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1 Priestman, William Dent
SUBJECT AREA: Steam and internal combustion engines[br]b. 23 August 1847 Sutton, Hull, Englandd. 7 September 1936 Hull, England[br]English oil engine pioneer.[br]William was the second son and one of eleven children of Samuel Priestman, who had moved to Hull after retiring as a corn miller in Kirkstall, Leeds, and who in retirement had become a director of the North Eastern Railway Company. The family were strict Quakers, so William was sent to the Quaker School in Bootham, York. He left school at the age of 17 to start an engineering apprenticeship at the Humber Iron Works, but this company failed so the apprenticeship was continued with the North Eastern Railway, Gateshead. In 1869 he joined the hydraulics department of Sir William Armstrong \& Company, Newcastle upon Tyne, but after a year there his father financed him in business at a small, run down works, the Holderness Foundry, Hull. He was soon joined by his brother, Samuel, their main business being the manufacture of dredging equipment (grabs), cranes and winches. In the late 1870s William became interested in internal combustion engines. He took a sublicence to manufacture petrol engines to the patents of Eugène Etève of Paris from the British licensees, Moll and Dando. These engines operated in a similar manner to the non-compression gas engines of Lenoir. Failure to make the two-stroke version of this engine work satisfactorily forced him to pay royalties to Crossley Bros, the British licensees of the Otto four-stroke patents.Fear of the dangers of petrol as a fuel, reflected by the associated very high insurance premiums, led William to experiment with the use of lamp oil as an engine fuel. His first of many patents was for a vaporizer. This was in 1885, well before Ackroyd Stuart. What distinguished the Priestman engine was the provision of an air pump which pressurized the fuel tank, outlets at the top and bottom of which led to a fuel atomizer injecting continuously into a vaporizing chamber heated by the exhaust gases. A spring-loaded inlet valve connected the chamber to the atmosphere, with the inlet valve proper between the chamber and the working cylinder being camoperated. A plug valve in the fuel line and a butterfly valve at the inlet to the chamber were operated, via a linkage, by the speed governor; this is believed to be the first use of this method of control. It was found that vaporization was only partly achieved, the higher fractions of the fuel condensing on the cylinder walls. A virtue was made of this as it provided vital lubrication. A starting system had to be provided, this comprising a lamp for preheating the vaporizing chamber and a hand pump for pressurizing the fuel tank.Engines of 2–10 hp (1.5–7.5 kW) were exhibited to the press in 1886; of these, a vertical engine was installed in a tram car and one of the horizontals in a motor dray. In 1888, engines were shown publicly at the Royal Agricultural Show, while in 1890 two-cylinder vertical marine engines were introduced in sizes from 2 to 10 hp (1.5–7.5 kW), and later double-acting ones up to some 60 hp (45 kW). First, clutch and gearbox reversing was used, but reversing propellers were fitted later (Priestman patent of 1892). In the same year a factory was established in Philadelphia, USA, where engines in the range 5–20 hp (3.7–15 kW) were made. Construction was radically different from that of the previous ones, the bosses of the twin flywheels acting as crank discs with the main bearings on the outside.On independent test in 1892, a Priestman engine achieved a full-load brake thermal efficiency of some 14 per cent, a very creditable figure for a compression ratio limited to under 3:1 by detonation problems. However, efficiency at low loads fell off seriously owing to the throttle governing, and the engines were heavy, complex and expensive compared with the competition.Decline in sales of dredging equipment and bad debts forced the firm into insolvency in 1895 and receivers took over. A new company was formed, the brothers being excluded. However, they were able to attend board meetings, but to exert no influence. Engine activities ceased in about 1904 after over 1,000 engines had been made. It is probable that the Quaker ethics of the brothers were out of place in a business that was becoming increasingly cut-throat. William spent the rest of his long life serving others.[br]Further ReadingC.Lyle Cummins, 1976, Internal Fire, Carnot Press.C.Lyle Cummins and J.D.Priestman, 1985, "William Dent Priestman, oil engine pioneer and inventor: his engine patents 1885–1901", Proceedings of the Institution ofMechanical Engineers 199:133.Anthony Harcombe, 1977, "Priestman's oil engine", Stationary Engine Magazine 42 (August).JBBiographical history of technology > Priestman, William Dent
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2 Barber, John
[br]baptized 22 October 1734 Greasley, Nottinghamshire, Englandd. 6 November 1801 Attleborough, Nuneaton, England[br]English inventor of the gas turbine and jet propulsion.[br]He was the son of Francis Barber, coalmaster of Greasley, and Elizabeth Fletcher. In his will of 1765. his uncle, John Fletcher, left the bulk of his property, including collieries and Stainsby House, Horsley Woodhouse, Derbyshire, to John Barber. Another uncle, Robert, bequeathed him property in the next village, Smalley. It is clear that at this time John Barber was a man of considerable means. On a tablet erected by John in 1767, he acknowledges his debt to his uncle John in the words "in remembrance of the man who trained him up from a youth". At this time John Barber was living at Stainsby House and had already been granted his first patent, in 1766. The contents of this patent, which included a reversible water turbine, and his subsequent patents, suggest that he was very familiar with mining equipment, including the Newcomen engine. It comes as rather a surprise that c.1784 he became bankrupt and had to leave Stainsby House, evidently moving to Attleborough. In a strange twist, a descendent of Mr Sitwell, the new owner, bought the prototype Akroyd Stuart oil engine from the Doncaster Show in 1891.The second and fifth (final) patents, in 1773 and 1792, were concerned with smelting and the third, in 1776, featured a boiler-mounted impulse steam turbine. The fourth and most important patent, in 