example, it allowed the reopening of abandoned mines that were flooded with groundwater. And another striking example of the effectiveness of Newcomen’s machine - in 1722 in Kronstadt, in a dry dock, water was pumped out of a ship within two weeks, while with an outdated pumping system using windmills it would have taken a year. Despite all this, Thomas Newcomen did not receive a patent for his steam engine because of Savery's patent. The possibility of using Newcomen's steam engine to propel a vehicle was considered by designers, in particular, to drive a paddle wheel on a ship. However, the attempts were unsuccessful. James Watt had the opportunity to invent a compact but powerful steam engine. In 1763, Watt, a mechanic at the University of Glasgow, was given the task of repairing Newcomen's steam engine. During the repair process, Watt comes up with the following idea - the cylinder of the steam engine must be kept constantly heated, which will sharply reduce fuel consumption. All that remained was to understand how to condense the steam in this case. It dawned on Watt while he was taking his evening exercise near the laundries. Seeing clouds of steam trying to escape from under the boiler covers, the inventor suddenly realized that steam was a gas, and it must move into a cylinder with reduced pressure. Watt takes up the matter decisively. He uses a water pump and metal tubes, from which the pump will pump out water and steam, creating a reduced pressure in the latter, and this, from the tubes, will begin to be transferred to the working cylinder of the steam engine. For the power stroke, Watt uses steam pressure, thereby abandoning atmospheric pressure, which was a big step forward. For this purpose, to prevent steam from passing between the cylinder and the piston, a hemp rope soaked in oil was wrapped around the piston along special grooves. This method made it possible to achieve a fairly high tightness inside the steam cylinder. In 1769, Watt received a patent for "the creation of a steam engine in which the temperature of the engine will always be equal to the temperature of the steam, although the steam will be cooled to a temperature below one hundred degrees." In 1772, James Watt met industrialist Matthew Bolton. This rich gentleman bought and returned to Watt all his patents, which the unlucky inventor was forced to pawn for debts. With Bolton's support, Watt's work accelerated. Already in 1773, Watt was testing his steam engine; it performed the same function of a steam pump, but required much less coal. Seeing the obvious advantages of Watt's machine, Bolton opened a company with the inventor to produce steam engines, and in 1774 their production began in England. The sale of steam engines was going so well that Bolton wanted to build a new rolling shop, for which he asked Watt to create a special steam engine to drive rolling machines. Watt coped with the task brilliantly, and in 1781 he patented a steam engine “for moving around an axis for the purpose of driving other machines.” Thus, the first steam engine was born not to raise water from the bottom of mines, but to set machines in motion. Watt's new machine had a number of improvements. For example, a regulator for uniform rotation of the main shaft of a steam engine, as well as a planetary mechanism for creating circular motion. The last Watt invents because to apply crank mechanism he is not allowed to do so by a valid patent. But in 1784, Watt still managed to obtain permission to use a crank mechanism in a steam engine. Thus, the world's first universal steam engine, created by Watt, began to drive industrial machines, heralding the advent of the era of steam engines. Very soon, steam will begin to move steamships and trains, thanks to which human life will radically change. The enormous merits of James Watt did not go unnoticed by posterity - in 1819, by order of the English Parliament, a marble monument was erected to the great inventor in Westminster Abbey. It is believed that the first steamboat was built by the American Robert Fulton in 1807 - his ship with a paddle wheel was called the Claremont. At first, Fulton tried to use steam to propel the oars, but then turned to the more successful idea of a wheel. Fulton made his first voyage on the Claremont alone, since the residents of the surrounding area flatly refused to board the “devilishly” smoking vessel. But on the way back to Fulton, one brave man nevertheless got hooked, for which he received from the inventor the right to lifelong free travel on the Claremont. Then Fulton's ship's voyages became commonplace - the Claremont transported people along the Hudson River from New York to Albany, reaching a speed of about 5 knots (9 km/h). The first screw steamship was built in 1838 by the Englishman Francis Smith. Usage propellers instead of paddle wheels made it possible to significantly improve ride quality steamships. Auxiliary sails are gradually disappearing on steamships (remember that in 1819 the American steamship Savannah crossed the Atlantic Ocean mostly using sails), and by the beginning of the 20th century, sailing ships themselves were becoming history. The first steam locomotive was built by Briton Richard Trevithick. It was a steam-powered carriage moving on rails at a speed of 7 km/h and carrying a train weighing 7 tons. In 1804, a small railway was built in London to test the Trevithick steam locomotive. In our time, both steamships and steam locomotives have long become a historical curiosity, which, however, can be found in a variety of countries. Thus, in Norway, on Lake Mjøs, the oldest paddle steamer in the world, the Skibladner, built back in 1856, still operates. In turn, steam locomotives are actively used in third world countries, which means that steam still faithfully serves humanity."Steam Cart" by Cugno.
