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
Now suppose the steam vessels and tubes to be all filled with common
atmospheric air, and that the regulator be placed so that the
communication between the tube T and the boiler be opened, the
communication between the other tube T´ and the boiler being closed,
steam will flow into V through T. At first, while the vessel V is
cold, the steam will be condensed and will fall in drops of water on
the bottom and sides of the vessel. The continued supply of steam from
the boiler will at length impart such a degree of heat to the vessel V
that it will cease to condense it. Mixed with the heated air contained
in the vessel V, it will have an elastic force greater than the
atmospheric pressure, and will therefore force open the valve B,
through which a mixture of air and steam will be driven until all the
air in the vessel V will have passed out, and it will contain nothing
but the pure vapour of water.
When this has taken place, suppose the regulator be moved so as to
close the communication between the tube T and the boiler, and to stop
the further supply of steam to the vessel V; and at the same time let
the condensing pipe G be brought over the vessel V and the cock opened
so as to let a stream of cold water flow upon it. This will cool the
vessel V, and the steam with which it is filled will be condensed and
fall in a few drops of water, leaving the interior of the vessel a
vacuum. The valve B will be kept closed by the atmospheric pressure.
But the elastic force of the air between the valve A and the surface
of the water in the well or reservoir, will open A, so that a part of
this air will rush in (6.) and occupy the vessel V. The air in the
suction pipe S, being thus allowed an increased space, will be
proportionably diminished in its elastic force (6.), and its pressure
will no longer balance that of the atmosphere acting on the external
surface L[8] of the water in the reservoir. This pressure will,
therefore, force water up in the tube S until its weight, together
with the elastic force of the air above it, balances the atmospheric
pressure on L (7.). When this has taken place, the water will cease to
ascend.
[Footnote 8: Not in the diagram.]
Let us now suppose that, by shifting the regulator, the communication
is opened between T and the boiler, so that steam flows again into V.
The condensing cock G being removed, the vessel will be again heated
as before, the air expelled, and its place filled by the steam. The
condensing pipe being again allowed to play upon the vessel V, and the
further supply of steam being stopped, a vacuum will be produced in V,
and the atmospheric pressure on L will force the water through the
valve A into the vessel V, which it will nearly fill, a small quantity
of air, however, remaining above it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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