5/1/23, 11:35 AM Watt steam engine - Wikipedia

Watt steam engine

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Watt steam engine design became synonymous

with steam engines, and it was many years before
significantly new designs began to replace the basic
Watt design.

The first steam engines, introduced by Thomas

Newcomen in 1712, were of the "atmospheric" design.
At the end of the power stroke, the weight of the object
being moved by the engine pulled the piston to the top
of the cylinder as steam was introduced. Then the
cylinder was cooled by a spray of water, which caused
the steam to condense, forming a partial vacuum in the
cylinder. Atmospheric pressure on the top of the piston A late version of a Watt double-acting steam
pushed it down, lifting the work object. James Watt engine, built by D. Napier & Son (London) in
noticed that it required significant amounts of heat to 1832, now in the lobby of the Superior Technical
warm the cylinder back up to the point where steam School of Industrial Engineers of the UPM
could enter the cylinder without immediately (Madrid). Steam engines of this kind propelled the
condensing. When the cylinder was warm enough that Industrial Revolution in Great Britain and the
it became filled with steam the next power stroke could world.
commence.

Watt realised that the heat needed to warm the cylinder could be saved by adding a separate
condensing cylinder. After the power cylinder was filled with steam, a valve was opened to the
secondary cylinder, allowing the steam to flow into it and be condensed, which drew the steam from
the main cylinder causing the power stroke. The condensing cylinder was water cooled to keep the
steam condensing. At the end of the power stroke, the valve was closed so the power cylinder could be
filled with steam as the piston moved to the top. The result was the same cycle as Newcomen's design,
but without any cooling of the power cylinder which was immediately ready for another stroke.

Watt worked on the design over a period of several years, introducing the condenser, and introducing
improvements to practically every part of the design. Notably, Watt performed a lengthy series of
trials on ways to seal the piston in the cylinder, which considerably reduced leakage during the power
stroke, preventing power loss. All of these changes produced a more reliable design which used half as
much coal to produce the same amount of power.[1]

The new design was introduced commercially in 1776, with the first example sold to the Carron
Company ironworks. Watt continued working to improve the engine, and in 1781 introduced a system
using a sun and planet gear to turn the linear motion of the engines into rotary motion. This made it
useful not only in the original pumping role, but also as a direct replacement in roles where a water
wheel would have been used previously. This was a key moment in the industrial revolution, since
power sources could now be located anywhere instead of, as previously, needing a suitable water
source and topography. Watt's partner Matthew Boulton began developing a multitude of machines
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that made use of this rotary power, developing the first modern industrialized factory, the Soho
Foundry, which in turn produced new steam engine designs. Watt's early engines were like the
original Newcomen designs in that they used low-pressure steam, and all of the power was produced
by atmospheric pressure. When, in the early 1800s, other companies introduced high-pressure steam
engines, Watt was reluctant to follow suit due to safety concerns.[2] Wanting to improve on the
performance of his engines, Watt began considering the use of higher-pressure steam, as well as
designs using multiple cylinders in both the double-acting concept and the multiple-expansion
concept. These double-acting engines required the invention of the parallel motion, which allowed the
piston rods of the individual cylinders to move in straight lines, keeping the piston true in the
cylinder, while the walking beam end moved through an arc, somewhat analogous to a crosshead in
later steam engines.

Introduction
In 1698, the English mechanical designer Thomas Savery invented a pumping appliance that used
steam to draw water directly from a well by means of a vacuum created by condensing steam. The
appliance was also proposed for draining mines, but it could only draw fluid up approximately 25 feet,
meaning it had to be located within this distance of the mine floor being drained. As mines became
deeper, this was often impractical. It also consumed a large amount of fuel compared with later
engines.[3]

The solution to draining deep mines was found by Thomas

Newcomen who developed an "atmospheric" engine that also
worked on the vacuum principle. It employed a cylinder
containing a movable piston connected by a chain to one end of a
rocking beam that worked a mechanical lift pump from its
opposite end. At the bottom of each stroke, steam was allowed to
enter the cylinder below the piston. As the piston rose within the
cylinder, drawn upward by a counterbalance, it drew in steam at
atmospheric pressure. At the top of the stroke the steam valve was
closed, and cold water was briefly injected into the cylinder as a
means of cooling the steam. This water condensed the steam and
created a partial vacuum below the piston. The atmospheric
pressure outside the engine was then greater than the pressure
within the cylinder, thereby pushing the piston into the cylinder.
The piston, attached to a chain and in turn attached to one end of
the "rocking beam", pulled down the end of the beam, lifting the
opposite end of the beam. Hence, the pump deep in the mine
attached to opposite end of the beam via ropes and chains was
driven. The pump pushed, rather than pulled the column of water The model Newcomen engine upon
upward, hence it could lift water any distance. Once the piston was which Watt experimented
at the bottom, the cycle repeated.[3]