A separate milestone in the history of steam - steam cars. The first working steam car ("steam cart") was built by the Frenchman Nicolas-Joseph Cugot (Cugot) in 1769. It was a very heavy cart, weighing more than a ton, which two people could barely handle. Aesthetically, the car did not look very beautiful - the boiler, like a pot on a handle, was placed in front of the vehicle. Cugno's "cart" developed a speed of about 2-4 km/h and could carry up to 3 tons of cargo. It was difficult to operate - to maintain the steam pressure, which was rapidly falling, it was necessary to stop and light the firebox every quarter of an hour. In the end, on the next test drive, Cugnot and the fireman (by the way, the fireman in French sounds like “chauffeur”, which is where the word “chauffeur” came from) suffered an accident on a sharp turn, causing the boiler to explode, causing noise throughout Paris. Cunho built a new “cart”, but it did not reach the masses. In 1794 it was handed over to the museum. Another Frenchman, Leon Serpollet, made a significant contribution to the development of steam engines. In 1875, he created a small but powerful steam car. Leon decided that it was better to heat the water not in a boiler, but in heated tubes, where it turns into steam very quickly. Serpolle's first working vehicle was a two-seater, three-wheeled carriage made of wood. At first, the police forbade the Frenchman to travel even at night, but in 1888 they finally gave in and issued an official document with permission to travel. Serpollet did not stop there. Instead of coal, he begins to use liquid fuel, which is supplied to two burners. In 1900, he opened a company together with the American Frank Gardner - Gardner-Serpollet. In 1902, Serpollet created a racing steam car and set a world land speed record with it in Nice - 120.77 km/h. It is not surprising that at that time steam cars competed quite successfully with their gasoline and electric counterparts. The first ones flourished especially in the USA, where, for example, in 1900 they produced 1690 steam, 1585 electric and only 936 gasoline cars. Steam cars were used in the USA until the 1930s. In the first half of the 19th century, steam tractors were also built, in particular with tracked. However, the efficiency of steam engines was only 5%. For this reason, at the beginning of the twentieth century, steam engines in cars were replaced by engines internal combustion. With their help, cars have become more economical, lighter and faster. It is impossible not to mention other, less successful uses of steam at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries. The widespread use of steamships, steam locomotives and steam cars prompted inventors to think that steam could be used in aviation and the army. Alas, steam was not useful in these areas. Although by the middle of the 19th century there were several attempts to create airplanes with a steam engine. The Englishman William Henson built the Ariel Steam Carridge, which had a steam engine with a power of 25-30 hp, which drove propellers with a diameter of 3.05 m. To reduce the weight of the machine, the conventional boiler was replaced by a system of vessels conical shape using an air condenser. In 1844-1847, Henson tested his airplanes without success. They all ended unsuccessfully. But already in 1848, John Stringfellow finally built an airplane that took off from the ground, although not for long. The apotheosis of “ferry mania” in the aircraft industry was the Hayrem Stevens Maxim airplane, which had a steam engine with a power of 360 hp and could be compared in size to a two-story house. It is not surprising that Maxim’s airplane collapsed overnight, like all man’s dreams of conquering the air with the help of steam. Although, we note that in 1896, the American Samuel Pierpont Langley nevertheless built an airplane with a steam engine, which flew about a kilometer without a pilot until it ran out of fuel. Langley called his creation an “airfield” (translated from ancient Greek as “running in the air”). However, by the beginning of the twentieth century, it was clear to everyone that bulky steam engines were not suitable for aeronautics, especially since