Who Invented the Steam Engine? An Industrial History Lesson

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Steam engine history dates back to the 1st century AD when the “aeolipile” was described by Hero of Alexandria for the first time. More than 1500 years later, the primitive forms of turbines driven by the power of steam were explained by Taqi al-Din in 1551 as well as Giovanni Branca in 1629. These were either small steam jacks or escapement devices. They were mainly used by inventors to demonstrate that steam power engineering shouldn’t be underestimated.

Steam Engine History – The Discovery of Steam Power

There was a significant industrial challenge that miners faced during the 1700s and this was related to the extraction of water from deep mines. At this time, the true power of steam was showcased as the energy was used to pump up the water from deep within the mines. With this, the potential power of steam was discovered, leading to the invention of a full-fledged steam engine.

Steam-powered electrical power plants in the modern world came later. The basic principle on which the initial steam engines worked on was “condensation of water vapor to create a vacuum.” It would later come to depend on the expanding power of steam to drive pistons in both directions.

Who Invented the Steam Engine Anyway?

Thomas Savery was the first person to invent a steam pump for the purpose of pumping out water in 1698. He called it “water by fire.” The steam pump he patented worked by boiling water until it was completely converted into vapor. The steam was then collected in a tank extracting all vapor from the original tank, thereby creating a vacuum in the original container. It was this vacuum that was employed to produce an adequate amount of energy to pump water out from the mines. This turned out to be a temporary solution as the energy could draw out water from a depth of only a few meters. Another drawback of this pump was that the steam pressure was being used to remove the water that was being drawn inside the tank. The pressure was too much for the boilers and there were several explosions as the boilers were not strong enough.

Thomas Savery: A biography of Thomas Savery with information about his engine.
Steam Engine Development: The article highlights the steam engine development covering Savery’s contributions and the atmospheric engines.

Thomas Newcomen Steam Engine

In 1712, Thomas Newcomen invented an effective and practical steam engine. The steam engine he designed consisted of a piston and cylinder arrangement coupled to a pump through a rocking beam. Similar to Savery’s design, the Newcomen atmospheric engine used condensing steam in the cylinder to produce a vacuum. The resulting differential pressure between the vacuum and the atmosphere was enough to push the piston down into the cylinder and raise the pump. The weight of the pump would then draw the piston back up in the cylinder and a valve would open, emitting steam from a boiler. Another valve would then introduce condensing water into the cylinder and the vapor would condense again to water, repeating the cycle.

The Newcomen beam engine remained in use for more than 50 years as pumps for coal mines which otherwise would have flooded and been abandoned. They turned out to be inefficient as a lot of energy was required for the engine to run effectively. The cylinder required heating and cooling with every cycle, using up most of its energy and causing much wastage.

Newcomen’s Steam Engine: The BBC provides information on the steam engine by this man with an illustration.
Thomas Newcomen’s Steam Engine: Come here to learn all about the steam engine created by Thomas Newcomen.

Low-Pressure Engines

The high consumption of coal which was common in Newcomen’s steam engine was reduced through innovations in engine design by James Watt. The low-pressure engine’s cylinder contained heat insulation, a separate condenser, and a pumping out mechanism for condensed water. In this manner, the low-pressure engine was successful in reducing fuel consumption by more than 50%.

Watt’s Low-Pressure Steam Engine: The Deutsches Museum offers some information on this early engineering marvel.

Ivan Polzunov and the First Two-Cylinder Steam Engine

Ivan Polzunov was a Russian inventor who in 1766 built the first steam engine in his country and the first two-cylinder engine in the world. Polzunov’s two-cylinder steam engine was more powerful than the English atmospheric engines. It had a power rating of 32 HP. Polzunov died three days before the machine was finished but it was put to work powering an air pump for a steel mill. It worked for three months before it was replaced with more conventional technology. Polzunov’s model of a two-cylinder steam engine is presently displayed the Barnaul Museum.

Ivan Polzunov: The article provides information on how this Russian scientist built the two-cylinder steam engine.

James Watt-Improved Steam Engine

Finally, it was James Watt who revolutionized the steam engine by making use of a separate condenser in the original design. He came up with a separate condenser in 1765. The design saw itself take shape on a successful steam engine only 11 years later. The condenser allowed the cylinder and piston to remain hot, rather than being alternately heated and cooled as in the Newcomen engine, making for a big increase in its efficiency. One issue that was solved was boring of the large diameter cylinders it required. John Wilkinson made a boring tool that was supported on both ends, rather than cantilevered, which made it possible to bore accurate cylinders that were as large as 50 in. in diameter. This led to better sealing of the piston against the cylinder walls. The technology saw great progress. Watt licensed his engine based on the amount of fuel that it saved. Further improvements included jacketing the cylinder and the development of a parallel linkage that enabled the piston to push and pull. This would lead the way to rotary motion and the replacement of water wheels as a source of industrial power. Watt considered high-pressure steam but discounted it, believing the boilers of the day inadequate to contain such pressures. Watt also developed a method of measuring pressure vs. volume in the cylinder, leading to the well-known p-v diagram still in use today.