1791, describes and engine that could be applied to the "grinding of corn, flints, etc.", "rolling, slitting, forging or battering iron and other metals", "turning of mills for spinning", "turning up coals and other minerals from mines", and "stamping of ores, raising water". Further, and importantly, the directing of the fluid stream into smelting furnaces or at the stern of ships to propel them is mentioned. The engine described comprised two retorts for heating coal or oil to produce an inflammable gas, one to operate while the other was cleansed and recharged. The resultant gas, together with the right amount of air, passed to a beam-operated pump and a water-cooled combustion chamber, and then to a water-cooled nozzle to an impulse gas turbine, which drove the pumps and provided the output. A clear description of the thermodynamic sequence known as the Joule Cycle (Brayton in the USA) is thus given. Further, the method of gas production predates Murdoch's lighting of the Soho foundry by gas.It seems unlikely that John Barber was able to get his engine to work; indeed, it was well over a hundred years before a continuous combustion chamber was achieved. However, the details of the specification, for example the use of cooling water jackets and injection, suggest that considerable experimentation had taken place.To be active in the taking out of patents over a period of 26 years is remarkable; that the best came after bankruptcy is more so. There is nothing to suggest that the cost of his experiments was the cause of his financial troubles.[br]Further ReadingA.K.Bruce, 1944, "John Barber and the gas turbine", Engineer 29 December: 506–8; 8 March (1946):216, 217.C.Lyle Cummins, 1976, Internal Fire, Carnot Press.JB -
3 Simms, Frederick
[br]b. 1863 Hamburg, Germany d. 1944[br]English engineer and entrepreneur who imported the first internal combustion engines into Britain.[br]Simms was born of English parents in Hamburg. He met Gottlieb Daimler at an exhibition in Bremen in 1890, where he had gone to exhibit an aerial cableway that he had designed to provide passenger transport over rivers and valleys; in the previous year, he had invented and patented an automatic railway ticket machine, the principle of which is still in use worldwide. He obtained a licence to develop the Daimler engine throughout the British Empire (excluding Canada). He had great trouble in arranging any demonstration of the Daimler engine as authorities were afraid of the risk of fire and explosion with petroleum spirit, particularly at indoor venues. He succeeded eventually in operating a boat with an internal combustion engine between Charing Cross and Westminster piers on the River Thames in 1891. He then rented space under a railway arch at Putney Bridge station for installing Daimler engines in boats. With Sir David Salomans he was responsible for organizing the first motor show in Britain in 1895; four cars were on show. Simms became a director of the main Daimler company, and was a consultant to the Coventry Daimler Company. He was the founder of the Automobile Club of Great Britain and Ireland, a forerunner of the Royal Automobile Club (RAC), as well as the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders.[br]Further ReadingE.Johnson, 1986, The Dawn of Motoring, London: Mercedes-Benz UK Ltd.IMcN -
4 Trevithick, Richard
[br]b. 13 April 1771 Illogan, Cornwall, Englandd. 22 April 1833 Dartford, Kent, England[br]English engineer, pioneer of non-condensing steam-engines; designed and built the first locomotives.[br]Trevithick's father was a tin-mine manager, and Trevithick himself, after limited formal education, developed his immense engineering talent among local mining machinery and steam-engines and found employment as a mining engineer. Tall, strong and high-spirited, he was the eternal optimist.About 1797 it occurred to him that the separate condenser patent of James Watt could be avoided by employing "strong steam", that is steam at pressures substantially greater than atmospheric, to drive steam-engines: after use, steam could be exhausted to the atmosphere and the condenser eliminated. His first winding engine on this principle came into use in 1799, and subsequently such engines were widely used. To produce high-pressure steam, a stronger boiler was needed than the boilers then in use, in which the pressure vessel was mounted upon masonry above the fire: Trevithick designed the cylindrical boiler, with furnace tube within, from which the Cornish and later the Lancashire boilers evolved.Simultaneously he realized that high-pressure steam enabled a compact steam-engine/boiler unit to be built: typically, the Trevithick engine comprised a cylindrical boiler with return firetube, and a cylinder recessed into the boiler. No beam intervened between connecting rod and crank. A master patent was taken out.Such an engine was well suited to driving vehicles. Trevithick built his first steam-carriage in 1801, but after a few days' use it overturned on a rough Cornish road and was damaged beyond repair by fire. Nevertheless, it had been the first self-propelled vehicle successfully to carry passengers. His second steam-carriage was driven about the streets of London in 1803, even more successfully; however, it aroused no commercial interest. Meanwhile the Coalbrookdale Company had started to build a locomotive incorporating a Trevithick engine for its tramroads, though little is known of the outcome; however, Samuel Homfray's ironworks at Penydarren, South Wales, was already building engines to Trevithick's design, and in 1804 Trevithick built one there as a locomotive for the Penydarren Tramroad. In this, and in the London steam-carriage, exhaust steam was turned up the chimney to draw the fire. On 21 February the locomotive hauled five wagons with 10 tons of iron and seventy men for 9 miles (14 km): it was the first successful railway locomotive.Again, there was no commercial interest, although Trevithick now had nearly fifty stationary engines completed or being built to his design under licence. He experimented with one to power a barge on the Severn and used one to power a dredger on the Thames. He became Engineer to a project to drive a tunnel beneath the Thames at Rotherhithe and was only narrowly defeated, by quicksands. Trevithick then set up, in 1808, a circular tramroad track in London and upon it demonstrated to the admission-fee-paying