by that time they had proven themselves excellent in airplanes. gasoline engines- On December 17, 1903, the famous plane of the Wright brothers, equipped with a gasoline engine, appeared in the sky. Things were no better with steam in the army. But Leonardo da Vinci himself described a cannon that fired projectiles with the force of only fire and water. The great Florentine suggested that a long copper barrel with a cannonball, placed at one end in a furnace, could eject a projectile if a little water was injected into the compartment behind the cannonball when the pipe became very hot. Leonardo believed that water at such high temperature will evaporate very quickly and, becoming an analogue of gunpowder, will push the cannonball out at great speed. It is worth noting that the idea of the steam gun is attributed to Archimedes. The ancient manuscripts mention that during the siege of Syracuse in 212 BC, Roman ships were fired from cannons. But there was no gunpowder in Europe then! And Leonardo da Vinci suggested that Archimedes, whose devices defended Syracuse, had steam cannons. The Greek engineer Ionis Sakkas decided to test this idea of da Vinci. He built a wooden cannon, to the back of which was attached a boiler heated to 400°C. As suggested by Leonardo da Vinci, water was supplied to a special valve, which, evaporating instantly, burst into steam into the barrel, causing the concrete core in Sakkas’ experiments to fly away to a distance of 30-40 m. Students from MIT and participants in the television series "MythBusters", although without the success of Sakkas. In the 19th century, steam was again used, but it was not possible to create a truly combat-ready weapon (a cannon or a machine gun). In 1826-1829, the Russian engineer-colonel of the Railway Corps A. Karelin manufactured a copper 7-line (17.5 mm) experimental steam gun. Shooting was carried out with ball bullets using water vapor, the rate of fire reached 50 rounds per minute. But the tests carried out in 1829 were not impressive" admissions committee", which considered the gun unnecessarily complex for use in the field. At the end of this article, it is impossible not to mention steampunk (English: "steampunk", from "steam" - "steam" and "punk" - "protest"). This direction of science fiction describes the era of steam from Victorian England (second half of the 19th century) and early capitalism (early 20th century). Cityscapes, characters, public moods, etc. are described accordingly. The term itself appeared in 1987. The steampunk genre gained popularity after the appearance of the novel “The Difference Engine” by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling (1990). The forerunners of steampunk can be called Jules Verne and Grigory Adamov. IN recent years Many steampunk films have appeared, the most famous of which are “Wild Wild West” (1999), “The Time Machine” (2002), “The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen” (2003) and “Van Helsing” (2004). Dieselpunk is chronologically adjacent to steampunk - a genre that describes the technological world of the 20-50s of the 20th century, very close, it should be noted, to the technoworld of the early 20th century.STEAM ENGINE - a heat engine in which the potential energy of steam coming from a steam boiler is converted into mechanical work reciprocating movement of the piston.
The working process of a steam engine is determined by periodic changes in steam pressure in the cylinder (steam, by- stepping into the cylinder of a steam engine, expands and moves the piston). The re-entry-but-forward movement of the piston is pre-formed with the help of a crooked-spike-no-mechanism -ma in a rotational movement wa-la. In a steam engine there is a double action (increases the speed of work, improves the smoothness of running) steam, with the help si-ste-we pa-ro-ras-pre-de-le-niya, in-or-red-but-yes-on both sides of the qi-li-nd-ra, from- working steam with another hundred you go to the at-mo-sphere or to the con-den-sat. To reduce heat losses, the cylinder of a steam engine is equipped with a steam ru-bash-coy (chamber for under-der -zha-niya approximately at a hundred-yang temperature of the walls of the qi-lin-d-ra).