The Newcomen engine was more powerful than the Savery engine. For the first time water could be
raised from a depth of over 100 yards (91  m).[4] The first example from 1712 was able to replace a
team of 500 horses that had been used to pump out the mine. Seventy-five Newcomen pumping
engines were installed at mines in Britain, France, Holland, Sweden and Russia. In the next fifty years
only a few small changes were made to the engine design. It was a great advancement.

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While Newcomen engines brought practical benefits, they were inefficient in terms of the use of
energy to power them. The system of alternately sending jets of steam, then cold water into the
cylinder meant that the walls of the cylinder were alternately heated, then cooled with each stroke.
Each charge of steam introduced would continue condensing until the cylinder approached working
temperature once again. So at each stroke part of the potential of the steam was lost.

Separate condenser
In 1763, James Watt was working as instrument maker
at the University of Glasgow when he was assigned the
job of repairing a model Newcomen engine and noted
how inefficient it was.[5]

In 1765, Watt conceived the idea of equipping the

engine with a separate condensation chamber, which
he called a "condenser". Because the condenser and
the working cylinder were separate, condensation
occurred without significant loss of heat from the
cylinder. The condenser remained cold and below
atmospheric pressure at all times, while the cylinder
remained hot at all times.

Steam was drawn from the boiler to the cylinder under

The major components of a Watt pumping engine the piston. When the piston reached the top of the
cylinder, the steam inlet valve closed and the valve
controlling the passage to the condenser opened. The
condenser being at a lower pressure, drew the steam from the cylinder into the condenser where it
cooled and condensed from water vapor to liquid water, maintaining a partial vacuum in the
condenser that was communicated to the space of the cylinder by the connecting passage. External
atmospheric pressure then pushed the piston down the cylinder.

The separation of the cylinder and condenser eliminated the loss of heat that occurred when steam
was condensed in the working cylinder of a Newcomen engine. This gave the Watt engine greater
efficiency than the Newcomen engine, reducing the amount of coal consumed while doing the same
amount of work as a Newcomen engine.

In Watt's design, the cold water was injected only into the condensation chamber. This type of
condenser is known as a jet condenser. The condenser is located in a cold water bath below the
cylinder. The volume of water entering the condenser as spray absorbed the latent heat of the steam,
and was determined as seven times the volume of the condensed steam. The condensate and the
injected water was then removed by the air pump, and the surrounding cold water served to absorb
the remaining thermal energy to retain a condenser temperature of 30 °C to 45 °C and the equivalent
pressure of 0.04 to 0.1 bar [6]

At each stroke the warm condensate was drawn off from the condenser and sent to a hot well by a
vacuum pump, which also helped to evacuate the steam from under the power cylinder. The still-
warm condensate was recycled as feedwater for the boiler.

Watt's next improvement to the Newcomen design was to seal the top of the cylinder and surround
the cylinder with a jacket. Steam was passed through the jacket before being admitted below the
piston, keeping the piston and cylinder warm to prevent condensation within it. The second
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improvement was the utilisation of steam expansion against the vacuum on the other side of the
piston. The steam supply was cut during the stroke, and the steam expanded against the vacuum on
the other side. This increased the efficiency of the engine, but also created a variable torque on the
shaft which was undesirable for many applications, in particular pumping. Watt therefore limited the
expansion to a ratio of 1:2 (i.e. the steam supply was cut at half stroke). This increased the theoretical
efficiency from 6.4% to 10.6%, with only a small variation in piston pressure.[6] Watt did not use high
pressure steam because of safety concerns.[2]: 85 

These improvements led to the fully developed version of 1776 that actually went into production.[7]

The Partnership of Matthew Boulton and James Watt

The separate condenser showed dramatic potential for improvements on the Newcomen engine but
Watt was still discouraged by seemingly insurmountable problems before a marketable engine could
be perfected. It was only after entering into partnership with Matthew Boulton that such became
reality. Watt told Boulton about his ideas on improving the engine, and Boulton, an avid
entrepreneur, agreed to fund development of a test engine at Soho, near Birmingham. At last Watt
had access to facilities and the practical experience of craftsmen who were soon able to get the first
engine working. As fully developed, it used about 75% less fuel than a similar Newcomen one.