public the locomotive Catch me who can, built to his design by John Hazledine and J.U. Rastrick.In 1809, by which date Trevithick had sold all his interest in the steam-engine patent, he and Robert Dickinson, in partnership, obtained a patent for iron tanks to hold liquid cargo in ships, replacing the wooden casks then used, and started to manufacture them. In 1810, however, he was taken seriously ill with typhus for six months and had to return to Cornwall, and early in 1811 the partners were bankrupt; Trevithick was discharged from bankruptcy only in 1814.In the meantime he continued as a steam engineer and produced a single-acting steam engine in which the cut-off could be varied to work the engine expansively by way of a three-way cock actuated by a cam. Then, in 1813, Trevithick was approached by a representative of a company set up to drain the rich but flooded silver-mines at Cerro de Pasco, Peru, at an altitude of 14,000 ft (4,300 m). Low-pressure steam engines, dependent largely upon atmospheric pressure, would not work at such an altitude, but Trevithick's high-pressure engines would. Nine engines and much other mining plant were built by Hazledine and Rastrick and despatched to Peru in 1814, and Trevithick himself followed two years later. However, the war of independence was taking place in Peru, then a Spanish colony, and no sooner had Trevithick, after immense difficulties, put everything in order at the mines then rebels arrived and broke up the machinery, for they saw the mines as a source of supply for the Spanish forces. It was only after innumerable further adventures, during which he encountered and was assisted financially by Robert Stephenson, that Trevithick eventually arrived home in Cornwall in 1827, penniless.He petitioned Parliament for a grant in recognition of his improvements to steam-engines and boilers, without success. He was as inventive as ever though: he proposed a hydraulic power transmission system; he was consulted over steam engines for land drainage in Holland; and he suggested a 1,000 ft (305 m) high tower of gilded cast iron to commemorate the Reform Act of 1832. While working on steam propulsion of ships in 1833, he caught pneumonia, from which he died.[br]BibliographyTrevithick took out fourteen patents, solely or in partnership, of which the most important are: 1802, Construction of Steam Engines, British patent no. 2,599. 1808, Stowing Ships' Cargoes, British patent no. 3,172.Further ReadingH.W.Dickinson and A.Titley, 1934, Richard Trevithick. The Engineer and the Man, Cambridge; F.Trevithick, 1872, Life of Richard Trevithick, London (these two are the principal biographies).E.A.Forward, 1952, "Links in the history of the locomotive", The Engineer (22 February), 226 (considers the case for the Coalbrookdale locomotive of 1802).See also: Blenkinsop, JohnPJGR -
5 Bodmer, Johann Georg
SUBJECT AREA: Mechanical, pneumatic and hydraulic engineering, Railways and locomotives, Steam and internal combustion engines, Textiles, Weapons and armour[br]b. 9 December 1786 Zurich, Switzerlandd. 30 May 1864 Zurich, Switzerland[br]Swiss mechanical engineer and inventor.[br]John George Bodmer (as he was known in England) showed signs of great inventive ability even as a child. Soon after completing his apprenticeship to a local millwright, he set up his own work-shop at Zussnacht. One of his first inventions, in 1805, was a shell which exploded on impact. Soon after this he went into partnership with Baron d'Eichthal to establish a cotton mill at St Blaise in the Black Forest. Bodmer designed the water-wheels and all the machinery. A few years later they established a factory for firearms and Bodmer designed special machine tools and developed a system of interchangeable manufacture comparable with American developments at that time. More inventions followed, including a detachable bayonet for breech-loading rifles and a rifled, breech-loading cannon for 12 lb (5.4 kg) shells.Bodmer was appointed by the Grand Duke of Baden to the posts of Director General of the Government Iron Works and Inspector of Artillery. He left St Blaise in 1816 and entered completely into the service of the Grand Duke, but before taking up his duties he visited Britain for the first time and made an intensive five-month tour of textile mills, iron works, workshops and similar establishments.In 1821 he returned to Switzerland and was engaged in setting up cotton mills and other engineering works. In 1824 he went back to England, where he obtained a patent for his improvements in cotton machinery and set up a mill near Bolton incorporating his ideas. His health failing, he was obliged to return to Switzerland in 1828, but he was soon busy with engineering works there and in France. In 1833 he went to England again, first to Bolton and four years later to Manchester in partnership with H.H.Birley. In the next ten years he patented many more inventions in the fields of textile machinery, steam engines and machine tools. These included a balanced steam engine, a mechanical stoker, steam engine valve gear, gear-cutting machines and a circular planer or vertical lathe, anticipating machines of this type later developed in America by E.P. Bullard. The metric system was used in his workshops and in gearing calculations he introduced the concept of diametral pitch, which then became known as "Manchester Pitch". The balanced engine was built in stationary form and in two locomotives, but although their running was remarkably smooth the additional complication prevented their wider use.After the death of H.H.Birley in 1846, Bodmer removed to London until 1848, when he went to Austria. About 1860 he returned to his native town of Zurich. He remained actively engaged in all kinds of inventions up to the end of his life. He obtained fourteen British patents, each of which describes many inventions; two of these patents were extended beyond the normal duration of fourteen years. Two others were obtained on his behalf, one by his brother James in 1813 for his cannon and one relating to railways by Charles Fox in 1847. Many of his inventions had little direct influence but anticipated much later developments. His ideas were sound and some of his engines and machine tools were in use for over sixty years. He was elected a Member of the Institution of Civil Engineers in 1835.