James Watt: A well written and lengthy biography of James Watt.
James Watt (1736-1819): The Corrosion Doctors provide another account of the man’s life and achievements.
James Watt & the Steam Engine: Samuel Smiles explains how James Watts dedicated his life to perfect the steam engine.

High-Pressure Engines

But who invented the high-pressure steam engine? It was during 1801 that Richard Trevithick invented an engine with steam backed by high pressure. This was used to power a locomotive. These turned out to be more powerful compared to all the engines invented previously but failed to gain immediate acceptance. Watt himself voiced concern over the danger of high-pressure steam. Ultimately, it was the engine design presented by Oliver Evans that became a success. It used the concept of steam for powering an engine rather than condensing steam and creating a vacuum. Evans came up with the first non-condensing and high-pressure steam engine in 1805. The engine was stationary and it was capable of producing 5 HP, about 1/25 the size of a nearby low-pressure engine that produced 12 HP. This engine was used for the first time to run a marble saw. The high-pressure engine was supplied by a copper shell boiler which was encased by wood and reinforced with iron rings.

In time, these steam engines were used in powerboats and railways in 1802 and 1829, respectively. Almost half a century later, the first steam-powered automobiles were invented. Charles A. Parsons came up with the first steam turbine in 1880. By the 20th century, the steam engine was widely used in industrial plants, locomotives, and ships. Some would be used to power automobiles until Henry Ford came along and changed that path.

High-Pressure Steam Engines: The University of Houston offers information on these engines.
Modern High-Pressure Steam Locomotives: Come here to learn more about these machines.

The Cornish Steam Engine

Richard Trevithick attempted to update the pumping engine made by Watt and made significant changes to bypass the patent, notably the use of higher pressure steam. It was modified to adapt to the Cornish boilers which Trevithick had designed. The efficiency of Cornish Steam Engines was subsequently improved by William Sims, Arthur Woolf, and Samuel Groase. The updated Cornish Steam Engines had insulated cylinders, pipes, and boilers for improved efficiency. Woolf also realized that the steam could be better used by compounding—running it through several cylinders of increasing volume, an idea that would lead to double and triple expansion engines.

Richard Trevithick: Here’s a biography of this industrial genius full of interesting Richard Trevithick facts.

The Age of Steam

Steam engines would provide stationary and transportation power for more than a century until the tide turned toward steam turbines and combustion engines. By the 1890s, the triple-expansion steam engine had become the main prime mover on land and sea. For fifty years, improvements would steadily pile onto this design: pressures increased to 250 psi, superheat was introduced, triple-expansion became quadruple expansion, etc. The last significant improvement to the steam engine was the implementation of the uniflow arrangement where steam was introduced into the cylinder at the hot ends and exhausted at the cooler center, reducing the relative heating and cooling of the cylinders walls.

Many of the classic mechanical engineering forms were developed during the steam engine era, including cylinders, connecting rods, crankshafts, flywheels, and governors. The Watt link, in which a central link travels along an almost linear path, was described by the inventor in his 1784 patent application. The link allowed pistons to both push and pull, an improvement over the chain connections of the earlier atmospheric engines that could only pull. The link is still used in some vehicular suspension.

Many would argue that the steam engine did more for the field of thermodynamics than thermodynamics did for the steam engine. The nineteenth-century development of many of its principles was aimed squarely at defining the performance of these early engines. Steam tables and charts that quantified temperature-entropy, enthalpy-entropy, and pressure-volume relationships factored greatly into understanding the thermal performance of the power plants. It was French engineer Sadie Carnot who realized that the efficiency of an idealized engine was independent of the working fluid and depended only on the temperature at which heat was supplied at the hot source and discarded at the cold sink. This laid some of the groundwork for the thermodynamic theory that would be developed in the middle of the century. Engineers will recognize his name from the Carnot cycle. Early into the twentieth century, the safety of high-pressure boilers was enhanced by the adoption of the Boiler & Pressure Vessel Code.

By the end of WWII steam engines known affectionately as “Up and Downers” were still powering many merchant ships at a stately 10-12 knots across the oceans. But increasing demand for faster transit times ushered into the mariner’s world steam turbines, which themselves would eventually be supplanted by diesels. Stationary power plants would rely on steam for much longer; today, better than 80% of the electricity available in the US is produced through steam turbines.

Summary

This article presents a brief history of steam engines. For more information on related products, consult our other guides or visit the Thomas Supplier Discovery Platform to locate potential sources of supply or view details on specific products.

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