In 1775, Watt designed two large engines: one for the Bloomfield Colliery at Tipton, completed in
March 1776, and one for John Wilkinson's ironworks at Broseley in Shropshire, which was at work the
following month. A third engine, at Stratford-le-Bow in east London, was also working that
summer.[8]

Watt had tried unsuccessfully for several years to obtain an accurately bored cylinder for his steam
engines, and was forced to use hammered iron, which was out of round and caused leakage past the
piston. Joseph Wickham Roe stated in 1916: "When [John] Smeaton saw the first engine he reported
to the Society of Engineers that 'Neither the tools nor the workmen existed who could manufacture
such a complex machine with sufficient precision' ".[9]

In 1774, John Wilkinson invented a boring machine in which the shaft that held the cutting tool was
supported on both ends and extended through the cylinder, unlike the cantilevered borers then in use.
Boulton wrote in 1776 that "Mr. Wilkinson has bored us several cylinders almost without error; that of
50 inches diameter, which we have put up at Tipton, does not err on the thickness of an old shilling in
any part".[9]

Boulton and Watt's practice was to help mine-owners and other customers to build engines, supplying
men to erect them and some specialised parts. However, their main profit from their patent was
derived from charging a licence fee to the engine owners, based on the cost of the fuel they saved. The
greater fuel efficiency of their engines meant that they were most attractive in areas where fuel was
expensive, particularly Cornwall, for which three engines were ordered in 1777, for the Wheal Busy,
Ting Tang, and Chacewater mines.[10]

Later improvements
The first Watt engines were atmospheric pressure engines, like the Newcomen engine but with the
condensation taking place separate from the cylinder. Driving the engines using both low pressure
steam and a partial vacuum raised the possibility of reciprocating engine development.[11] An
arrangement of valves could alternately admit low pressure steam to the cylinder and then connect
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with the condenser. Consequently, the direction of the power

stroke might be reversed, making it easier to obtain rotary motion.
Additional benefits of the double acting engine were increased
efficiency, higher speed (greater power) and more regular motion.

Before the development of the double acting piston, the linkage to

the beam and the piston rod had been by means of a chain, which
meant that power could only be applied in one direction, by
pulling. This was effective in engines that were used for pumping
water, but the double action of the piston meant that it could push
as well as pull. This was not possible as long as the beam and the Watt's parallel motion on a pumping
rod were connected by a chain. Furthermore, it was not possible to engine
connect the piston rod of the sealed cylinder directly to the beam,
because while the rod moved vertically in a straight line, the beam
was pivoted at its centre, with each side inscribing an arc. To bridge the conflicting actions of the
beam and the piston, Watt developed his parallel motion. This device used a four bar linkage coupled
with a pantograph to produce the required straight line motion much more cheaply than if he had
used a slider type of linkage. He was very proud of his solution.

Having the beam connected to the piston shaft by a means that

applied force alternately in both directions also meant that it was
possible to use the motion of the beam to turn a wheel. The
simplest solution to transforming the action of the beam into a
rotating motion was to connect the beam to a wheel by a crank,
but because another party had patent rights on the use of the
crank, Watt was obliged to come up with another solution.[13] He
adopted the epicyclic sun and planet gear system suggested by an
employee William Murdoch, only later reverting, once the patent
rights had expired, to the more familiar crank seen on most
engines today.[14] The main wheel attached to the crank was large
and heavy, serving as a flywheel which, once set in motion, by its
momentum maintained a constant power and smoothed the
action of the alternating strokes. To its rotating central shaft, belts
Watt steam engine[12]
and gears could be attached to drive a great variety of machinery.

Because factory machinery needed to operate at a constant speed,

Watt linked a steam regulator valve to a centrifugal governor
which he adapted from those used to automatically control the speed of windmills.[15] The centrifugal
was not a true speed controller because it could not hold a set speed in response to a change in
load.[16]

These improvements allowed the steam engine to replace the water wheel and horses as the main
sources of power for British industry, thereby freeing it from geographical constraints and becoming
one of the main drivers in the Industrial Revolution.

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Watt was also concerned with fundamental research on the functioning of the steam engine. His most
notable measuring device, still in use today, is the Watt indicator incorporating a manometer to
measure steam pressure within the cylinder according to the position of the piston, enabling a
diagram to be produced representing the pressure of the steam as a function of its volume throughout
the cycle.