[br]Bibliography1845, "The advantages of working stationary and marine engines with high-pressure steam, expansively and at great velocities; and of the compensating, or double crank system", Minutes of the Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers 4:372–99.1846, "On the combustion of fuel in furnaces and steam-boilers, with a description of Bodmer's fire-grate", Minutes of the Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers 5:362–8.Further ReadingObituary, 1868–9, Minutes of the Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers 28:573–608.H.W.Dickinson, 1929–30, "Diary of John George Bodmer, 1816–17", Transactions of the Newcomen Society 10:102–14.D.Brownlie, 1925–6, John George Bodmer, his life and work, particularly in relation to the evolution of mechanical stoking', Transactions of the Newcomen Society 6:86–110.W.O.Henderson (ed.), 1968, Industrial Britain Under the Regency: The Diaries of Escher, Bodmer, May and de Gallois 1814–1818, London: Frank Cass (a more complete account of his visit to Britain).RTS -
6 Branca, Giovanni de
SUBJECT AREA: Steam and internal combustion engines[br]b. 1571 Italyd. 1640 Italy[br]Italian architect who proposed what has been suggested as an early turbine, using a jet of steam to turn a wheel.[br]Branca practised architecture at Loretto. In 1629 he published Le Machine: volume nuovo et di molto artificio, in which he described various mechanisms. One was the application of rolls for working copper, lead or the precious metals gold and silver. The rolls were powered by a form of smokejack with the gases from the fire passing up a long tube forming a chimney which, through gearing, turned the rolls. Another device used a jet of steam from a boiler issuing from a mouthpiece shaped like the head of a person to impinge upon blades around the circumference of a horizontal wheel, connected through triple reduction gearing to drop stamps, for pounding drugs. This was a form of impulse turbine and has been claimed as the first machine worked by steam to do a particular operation since Heron's temple doors.[br]Further ReadingH.W.Dickinson, 1938, A Short History of the Steam Engine, Cambridge University Press (includes a description and picture of the turbine).C.Singer (ed.), 1957, A History of Technology, Vols III and IV, Oxford University Press (provides notes on Branca).RLH -
7 Carnot, Nicolas Léonard Sadi
SUBJECT AREA: Steam and internal combustion engines[br]b. 1 June 1796 Paris, Franced. 24 August 1831 Paris, France[br]French laid the foundations for modern thermodynamics through his book Réflexions sur la puissance motrice du feu when he stated that the efficiency of an engine depended on the working substance and the temperature drop between the incoming and outgoing steam.[br]Sadi was the eldest son of Lazare Carnot, who was prominent as one of Napoleon's military and civil advisers. Sadi was born in the Palais du Petit Luxembourg and grew up during the Napoleonic wars. He was tutored by his father until in 1812, at the minimum age of 16, he entered the Ecole Polytechnique to study stress analysis, mechanics, descriptive geometry and chemistry. He organized the students to fight against the allies at Vincennes in 1814. He left the Polytechnique that October and went to the Ecole du Génie at Metz as a student second lieutenant. While there, he wrote several scientific papers, but on the Restoration in 1815 he was regarded with suspicion because of the support his father had given Napoleon. In 1816, on completion of his studies, Sadi became a second lieutenant in the Metz engineering regiment and spent his time in garrison duty, drawing up plans of fortifications. He seized the chance to escape from this dull routine in 1819 through an appointment to the army general staff corps in Paris, where he took leave of absence on half pay and began further courses of study at the Sorbonne, Collège de France, Ecole des Mines and the Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers. He was inter-ested in industrial development, political economy, tax reform and the fine arts.It was not until 1821 that he began to concentrate on the steam-engine, and he soon proposed his early form of the Carnot cycle. He sought to find a general solution to cover all types of steam-engine, and reduced their operation to three basic stages: an isothermal expansion as the steam entered the cylinder; an adiabatic expansion; and an isothermal compression in the condenser. In 1824 he published his Réflexions sur la puissance motrice du feu, which was well received at the time but quickly forgotten. In it he accepted the caloric theory of heat but pointed out the impossibility of perpetual motion. His main contribution to a correct understanding of a heat engine, however, lay in his suggestion that power can be produced only where there exists a temperature difference due "not to an actual consumption of caloric but to its transportation from a warm body to a cold body". He used the analogy of a water-wheel with the water falling around its circumference. He proposed the true Carnot cycle with the addition of a final adiabatic compression in which motive power was con sumed to heat the gas to its original incoming temperature and so closed the cycle. He realized the importance of beginning with the temperature of the fire and not the steam in the boiler. These ideas were not taken up in the study of thermodynartiics until after Sadi's death when B.P.E.Clapeyron discovered his book in 1834.In 1824 Sadi was recalled to military service as a staff captain, but he resigned in 1828 to devote his time to physics and economics. He continued his work on steam-engines and began to develop a kinetic theory of heat. In 1831 he was investigating the physical properties of gases and vapours, especially the relationship between temperature and pressure. In June 1832 he contracted scarlet fever, which was followed by "brain fever". He made a partial recovery, but that August he fell victim to a cholera epidemic to which he quickly succumbed.[br]Bibliography1824, Réflexions sur la puissance motrice du feu; pub. 1960, trans. R.H.Thurston, New York: Dover Publications; pub. 1978, trans. Robert Fox, Paris (full biographical accounts are provided in the introductions of the translated editions).Further ReadingDictionary of Scientific Biography, 1971, Vol. III, New York: C.Scribner's Sons. T.I.Williams (ed.), 1969, A Biographical Dictionary of Scientists, London: A. \& C.Black.Chambers Concise Dictionary of Scientists, 1989, Cambridge.D.S.L.Cardwell, 1971, from Watt to Clausius. The Rise of Thermodynamics in the Early Industrial Age, London: Heinemann (discusses Carnot's theories of heat).RLHBiographical history of technology > Carnot, Nicolas Léonard Sadi
