The Steam Engine Familiarly Explained and Illustrated: With an historical sketch of its invention and progressive improvement; its applications to navigation and railways; with plain axioms for railway speculatorsLardner, Dionysius
History
The Steam Engine Familiarly Explained and Illustrated: With an historical sketch of its invention and progressive improvement; its applications to navigation and railways; with plain axioms for railway speculators
Lardner, Dionysius
Steam-engines -- Early works to 1850
Impelled in this way, let us suppose the pistons to have arrived at
the bottoms of the cylinders, as in fig. 42., and let the valves G, L,
and O be closed, and the valves I and N opened. No steam is allowed to
flow from the boiler, G being closed, nor any allowed to pass into the
condenser, since O is closed, and all communications between the
cylinders is stopped by closing L. By opening the valve I, a free
communication is made between the top and bottom of the lesser piston
through the tube H, so that the steam which presses above the lesser
piston will exert the same pressure below it, and the piston is in a
state of indifference. In the same manner the valve N being open, a
free communication is made between the top and bottom of the greater
piston, and the steam circulates above and below the piston, and
leaves it free to rise. A counterpoise attached to the pump-rods in
this case, draws up the piston, as in Watt's single engine; and when
they arrive at the top, the valves I and N are closed, and G, L, and O
opened, and the next descent of the pistons is produced in the manner
already described, and so the process is continued.
The valves are worked by the engine itself, by means similar to some
of those already described. By computation, we find the power of this
engine to be nearly the same as a similar engine on Watt's expansive
principle. It does not however appear, that any adequate advantage
was gained by this modification of the principle, since no engines of
this construction are now made.
(77.) The use of two cylinders was revived by _Arthur Woolf_, in 1804,
who, in this and the succeeding year, obtained patents for the
application of steam raised under a high pressure to double-cylinder
engines. The specification of his patent states, that he has proved by
experiment that steam raised under a safety-valve loaded with any
given number of pounds upon the square inch, will, if allowed to
expand into as many times its bulk as there are pounds of pressure on
the square inch, have a pressure equal to that of the atmosphere.
Thus, if the safety-valve be loaded with four pounds on the square
inch, the steam, after expanding into four times its bulk, will have
the atmospheric pressure. If it be loaded with 5, 6, or 10 lbs. on the
square inch, it will have the atmospheric pressure when it has
expanded into 5, 6, or 10 times its bulk, and so on. It was, however,
understood in this case, that the vessel into which it was allowed to
expand should have the same temperature as the steam before it
expands.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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