Preserved Watt engines

The oldest surviving Watt engine is Old Bess of 1777, now in the Science Museum, London. The oldest
working engine in the world is the Smethwick Engine, brought into service in May 1779 and now at
Thinktank in Birmingham (formerly at the now defunct Museum of Science and Industry,
Birmingham). The oldest still in its original engine house and still capable of doing the job for which it
was installed is the 1812 Boulton and Watt engine at the Crofton Pumping Station in Wiltshire. This
was used to pump water for the Kennet and Avon Canal; on certain weekends throughout the year the
modern pumps are switched off and the two steam engines at Crofton still perform this function. The
oldest extant rotative steam engine, the Whitbread Engine (from 1785, the third rotative engine ever
built), is located in the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney, Australia. A Boulton-Watt engine of 1788 may
be found in the Science Museum, London.,[17] while an 1817 blowing engine, formerly used at the
Netherton ironworks of M W Grazebrook now decorates Dartmouth Circus, a traffic island at the start
of the A38(M) motorway in Birmingham.

The Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan houses a replica of a 1788 Watt rotative engine. It is
a full-scale working model of a Boulton-Watt engine. The American industrialist Henry Ford
commissioned the replica engine from the English manufacturer Charles Summerfield in 1932.[18]
The museum also holds an original Boulton and Watt atmospheric pump engine, originally used for
canal pumping in Birmingham,[19] illustrated below, and in use in situ at the Bowyer Street pumping
station[20] from 1796 until 1854, and afterwards removed to Dearborn in 1929.

The 1817 engine in Watt atmospheric

Birmingham, pump engine (1796)
England at The Henry Ford
Museum

Watt engine produced by Hathorn, Davey and Co

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In the 1880s, Hathorn Davey and Co / Leeds produced a 1  hp / 125 rpm atmospheric engine with
external condenser but without steam expansion. It has been argued that this was probably the last
commercial atmospheric engine to be manufactured. As an atmospheric engine, it did not have a
pressurized boiler. It was intended for small businesses.[21]

Recent developments
Watt's Expansion Engine is generally considered as of historic
interest only. There are however some recent developments which
may lead to a renaissance of the technology. Today, there is an
enormous amount of waste steam and waste heat with
temperatures between 100 and 150  °C generated by industry. In
addition, solarthermal collectors, geothermal energy sources and
biomass reactors produce heat in this temperature range. There
are technologies to utilise this energy, in particular the Organic
Rankine Cycle. In principle, these are steam turbines which do not
use water but a fluid (a refrigerant) which evaporates at
temperatures below 100  °C. Such systems are however fairly
complex. They work with pressures of 6 to 20 bars, so that the
whole system has to be completely sealed.

The Expansion Engine can offer significant advantages here, in

particular for lower power ratings of 2 to 100 kW: with expansion
ratios of 1:5, the theoretical efficiency reaches 15%, which is in the Daveys Engine 1885
range of ORC systems. The Expansion Engine uses water as
working fluid which is simple, cheap, non-toxic, non-flammable
and non-corrosive. It works at pressure near and below atmospheric, so that sealing is not a problem.
And it is a simple machine, implying cost effectiveness. Researchers from the University of
Southampton / UK are currently developing a modern version of Watt's engine in order to generate
energy from waste steam and waste heat. They improved the theory, demonstrating that theoretical
efficiencies of up to 17.4% (and actual efficiencies of 11%) are possible.[22]

In order to demonstrate the principle, a 25 watt experimental

model engine was built and tested. The engine incorporates steam
expansion as well as new features such as electronic control. The
picture shows the model built and tested in 2016.[23] Currently, a
project to build and test a scaled-up 2  kW engine is under
preparation.[24]

See also
The 25 Watt Experimental
Carnot cycle Condensing Engine built and tested
Corliss steam engine at Southampton University
Heat engine
Thermodynamics
Preserved beam engines

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Ivan Polzunov made a dual-piston steam engine in 1766, but died before he could mass-produce
it