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8 Edwards, Humphrey
SUBJECT AREA: Steam and internal combustion engines[br]fl. c.1808–25 London (?), Englandd. after 1825 France (?)[br]English co-developer of Woolf s compound steam engine.[br]When Arthur Woolf left the Griffin Brewery, London, in October 1808, he formed a partnership with Humphrey Edwards, described as a millwright at Mill Street, Lambeth, where they started an engine works to build Woolf's type of compound engine. A number of small engines were constructed and other ordinary engines modified with the addition of a high-pressure cylinder. Improvements were made in each succeeding engine, and by 1811 a standard form had been evolved. During this experimental period, engines were made with cylinders side by side as well as the more usual layout with one behind the other. The valve gear and other details were also improved. Steam pressure may have been around 40 psi (2.8 kg/cm2). In an advertisement of February 1811, the partners claimed that their engines had been brought to such a state of perfection that they consumed only half the quantity of coal required for engines on the plan of Messrs Boulton \& Watt. Woolf visited Cornwall, where he realized that more potential for his engines lay there than in London; in May 1811 the partnership was dissolved, with Woolf returning to his home county. Edwards struggled on alone in London for a while, but when he saw a more promising future for the engine in France he moved to Paris. On 25 May 1815 he obtained a French patent, a Brevet d'importation, for ten years. A report in 1817 shows that during the previous two years he had imported into France fifteen engines of different sizes which were at work in eight places in various parts of the country. He licensed a mining company in the north of France to make twenty-five engines for winding coal. In France there was always much more interest in rotative engines than pumping ones. Edwards may have formed a partnership with Goupil \& Cie, Dampierre, to build engines, but this is uncertain. He became a member of the firm Scipion, Perrier, Edwards \& Chappert, which took over the Chaillot Foundry of the Perrier Frères in Paris, and it seems that Edwards continued to build steam engines there for the rest of his life. In 1824 it was claimed that he had made about 100 engines in England and another 200 in France, but this is probably an exaggeration.The Woolf engine acquired its popularity in France because its compound design was more economical than the single-cylinder type. To enable it to be operated safely, Edwards first modified Woolf s cast-iron boiler in 1815 by placing two small drums over the fire, and then in 1825 replaced the cast iron with wrought iron. The modified boiler was eventually brought back to England in the 1850s as the "French" or "elephant" boiler.[br]Further ReadingMost details about Edwards are to be found in the biographies of his partner, Arthur Woolf. For example, see T.R.Harris, 1966, Arthur Woolf, 1766–1837, The Cornish Engineer, Truro: D.Bradford Barton; Rhys Jenkins, 1932–3, "A Cornish Engineer, Arthur Woolf, 1766–1837", Transactions of the Newcomen Society 13. These use information from the originally unpublished part of J.Farey, 1971, A Treatise on the Steam Engine, Vol. II, Newton Abbot: David \& Charles.RLH -
9 Fox, Samson
SUBJECT AREA: Mechanical, pneumatic and hydraulic engineering, Metallurgy, Steam and internal combustion engines[br]b. 11 July 1838 Bowling, near Bradford, Yorkshire, Englandd. 24 October 1903 Walsall, Staffordshire, England[br]English engineer who invented the corrugated boiler furnace.[br]He was the son of a cloth mill worker in Leeds and at the age of 10 he joined his father at the mill. Showing a mechanical inclination, he was apprenticed to a firm of machine-tool makers, Smith, Beacock and Tannett. There he rose to become Foreman and Traveller, and designed and patented tools for cutting bevelled gears. With his brother and one Refitt, he set up the Silver Cross engineering works for making special machine tools. In 1874 he founded the Leeds Forge Company, acting as Managing Director until 1896 and then as Chairman until shortly before his death.It was in 1877 that he patented his most important invention, the corrugated furnace for steam-boilers. These furnaces could withstand much higher pressures than the conventional form, and higher working pressures in marine boilers enabled triple-expansion engines to be installed, greatly improving the performance of steamships, and the outcome was the great ocean-going liners of the twentieth century. The first vessel to be equipped with the corrugated furnace was the Pretoria of 1878. At first the furnaces were made by hammering iron plates using swage blocks under a steam hammer. A plant for rolling corrugated plates was set up at Essen in Germany, and Fox installed a similar mill at his works in Leeds in 1882.In 1886 Fox installed a Siemens steelmaking plant and he was notable in the movement for replacing wrought iron with steel. He took out several patents for making pressed-steel underframes for railway wagons. The business prospered and Fox opened a works near Chicago in the USA, where in addition to wagon underframes he manufactured the first American pressed-steel carriages. He later added a works at Pittsburgh.Fox was the first in England to use water gas for his metallurgical operations and for lighting, with a saving in cost as it was cheaper than coal gas. He was also a pioneer in the acetylene industry, producing in 1894 the first calcium carbide, from which the gas is made.Fox took an active part in public life in and around Leeds, being thrice elected Mayor of Harrogate. As a music lover, he was a benefactor of musicians, contributing no less than £45,000 towards the cost of building the Royal College of Music in London, opened in 1894. In 1897 he sued for libel the author Jerome K.Jerome and the publishers of the Today magazine for accusing him of misusing his great generosity to the College to give a misleading impression of his commercial methods and prosperity. He won the case but was not awarded costs.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsRoyal Society of Arts James Watt Silver Medal and Howard Gold Medal. Légion d'honneur 1889.Bibliography1877, British Patent nos. 1097 and 2530 (the corrugated furnace or "flue", as it was often called).Further ReadingObituary, 1903, Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers: 919–21.Obituary, 1903, Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers (the fullest of the many obituary notices).G.A.Newby, 1993, "Behind the fire doors: Fox's corrugated furnace 1877 and the high pressure steamship", Transactions of the Newcomen Society 64.LRD -