Steam engines are divided according to designation - into stationary, non-stationary (re-moving and transport -nye); according to the use of steam - low pressure (up to 1.2 MPa), medium pressure (up to 6 MPa), high th pressure (over 6 MPa); according to the number of revolutions va-la - low-speed (up to 50 rpm), high-speed (up to 1000 rpm); according to pressure you-pus-kae-mo-go pa-ra - con-den-sa-tsi-on-nye (pressure in con-den-sa-to-re 0.01- 0.02 MPa), exhaust (pressure 0.11-0.12 MPa), heat pumps with steam release for heating for a specific purpose or for steam turbine bins (pressure from 0.12 MPa to 6 MPa) depending on the value from -bo-ra (for example, heating, re-ge-ne-ra-tion, technological processes); according to the distribution of the qi-lin-d-rows - horizontal, oblique, vertical; according to the number of qi-lin-d-rows - single-qi-lin-d-rows, many-qi-lin-d-rows, double-en-en-d-s, built-en- ny and others, in which each cylinder feeds the primary steam of the same parameters (incl. -ny pa-ral-lel-but). Do steam engines have multiple expansions, in which steam then expands exists in 2, 3, 4 cylinders of increasing volume, transferring from cylinder to cylinder through the so-called re-si-ve-ry (kol-lek-to-ry). A special group consists of direct-precision steam engines, in which the release of steam from the qi-lin-dr. there is just an edge of the piston (through the additional window, the piston opens at the end of the ow phases, through some steam the cylinder is pumped), which increases the efficiency of the machine.
The first-known device, with-in-my steam-movement (eo-li-pil), was a description of Ge- by ron Alek-san-d-riy-sky. The first experiments with steam as a medium for production took place back in the 17th century. In 1680, D. Pa-pen invented a steam engine, in 1698 T. Se-ve-ri invented a steam engine for pumping water from mines (pa-ro -howling on-the-gne-ta-tel-but-all-draining-on-the-pump). In 1707, Se-ve-ri was discharged by Peter I and installed in the Summer Garden in St. Petersburg for po-da-chi water in the fon-tan.
The development and intensive use of the steam engine began in the 18th century, when the main lack -the current of hydro-si-lo-vyh us-ta-no-wok (za-vis-si-most from local conditions) began to impede the development the development of metallurgical enterprises, the introduction into the production of spinning, weaving machines and others. In 1712, T. New Co-man invented a steam engine for driving mines. In Russia, the New-ko-me-na steam engine was installed in 1772 in Kronstadt to pump water from the dock. The first steam engine in Russia built by I.I. Pol-zu-no-vym in 1764-1766 for the production of air-blowing bellows for smelting furnaces. The first steam engine as a universal engine was first created by J. Wattom in 1774-1784. In Russia, the Uatt steam engine was first manufactured under the leadership of K.K. Gas-koy-na on Alek-san-d-rov-skoy ma-nu-fak-tu-re in 1805; one of the tires has a capacity of 60 hp. With. (44.1 kW) in 1820 it was installed at the St. Petersburg Mint. Started in 1820 by E.A. and M.E. Why have you built about 20 steam engines with power ranging from 2 to 60 hp? With. (from 1.47 to 44.1 kW). Steam engines were used as a water-powered engine in pumping stations, steam-ro-vo-zakhs, steam-ro-ho-dahs, pa-ro-vyh cars and other transport media.
By the 2nd half of the 19th century, the steam engine had already reached the highest level. Over the course of 100 years, the power of a steam engine increased from 5-10 liters. With. (3.68-7.35 kW) up to 20,000 l. With. (14.7 MW); steam pressure from 0.01 MPa to 12 MPa; steam temperature from 100 to 400 °C; speed from 20-30 to 1000 rpm.
However, in the middle of the 20th century, steam engines were not used to move internal combustion, pa-ro-you-mi tur-bi-na- mi, the efficiency of which is higher. In their development, steam engines are capable of generating new areas of knowledge; steam engines created on the basis of production experience have raised a number of questions and solutions before scientists who created a new science - technical thermo-mo-di-na-mi-ku.
Interest in water vapor as an accessible source of energy appeared along with the first scientific knowledge of the ancients. People have been trying to tame this energy for three thousand years. What are the main stages of this path? Whose thoughts and projects have taught mankind to make the most of it?
Prerequisites for the emergence of steam engines
The need for mechanisms that can facilitate labor-intensive processes has always existed. Until about the middle of the 18th century, windmills and water wheels were used for this purpose. The possibility of using wind energy directly depends on the vagaries of the weather. And to use water wheels, factories had to be built along the banks of rivers, which is not always convenient or practical. And the effectiveness of both was extremely low. A fundamentally new engine was needed, easily manageable and devoid of these disadvantages.
History of the invention and improvement of steam engines
The creation of a steam engine is the result of much thought, success and disappointment of many scientists.
