Tag: steam engine

Emergence of steam engines -The Industrial Revolution

Thomas Newcomen, a Devonshire blacksmith, developed the first successful steam engine in the world and used it to pump water from mines. His engine was a development of the thermic siphon built by Thomas Savery, whose surface condensation patents blocked his own designs. Newcomen’s engine allowed steam to condense inside a water-cooled cylinder, the vacuum produced by this condensation being used to draw down a tightly fitting piston that was connected by chains to one end of a huge, wooden, centrally pivoted beam. The other end of the beam was attached by chains to a pump at the bottom of the mine. The whole system was run safely at near atmospheric pressure, the weight of the atmosphere being used to depress the piston into the evacuated cylinder.

 Newcomen’s first atmospheric steam engine worked at conygree in the west midlands of England. Many more were built in the next seventy years, the initial brass cylinders being replaced by larger cast iron ones, some up to 6 feet (1.8 m) in diameter. The engine was relatively inefficient, and in areas where coal was not plentiful was eventually replaced by double-acting engines designed by James Watt. These used both sides of the cylinder for power strokes and usually had separate condensers. James watt was responsible for some of the most important advances in steam engine technology.

James Watt’s steam engine, 1764

In 1765 watt made the first working model of his most important contribution to the development of steam power, he patented it in 1769. His innovation was an engine in which steam condensed outside the main cylinder in a separate condenser. The cylinder remained at working temperature at all times. Watt made several other technological improvements to increase the power and efficiency of his engines. For example, he realized that, within a closed cylinder, low pressure steam could push the piston instead of atmospheric air. It took only a short mental leap for watt to design double-acting engine in which steam pushed the piston first one way, then the other, increasing efficiency still further.

Watt’s influence in the history of steam engine technology owes as much to his business partner, Matthew Boulton, as it does to his own ingenuity. The two men formed a partnership in 1775, and Boulton poured huge amount of money into watt’s innovations. From 1781, Boulton and watt began making and selling steam engines that produced rotary motion. All the previous engines had been restricted to a vertical, pumping action. Rotary steam engines were soon the most common source of power for factories, becoming a major driving force behind Britain’s industrial revolution.

The world’s first locomotive by Richard Trevithick,1804

By the age of nineteen, Cornishman Richard Trevithick worked for the Cornish mining industry as a consultant engineer. The mine owners were attempting to skirt around the patents owned by James Watt. William Murdoch had developed a model steam carriage, starting in 1784, and demonstrated it to Trevithick in 1794. Trevithick thus knew that recent improvements in the manufacturing of boilers meant that they could now cope with much higher steam pressure than before. By using high pressure steam in his experimental engines, Trevithick was able to make them smaller, lighter, and more manageable.

Trevithick constructed high pressure working models of both stationary and locomotive engines that were so successful that in 1799 he built a full scale, high pressure engine for hoisting ore. The used steam was vented out through a chimney into the atmosphere, bypassing watt’s patents. Later, he built a full size locomotive that he called puffing devil. On December 24, 1801, this bizarre-looking machine successfully carried several passengers on a journey up Camborne hill in Cornwall. Despite objections from watt and others about dangers of high pressure steam, Trevithick’s work ushered in a new era of mechanical power and transport.

The Industrial Revolution

The Industrial Revolution began in the 18th century, when agricultural societies became more industrialized and urban. The transcontinental railroad, the cotton gin, electricity and other inventions permanently changed society. The revolution marked a period of development in the latter half of the 18th century that transformed large rural societies in Europe and America into industrialized, urban ones.

Goods that had once been painstakingly crafted by hand started to be produced in mass quantities by machines in factories, thanks to the introduction of new machines and techniques in textiles, iron making and other industries.

England : Birthplace of the Industrial Revolution

100 Textiles- Vintage Photos ideas | vintage photos, textiles, cotton mill
Cotton factory

Britain had a long history of producing textiles like wool, linen and cotton. The big gamechanger prior to the industrial revolution was in “cotton industry” with the work performed in small workshops or even homes by individual spinners, weavers and dyers. Producing cloth became faster and required less time and far less human labour. The mechanical production of cloth could meet the growind demand at home and abroad. Apart from textiles, the iron industry also adopted new innovations.

Steam Power

An icon of the Industrial Revolution broke onto the scene in the early 1700s, when Thomas Newcomen designed the prototype for the first modern steam engine . Called the “atmospheric steam engine,” Newcomen’s invention was originally applied to power the machines used to pump water out of mine shafts. 

In the 1760s, Scottish engineer James Watt began tinkering with one of Newcomen’s models, adding a separate water condenser that made it far more efficient. Watt later collaborated with Matthew Boulton to invent a steam engine with a rotary motion, a key innovation that would allow steam power to spread across British industries, including flour, paper, and cotton mills, iron works, distilleries, waterworks and canals. 

Just as steam engines needed coal, steam power allowed miners to go deeper and extract more of this relatively cheap energy source. The demand for coal skyrocketed throughout the Industrial Revolution and beyond, as it would be needed to run not only the factories used to produce manufactured goods, but also the railroads and steamships used for transporting them.

Transportation

Britain’s road network, which had been relatively primitive prior to industrialization, soon saw substantial improvements, and more than 2,000 miles of canals were in use across Britain by 1815.

SCIplanet - Steam Power and the Industrial Revolution: 1760-1840
Train powered by steam engine

In the early 1800s, Richard Trevithick debuted a steam-powered locomotive, and in 1830 similar locomotives started transporting freight and passengers between the industrial hubs of Manchester and Liverpool. By that time, steam-powered boats and ships were already in wide use, carrying goods along Britain’s rivers and canals as well as across the Atlantic.

Communication and Banking

In 1837, British inventors William Cooke and Charles Wheatstone patented the first commercial telegraphy system. Cooke and Wheatstone’s system would be used for railroad signalling, as the speed of the new trains had created a need for more sophisticated means of communication.

Banks and industrial financiers rose to new prominent during the period, as well as a factory system dependent on owners and managers. A stock exchange was established in London in the 1770s; the New York Stock Exchange was founded in the early 1790s. 

In 1776, Scottish social philosopher Adam Smith (1723-1790), who is regarded as the founder of modern economics, published The Wealth of Nations. In it, Smith promoted an economic system based on free enterprise, the private ownership of means of production, and lack of government interference.

Working Conditions

Working Conditions - Industrial Revolution

Rapid urbanization brought significant challenges, as overcrowded cities suffered from pollution, inadequate sanitation and a lack of clean drinking water. Industrialization increased economic output overall and improved the standard of living for the middle and upper classes, poor and working class people continued to struggle. The mechanization of labor created by technological innovation had made working in factories increasingly tedious and sometimes dangerous, and many workers were forced to work long hours for pitifully low wages. 

In the decades to come, outrage over substandard working and living conditions would fuel the formation of labour unions, as well as the passage of new child labour laws and public health regulations in both Britain and the United States, all aimed at improving life for working class and poor citizens who had been negatively impacted by industrialization.