10 Hero of Alexandria
SUBJECT AREA: Architecture and building, Mechanical, pneumatic and hydraulic engineering, Photography, film and optics, Steam and internal combustion engines[br]fl. c.62 AD Alexandria[br]Alexandrian mathematician and mechanician.[br]Nothing is known of Hero, or Heron, apart from what can be gleaned from the books he wrote. Their scope and style suggest that he was a teacher at the museum or the university of Alexandria, writing textbooks for his students. The longest book, and the one with the greatest technological interest, is Pneumatics. Some of its material is derived from the works of the earlier writers Ctesibius of Alexandria and Philo of Byzantium, but many of the devices described were invented by Hero himself. The introduction recognizes that the air is a body and demonstrates the effects of air pressure, as when air must be allowed to escape from a closed vessel before water can enter. There follow clear descriptions of a variety of mechanical contrivances depending on the effects of either air pressure or heated gases. Most of the devices seem trivial, but such toys or gadgets were popular at the time and Hero is concerned to show how they work. Inventions with a more serious purpose are a fire pump and a water organ. One celebrated gadget is a sphere that is set spinning by jets of steam—an early illustration of the reaction principle on which modern jet propulsion depends.M echanics, known only in an Arabic version, is a textbook expounding the theory and practical skills required by the architect. It deals with a variety of questions of mechanics, such as the statics of a horizontal beam resting on vertical posts, the theory of the centre of gravity and equilibrium, largely derived from Archimedes, and the five ways of applying a relatively small force to exert a much larger one: the lever, winch, pulley, wedge and screw. Practical devices described include sledges for transporting heavy loads, cranes and a screw cutter.Hero's Dioptra describes instruments used in surveying, together with an odometer or device to indicate the distance travelled by a wheeled vehicle. Catoptrics, known only in Latin, deals with the principles of mirrors, plane and curved, enunciating that the angle of incidence is equal to that of reflection. Automata describes two forms of puppet theatre, operated by strings and drums driven by a falling lead weight attached to a rope wound round an axle. Hero's mathematical work lies in the tradition of practical mathematics stretching from the Babylonians through Islam to Renaissance Europe. It is seen most clearly in his Metrica, a treatise on mensuration.Of all his works, Pneumatics was the best known and most influential. It was one of the works of Greek science and technology assimilated by the Arabs, notably Banu Musa ibn Shakir, and was transmitted to medieval Western Europe.[br]BibliographyAll Hero's works have been printed with a German translation in Heronis Alexandrini opera quae supersunt omnia, 1899–1914, 5 vols, Leipzig. The book on pneumatics has been published as The Pneumatics of Hero of Alexandria, 1851, trans. and ed. Bennet Wood-croft, London (facs. repr. 1971, introd. Marie Boas Hall, London and New York).Further ReadingA.G.Drachmann, 1948, "Ktesibios, Philon and Heron: A Study in Ancient Pneumatics", Acta Hist. Sci. Nat. Med. 4, Copenhagen: Munksgaard.T.L.Heath, 1921, A History of Greek Mathematics, Oxford (still useful for his mathematical work).LRD -
11 Maybach, Wilhelm
[br]b. 9 February 1846 Heilbronn, Württemberg, Germanyd. 14 December 1929 Stuttgart, Germany[br]German engineer and engine designer, inventor of the spray carburettor.[br]Orphaned at the age of 10, Maybach was destined to become one of the world's most renowned engine designers. From 1868 he was apprenticed as a draughtsman at the Briiderhaus Engineering Works in Reurlingen, where his talents were recognized by Gottlieb Daimler, who was Manager and Technical Director. Nikolaus Otto had by then developed his atmospheric engine and reorganized his company, Otto \& Langen, into Gasmotorenfabrik Deutz, of which he appointed Daimler Manager. After employment at a machine builders in Karlsruhe, in 1872 Maybach followed Daimler to Deutz where he worked as a partner on the design of high-speed engines: his engines ran at up to 900 rpm, some three times as fast as conventional engines of the time. Maybach made improvements to the timing, carburation and other features. In 1881 Daimler left the Deutz Company and set up on his own as a freelance inventor, moving with his family to Bad Cannstatt; in April 1882 Maybach joined him as Engineer and Designer to set up a partnership to develop lightweight high-speed engines suitable for vehicles. A motor cycle appeared in 1885 and a modified horse-drawn carriage was fitted with a Maybach engine in 1886. Other applications to small boats, fire-engine pumps and small locomotives quickly followed, and the Vee engine of 1890 that was fitted into the French Peugeot automobiles had a profound effect upon the new sport of motor racing. In 1895 Daimler won the first international motor race and the same year Maybach became Technical Director of the Daimler firm. In 1899 Emil Jellinek, Daimler agent in France and also Austro-Hungarian consul, required a car to compete with Panhard and Levassor, who had been victorious in the Paris-Bordeaux race; he wanted more power and a lower centre of gravity, and turned to Maybach with his requirements, the 35 hp Daimler- Simplex of 1901 being the outcome. Its performance and road holding superseded those of all others at the time; it was so successful that Jellinek immediately placed an order for thirty-six cars. His daughter's name was Mercedes, after whom, when the merger of Daimler and Benz came about, the name Mercedes-Benz was adopted.In his later years, Maybach designed the engine for the Zeppelin airships. He retired from the Daimler Company in 1907.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsSociety of German Engineers Grashof Medal (its highest honour). In addition to numerous medals and titles from technical institutions, Maybach was awarded an honorary doctorate from the Stuttgart Institute of Technology.Further ReadingF.Schidberger, Gottlieb Daimler, Wilhelm Maybach and Karl Benz, Stuttgart: Daimler Benz AG.1961, The Annals of Mercedes-Benz Motor Vehicles and Engines, 2nd edn, Stuttgart: Daimler Benz AG.E.Johnson, 1986, The Dawn of Motoring.KAB / IMcN -