The beginning of the journey
The first, isolated projects were just interesting curiosities. For example, Archimedes designed a steam gun, Heron of Alexandria used steam energy to open the doors of ancient temples. And researchers find notes on the practical use of steam energy to drive other mechanisms in the works Leonardo da Vinci.
Let's look at the most significant projects on this topic.
In the 16th century, the Arab engineer Taghi al Din developed a design for a primitive steam turbine. However, it did not receive practical application due to the strong dispersion of the steam jet supplied to the blades of the turbine wheel.
Let's go back to medieval France. Physicist and talented inventor Denis Papin, after many unsuccessful projects, settled on the following design: a vertical cylinder was filled with water, above which a piston was installed.
The cylinder was heated, the water boiled and evaporated. The expanding steam lifted the piston. It was fixed at the top point of the rise and the cylinder was waited for to cool and the steam to condense. After the steam condensed, a vacuum formed in the cylinder. The piston, freed from its fastening, rushed into the vacuum under the influence of atmospheric pressure. It was this fall of the piston that was supposed to be used as a working stroke.
So, the useful stroke of the piston was caused by the formation of a vacuum due to steam condensation and external (atmospheric) pressure.
Because Papen's steam engine like most subsequent projects, they were called steam-atmospheric machines.
This design had a very significant drawback - repeatability of the cycle was not provided. Denis comes up with the idea of producing steam not in a cylinder, but separately in a steam boiler.
Denis Papin entered the history of the creation of steam engines as a very important detail- steam boiler.
And since steam began to be produced outside the cylinder, the engine itself became an external combustion engine. But due to the lack of a distribution mechanism to ensure uninterrupted operation, these projects found almost no practical application.
A new stage in the development of steam engines
For about 50 years, it was used to pump water in coal mines. Thomas Newcomen steam pump. It largely repeated previous designs, but contained very important new items - a pipe for removing condensed steam and a safety valve for releasing excess steam.
Its significant disadvantage was that the cylinder had to be either heated before steam injection, or cooled before it condensed. But the need for such engines was so high that, despite their obvious inefficiency, the last copies of these machines served until 1930.
In 1765 English mechanic James Watt, having started improving Newcomen's machine, separated the condenser from the steam cylinder.
It became possible to keep the cylinder constantly heated. The efficiency of the machine immediately increased. In subsequent years, Watt would significantly improve his model, equipping it with a device for supplying steam on one side or the other.
It became possible to use this machine not only as a pump, but also to drive various machines. Watt received a patent for his invention - a continuous steam engine. Mass production of these machines begins.
TO early XIX century, more than 320 Watt steam engines operated in England. Other European countries began to purchase them. This contributed to a significant increase in industrial production in many industries both in England itself and in neighboring countries.
Twenty years earlier than Watt, the Altai mechanic Ivan Ivanovich Polzunov was working on a steam engine project in Russia.
The factory management invited him to build a unit that would drive the blower of the smelting furnace.
The machine he built was two-cylinder and ensured continuous operation of the device connected to it.
After successfully operating for more than a month and a half, the boiler leaked. Polzunov himself was no longer alive by this time. The car was not repaired. And the wonderful creation of the lone Russian inventor was forgotten.
Due to the backwardness of Russia at that time the world learned about the invention of I. I. Polzunov with a great delay...
So, to power a steam engine, it is necessary that the steam produced by the steam boiler expands and presses on the piston or turbine blades. And then their movement was transmitted to other mechanical parts.
The use of steam engines in transport
Despite the fact that the efficiency of steam engines of that time did not exceed 5%, by the end of the 18th century they began to be actively used in agriculture and transport:
- a steam-powered car appears in France;
- in the USA, a ship begins to operate between the cities of Philadelphia and Burlington;
- a steam-powered railway locomotive was demonstrated in England;
- a Russian peasant from the Saratov province patented the crawler tractor power 20 l. With.;
- Attempts were made several times to build an aircraft with a steam engine, but, unfortunately, the low power of these units coupled with the large weight of the aircraft made these attempts unsuccessful.
By the end of the 19th century, steam engines, having played their role in the technical progress of society, were giving way to electric motors.
Steam devices in the 21st century
With the advent of new energy sources in the 20th and 21st centuries, the need to use steam energy again arises. Steam turbines are becoming an integral part of nuclear power plants. The steam that powers them is obtained from nuclear fuel.
