You have studied about James Watt's revolutionary
invention. Steam engine could be termed a bellwether. This article aims at
giving chapter and verse on this marvelous invention. You will also read about steam
engine's role in the construction industry.
Introduction
A steam engine is a heat engine that
performs mechanical work using steam as its working
fluid. In simple terms, it uses the expansion principle of chemistry,
where heat applied to water evaporates the water into steam, and the
force generated pushes a piston back and forth inside a cylinder. This pushing
force is typically transformed, by way of a connecting
rod and flywheel, into rotational force for work. The
term "steam engine" is generally applied only to reciprocating
engines as just described, not to the steam turbine.
Image Source - Farm Collector
Going
off on a tangent, when it comes to construction industry, construction equipment have to be
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deliver unparalleled results. Single girder crane manufacturer SGF Fab is
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SGF Fab
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In the
Construction Industry
Until the 19th century and into
the early 20th century, heavy machines were drawn under human or animal power.
The work wasn't carried out mechanically.
With the advent of portable
steam-powered engines, the combine
harvester superseded the drawn machine precursors. During the 20th
century, internal-combustion engines became the major power source of
heavy equipment. Kerosene and ethanol engines were used,
but today diesel engines are dominant. The early 20th century
also saw new electric-powered
machines such as the forklift.
Fundamentals
Steam engines are external combustion
engines where the working fluid is separated from the combustion products.
In its thermodynamic cycle, water is heated and changes into steam in a boiler
operating at a high pressure. Work is carried out mechanically when pistons or
turbines are expanded. The reduced-pressure steam is then exhausted to the
atmosphere, or condensed and pumped back into the boiler.
In general usage, the term steam engine can
refer to either complete steam plants (including boilers) such as
railway steam locomotives and portable engines, or may refer to
the piston or turbine machinery alone, as in the beam
engine and stationary steam engine. However, a more detailed look at
the steam locomotive referred to the engine as only that part where the heat in
the steam was turned into motion of the piston, and hence enabled separate
statements for boiler efficiency and engine efficiency. Specialized devices
such as steam hammers and steam pile drivers are dependent
on the steam pressure supplied from a separate boiler.
History
The use of boiling water to produce mechanical
motion goes back over 2,000 years, but early devices were not practical. The
Spanish inventor Jerónimo obtained a patent for a rudimentary
steam-powered water pump in 1606. In 1698 English engineer Thomas Savery patented
a steam pump that used steam in direct contact with the water being pumped.
The atmospheric
engine created by English inventor Thomas Newcomen was
the first commercial true steam engine using a piston, and was used in 1712 for
removing flood water from a mine.
In 1781 Scottish engineer James
Watt patented a steam engine that produced continuous rotary
motion. Watt's ten-horsepower engines enabled a wide range of
manufacturing machinery to be powered. The engines could be sited anywhere that
water and coal or wood fuel could be obtained.
Reciprocating piston type steam engines remained
the dominant source of power until the early 20th century, when advances in the
design of electric motors and internal combustion
engines gradually resulted in the replacement of reciprocating (piston)
steam engines in commercial usage, and the ascendancy of steam turbines in
power generation. Considering that the great majority of worldwide
electric generation is produced by turbine type steam engines, the "steam
age" is continuing with energy levels far beyond those of the turn of the
19th and 20th century.
Steam engines can be said to have
been the moving force behind the Industrial Revolution and saw
widespread commercial use driving machinery in factories, mills and mines;
powering pumping stations; and propelling transport appliances such as
railway locomotives, ships, steamboats and road vehicles. Their use
in agriculture led to an increase in the land available for cultivation. There
have at one time or another been steam-powered
farm tractors, motorcycles (without much success) and
even automobiles as the Stanley Steamer.
Components
and Accessories
There are two fundamental components of a steam
plant: the boiler or steam generator, and the "motor
unit", referred to itself as a "steam engine". Stationary
steam engines in fixed buildings may have the boiler and engine in
separate buildings some distance apart. For portable or mobile use, such
as steam locomotives, the two are mounted together.
Additional Components
Pumps
(such as an injector) used to supply water to the boiler during operation,
condensers to re-circulate the water
and recover the latent heat of vaporization, and super
heaters to raise the temperature of the steam above its
saturated vapor point, and various mechanisms to increase the draft for
fireboxes. When coal is used, a chain or screw stoking mechanism and its drive
engine or motor may be included to move the fuel from a supply bin (bunker) to
the firebox.
(With inputs from
v
Wikipedia
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This model
was built by Samuel Pemberton between 1880-1890.
v
American Heritage Dictionary of the English
Language (Fourth ed.). Houghton Mifflin Company. 2000.
v
Davids, Karel & Davids, Carolus A.
(2012). Religion, Technology, and the Great and Little Divergences: China
and Europe Compared, C. 700-1800.
v
Preston,
Eric James (2012). Thomas
Newcomen of Dartmouth and the Engine That Changed the World. Dartmouth
History Research Group.
v
Hills
1989, p. 63.
v
Hills
1989, p. 223.
v
Wiser, Wendell H. (2000). Energy resources:
occurrence, production, conversion, use. Birkhäuser. p. 190.
v
Ahmad
Y Hassan (1976). Taqi al-Din
and Arabic Mechanical Engineering, p. 34–35. Institute for the History
of Arabic Science, University of Aleppo.
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Benett, Stuart (1986). A History of Control
Engineering 1800-1930. Institution of Engineering and Technology. )
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