12 Porta, Giovanni Battista (Giambattista) della
SUBJECT AREA: Steam and internal combustion engines[br]b. between 3 October and 15 November 1535 Vico Equense, near Naples, Italyd. 4 February 1615 Naples, Italy[br]Italian natural philosopher who published many scientific books, one of which covered ideas for the use of steam.[br]Giambattista della Porta spent most of his life in Naples, where some time before 1580 he established the Accademia dei Segreti, which met at his house. In 1611 he was enrolled among the Oziosi in Naples, then the most renowned literary academy. He was examined by the Inquisition, which, although he had become a lay brother of the Jesuits by 1585, banned all further publication of his books between 1592 and 1598.His first book, the Magiae Naturalis, which covered the secrets of nature, was published in 1558. He had been collecting material for it since the age of 15 and he saw that science should not merely represent theory and contemplation but must arrive at practical and experimental expression. In this work he described the hardening of files and pieces of armour on quite a large scale, and it included the best sixteenth-century description of heat treatment for hardening steel. In the 1589 edition of this work he covered ways of improving vision at a distance with concave and convex lenses; although he may have constructed a compound microscope, the history of this instrument effectively begins with Galileo. His theoretical and practical work on lenses paved the way for the telescope and he also explored the properties of parabolic mirrors.In 1563 he published a treatise on cryptography, De Furtivis Liter arum Notis, which he followed in 1566 with another on memory and mnemonic devices, Arte del Ricordare. In 1584 and 1585 he published treatises on horticulture and agriculture based on careful study and practice; in 1586 he published De Humana Physiognomonia, on human physiognomy, and in 1588 a treatise on the physiognomy of plants. In 1593 he published his De Refractione but, probably because of the ban by the Inquisition, no more were produced until the Spiritali in 1601 and his translation of Ptolemy's Almagest in 1605. In 1608 two new works appeared: a short treatise on military fortifications; and the De Distillatione. There was an important work on meteorology in 1610. In 1601 he described a device similar to Hero's mechanisms which opened temple doors, only Porta used steam pressure instead of air to force the water out of its box or container, up a pipe to where it emptied out into a higher container. Under the lower box there was a small steam boiler heated by a fire. He may also have been the first person to realize that condensed steam would form a vacuum, for there is a description of another piece of apparatus where water is drawn up into a container at the top of a long pipe. The container was first filled with steam so that, when cooled, a vacuum would be formed and water drawn up into it. These are the principles on which Thomas Savery's later steam-engine worked.[br]Further ReadingDictionary of Scientific Biography, 1975, Vol. XI, New York: C.Scribner's Sons (contains a full biography).H.W.Dickinson, 1938, A Short History of the Steam Engine, Cambridge University Press (contains an account of his contributions to the early development of the steam-engine).C.Singer (ed.), 1957, A History of Technology, Vol. III, Oxford University Press (contains accounts of some of his other discoveries).I.Asimov (ed.), 1982, Biographical Encyclopaedia of Science and Technology, 2nd edn., New York: Doubleday.G.Sarton, 1957, Six wings: Men of Science in the Renaissance, London: Bodley Head, pp. 85–8.RLH / IMcNBiographical history of technology > Porta, Giovanni Battista (Giambattista) della
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13 Seguin, Marc
[br]b. 20 April 1786 Annonay, Ardèche, Franced. 24 February 1875 Annonay, Ardèche, France[br]French engineer, inventor of multi-tubular firetube boiler.[br]Seguin trained under Joseph Montgolfier, one of the inventors of the hot-air balloon, and became a pioneer of suspension bridges. In 1825 he was involved in an attempt to introduce steam navigation to the River Rhône using a tug fitted with a winding drum to wind itself upstream along a cable attached to a point on the bank, with a separate boat to transfer the cable from point to point. The attempt proved unsuccessful and was short-lived, but in 1825 Seguin had decided also to seek a government concession for a railway from Saint-Etienne to Lyons as a feeder of traffic to the river. He inspected the Stockton \& Darlington Railway and met George Stephenson; the concession was granted in 1826 to Seguin Frères \& Ed. Biot and two steam locomotives were built to their order by Robert Stephenson \& Co. The locomotives were shipped to France in the spring of 1828 for evaluation prior to construction of others there; each had two vertical cylinders, one each side between front and rear wheels, and a boiler with a single large-diameter furnace tube, with a watertube grate. Meanwhile, in 1827 Seguin, who was still attempting to produce a steamboat powerful enough to navigate the fast-flowing Rhône, had conceived the idea of increasing the heating surface of a boiler by causing the hot gases from combustion to pass through a series of tubes immersed in the water. He was soon considering application of this type of boiler to a locomotive. He applied for a patent for a multi-tubular boiler on 12 December 1827 and carried out numerous experiments with various means of producing a forced draught to overcome the perceived obstruction caused by the small tubes. By May 1829 the steam-navigation venture had collapsed, but