These turbines are also widely used in condensing thermal power plants.
In a number of countries, experiments are being conducted to produce steam using solar energy.
Piston steam engines have not been forgotten either. In mountainous areas as a locomotive Steam locomotives are still used today.
These reliable workers are both safer and cheaper. They do not need power lines, and fuel - wood and cheap coal - are always at hand.
Modern technologies make it possible to capture up to 95% of atmospheric emissions and increase efficiency to 21%, so that people have decided not to part with them for now and are working on a new generation of steam locomotives.
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Definition
Steam engine- an external combustion engine that converts steam energy into mechanical work.
Invention...
History of the invention of steam engines begins its countdown from the first century AD. We become aware of a device described by Heron of Alexandria, powered by steam. Steam coming out of the nozzles tangentially, mounted on the ball, caused the engine to rotate. The real steam turbine was invented in medieval Egypt much later. Its inventor is the 16th century Arab philosopher, astronomer and engineer Taghi al-Dinome. The spit with blades began to rotate thanks to the steam flows directed at it. In 1629, a similar solution was proposed by the Italian engineer Giovanni Branca. The main disadvantage of these inventions was that the steam flows were dissipated, and this certainly leads to large energy losses.
The further development of steam engines could not occur without appropriate conditions. Both economic well-being and the need for these inventions were necessary. Naturally, these conditions did not and could not exist until the 16th century, in view of such low level development. At the end of the 17th century, a couple of copies of these inventions were created, but were not taken seriously. The creator of the first is the Spaniard Ayans de Beaumont. Edward Somerset, a scientist from England, published a design in 1663 and installed a steam-powered device for lifting water onto the wall of the Great Tower at Raglan Castle. But since everything new is difficult for people to perceive, no one decided to finance this project. The Frenchman Denis Papin is considered the creator of the steam boiler. While conducting experiments on displacing air from a cylinder by exploding gunpowder, he discovered that a complete vacuum could only be achieved using boiling water. And for the cycle to be automatic, it is necessary that steam be produced separately in the boiler. Papin is credited with the invention of the boat, which was propelled by reaction force in a combination of the concepts of Taghi-al-Din and Severi; The safety valve is also considered his invention.
All devices described have not been used and found to be practical. Even the “fire installation”, which Thomas Savery designed in 1698, did not last long. Due to the high pressure created by steam in containers with liquids, they often exploded. Therefore, his invention was considered unsafe. In light of all these failures history of the invention of steam engines I could have stopped, but no.
Preview - click to enlarge.
The pictures show the Cugno steam tractor. As you can see, it was very bulky and inconvenient to operate.
The English blacksmith, Thomas Newcomen, demonstrated his “atmospheric engine” in 1712. It was an improved model of the Severi steam engine. It found its application as pumping water from mines. In a mine pump, the rocker arm was connected to a rod that descended into the shaft to the pump chamber. The reciprocating motion of the thrust was transmitted to the pump piston, which supplied water upward. The Newcomen engine was popular and in demand. It is with the advent of this engine that the beginning of the English industrial revolution is usually associated. In Russia, the first vacuum machine was designed by I.I. Polzunov in 1763, and a year later the project was brought to life. It powered the blowers at the Barnaul Kolyvano-Voskresensky factories. Oliver Evans and Richard Trevithick's idea of using high pressure steam produced significant results. R. Trevithick successfully built industrial high-pressure single-stroke engines known as "Cornish engines". Despite the increase in efficiency, the number of cases of explosions of boilers that could not withstand the enormous pressure also increased. Therefore, it was customary to use a safety valve to release excess pressure.
French inventor Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot demonstrated the first working self-propelled steam engine in 1769. vehicle: “fardier à vapeur” (steam cart). His invention can be considered the first car. A self-propelled steam tractor used as a mobile source of mechanical energy showed its effectiveness; it drove various agricultural machines. In 1788, a steamship was built by John Fitch, which provided regular service on the Delaware River between Philadelphia and Burlington. It had a capacity of only 30 people, and moved at speeds of up to 12 km/h. On 21 February 1804, the first self-propelled railway steam train was demonstrated at the Penydarren ironworks in Merthyr Tydfil in South Wales, which was built by Richard Trevithick.
