With heat we can boil water and make steam under a pressure, and with
the steam under a pressure we can run an engine, and with the engine
make heat by friction, or make electric current that can produce heat.
Carry this proposition back to the fuel box, and knowing the amount
of heat developed by the burning of a certain quantity of fuel, it is
found that, counting the heat that rises in the air through the smoke
stack, the heat that is radiated from the boiler, the heat that is
carried away in warmed ashes, the heat that exists in the steam after
it is exhausted from the cylinder, and all other heat expended whether
utilized in driving the machinery or going to waste, the sum total is
in every case equal to the heat developed by the fuel box combustion.
The most striking thing about all this is that when the steam goes into
the cylinder where it is cooled as it expands and drives the pistons,
the heat _thus lost by the expanding steam is the exact equivalent of
the mechanical energy realized against the piston head_. Not all of the
energy that is realized at the piston head is delivered to the driving
shaft. Some of it is lost in the friction of the piston rings wearing
against the cylinder lining; some, of course, is lost in friction at
the journals connecting with the driving shaft. It is usual in counting
engine efficiency to count the amount of energy delivered to the belt,
or to the driving shaft, and because of the frictional resistance of
the pistons working in the cylinder, there is always found a little
discrepancy between the energy represented by the cooling of the steam
in the cylinder and the energy delivered to the belt, or the driving
shaft.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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