References
1. Ayres, Robert (1989). "Technological Transformations and Long Waves" ([Link]
eprint/3225/1/[Link]) (PDF): 13.
2. Dickinson, Henry Winram (1939). A Short History of the Steam Engine. Cambridge University
Press. p. 87. ISBN 978-1-108-01228-7.
3. Rosen, William (2012). The Most Powerful Idea in the World: A Story of Steam, Industry and
Invention. University of Chicago Press. p. 137. ISBN 978-0226726342.
4. Society of Gentlemen (1763). A new and complete dictionary of Art and sciences; comprehending
all the branches of useful knowledge, with accurate descriptions as well of the various machines,
tools, figures and schemes necessary for illustrating them, as of the classes, kinds, preparations,
and uses of natural productions, whether animals, vegetables, minerals, fossils, or fluids; together
with the kingdoms, provinces, cities, towns and other remarkable places throughout the world.
Illustrated with above three hundred copper-plates engraved by Mr. Jefferys (The second edition,
with many additions, and other improvements. ed.). London: [Link]. p. 1073 (table).
5. "Model Newcomen Engine, repaired by James Watt" ([Link]
web/huntsearch/[Link]?collection=all&SearchTerm=C.29&mdaCode=GLAHM).
University of Glasgow Hunterian Museum & Art Gallery. Retrieved 1 July 2014.
6. Farey, John (1 January 1827). A treatise on the steam engine : historical, practical, and
descriptive ([Link] London : Printed for Longman,
Rees, Orme, Brown and Green. pp. 339 ([Link]
ge/339) ff.
7. Hulse David K (1999): "The early development of the steam engine"; TEE Publishing, Leamington
Spa, U.K., ISBN, 85761 107 1 p. 127 et seq.
8. R. L. Hills, James Watt: II The Years of Toil, 1775–1785 (Landmark, Ashbourne, 2005), 58–65.
9. Roe, Joseph Wickham (1916), English and American Tool Builders ([Link]
ks?id=X-EJAAAAIAAJ), New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, LCCN 16011753 (https://
[Link]/16011753). Reprinted by McGraw-Hill, New York and London, 1926 (LCCN 27-24075
([Link] and by Lindsay Publications, Inc., Bradley, Illinois, (ISBN 978-0-
917914-73-7).
10. Hills, 96–105.
11. Hulse David K (2001): "The development of rotary motion by the steam power"; TEE Publishing,
Leamington Spa, U.K., ISBN 1 85761 119 5 : p 58 et seq.
12. from 3rd edition Britannica 1797
13. James Watt: Monopolist ([Link]
14. Rosen 2012, pp. 176–7
15. Thurston, Robert H. (1875). A History of the Growth of the Steam-Engine ([Link]
opkinThomasProject/TimeLine/Wales/Steam/URochesterCollection/Thurston/[Link]). D.
Appleton & Co. p. 116. This is the first edition. Modern paperback editions are available.
16. Bennett, S. (1979). A History of Control Engineering 1800-1930. London: Peter Peregrinus Ltd.
pp. 47, 22. ISBN 0-86341-047-2.
17. "Rotative steam engine by Boulton and Watt, 1788" ([Link]
otive_power/[Link]). Science Museum.
18. "Henry Ford Museum" ([Link]
tifact/275719/).
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19. "Henry Ford Museum" ([Link]

tifact/3174/).
20. "Rowington Records" ([Link]
m%20Canal/[Link]#img=[Link]).
21. "Davey's engine of 1885" ([Link]
85/). 27 June 2017.
22. Müller, Gerald (2015). "Experimental investigation of the atmospheric steam engine with forced
expansion" ([Link]
_06_2014.pdf) (PDF). Renewable Energy. 75: 348–355. doi:10.1016/[Link].2014.09.061 (http
s://[Link]/10.1016%[Link].2014.09.061). Retrieved 5 March 2018.
23. "Model tests, Mk 1" ([Link] The
Condensing Engine Project. 8 October 2016. Retrieved 25 August 2019.
24. "Crowd funding" ([Link] The Condensing
Engine Project. 9 October 2016. Retrieved 25 August 2019.

External links
Media related to
Watt steam engines at Wikimedia Commons

Watt atmospheric engine ([Link] – Michigan

State University, Chemical Engineering
Watt's 'perfect engine' ([Link] – excerpts from
Transactions of the Newcomen Society.
Boulton & Watt engine ([Link]
-watt-engine/) at the National Museum of Scotland
Boulton and Watt Steam Engine at the Powerhouse Museum, Sydney ([Link]
[Link]/collection/database/?irn=7177)
James Watt Steam Engine Act on the UK Parliament website ([Link]
ng-heritage/transformingsociety/tradeindustry/industrycommunity/collections/collections/steam-en
gines-act/)

Retrieved from "[Link]

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