Seguin had a locomotive under construction in the workshops of the Lyons-Sain t- Etienne Railway: he retained the cylinder layout of its Stephenson locomotives, but incorporated a boiler of his own design. The fire was beneath the barrel, surrounded by a water-jacket: a single large flue ran towards the front of the boiler, whence hot gases returned via many small tubes through the boiler barrel to a chimney above the firedoor. Draught was provided by axle-driven fans on the tender.Seguin was not aware of the contemporary construction of Rocket, with a multi-tubular boiler, by Robert Stephenson; Rocket had its first trial run on 5 September 1829, but the precise date on which Seguin's locomotive first ran appears to be unknown, although by 20 October many experiments had been carried out upon it. Seguin's concept of a multi-tubular locomotive boiler therefore considerably antedated that of Henry Booth, and his first locomotive was completed about the same date as Rocket. It was from Rocket's boiler, however, rather than from that of Seguin's locomotive, that the conventional locomotive boiler was descended.[br]BibliographyFebruary 1828, French patent no. 3,744 (multi-tubular boiler).1839, De l'Influence des chemins de fer et de l'art de les tracer et de les construire, Paris.Further ReadingF.Achard and L.Seguin, 1928, "Marc Seguin and the invention of the tubular boiler", Transactions of the Newcomen Society 7 (traces the chronology of Seguin's boilers).——1928, "British railways of 1825 as seen by Marc Seguin", Transactions of the Newcomen Society 7.J.B.Snell, 1964, Early Railways, London: Weidenfeld \& Nicolson.J.-M.Combe and B.Escudié, 1991, Vapeurs sur le Rhône, Lyons: Presses Universitaires de Lyon.PJGR -
14 Smeaton, John
SUBJECT AREA: Civil engineering, Mechanical, pneumatic and hydraulic engineering, Steam and internal combustion engines[br]b. 8 June 1724 Austhorpe, near Leeds, Yorkshire, Englandd. 28 October 1792 Austhorpe, near Leeds, Yorkshire, England[br]English mechanical and civil engineer.[br]As a boy, Smeaton showed mechanical ability, making for himself a number of tools and models. This practical skill was backed by a sound education, probably at Leeds Grammar School. At the age of 16 he entered his father's office; he seemed set to follow his father's profession in the law. In 1742 he went to London to continue his legal studies, but he preferred instead, with his father's reluctant permission, to set up as a scientific instrument maker and dealer and opened a shop of his own in 1748. About this time he began attending meetings of the Royal Society and presented several papers on instruments and mechanical subjects, being elected a Fellow in 1753. His interests were turning towards engineering but were informed by scientific principles grounded in careful and accurate observation.In 1755 the second Eddystone lighthouse, on a reef some 14 miles (23 km) off the English coast at Plymouth, was destroyed by fire. The President of the Royal Society was consulted as to a suitable engineer to undertake the task of constructing a new one, and he unhesitatingly suggested Smeaton. Work began in 1756 and was completed in three years to produce the first great wave-swept stone lighthouse. It was constructed of Portland stone blocks, shaped and pegged both together and to the base rock, and bonded by hydraulic cement, scientifically developed by Smeaton. It withstood the storms of the English Channel for over a century, but by 1876 erosion of the rock had weakened the structure and a replacement had to be built. The upper portion of Smeaton's lighthouse was re-erected on a suitable base on Plymouth Hoe, leaving the original base portion on the reef as a memorial to the engineer.The Eddystone lighthouse made Smeaton's reputation and from then on he was constantly in demand as a consultant in all kinds of engineering projects. He carried out a number himself, notably the 38 mile (61 km) long Forth and Clyde canal with thirty-nine locks, begun in 1768 but for financial reasons not completed until 1790. In 1774 he took charge of the Ramsgate Harbour works.On the mechanical side, Smeaton undertook a systematic study of water-and windmills, to determine the design and construction to achieve the greatest power output. This work issued forth as the paper "An experimental enquiry concerning the natural powers of water and wind to turn mills" and exerted a considerable influence on mill design during the early part of the Industrial Revolution. Between 1753 and 1790 Smeaton constructed no fewer than forty-four mills.Meanwhile, in 1756 he had returned to Austhorpe, which continued to be his home base for the rest of his life. In 1767, as a result of the disappointing performance of an engine he had been involved with at New River Head, Islington, London, Smeaton began his important study of the steam-engine. Smeaton was the first to apply scientific principles to the steam-engine and achieved the most notable improvements in its efficiency since its invention by Newcomen, until its radical overhaul by James Watt. To compare the performance of engines quantitatively, he introduced the concept of "duty", i.e. the weight of water that could be raised 1 ft (30 cm) while burning one bushel (84 lb or 38 kg) of coal. The first engine to embody his improvements was erected at Long Benton colliery in Northumberland in 1772, with a duty of 9.45 million pounds, compared to the best figure obtained previously of 7.44 million pounds. One source of heat loss he attributed to inaccurate boring of the cylinder, which he was able to improve through his close association with Carron Ironworks near Falkirk, Scotland.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsFRS 1753.Bibliography1759, "An experimental enquiry concerning the natural powers of water and wind to turn mills", Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society.Towards the end of his life, Smeaton intended to write accounts of his many works but only completed A Narrative of the Eddystone Lighthouse, 1791, London.Further ReadingS.Smiles, 1874, Lives of the Engineers: Smeaton and Rennie, London. A.W.Skempton, (ed.), 1981, John Smeaton FRS, London: Thomas Telford. L.T.C.Rolt and J.S.Allen, 1977, The Steam Engine of Thomas Newcomen, 2nd edn, Hartington: Moorland Publishing, esp. pp. 108–18 (gives a good description of his work on the steam-engine).LRD -
15 Watt, James
SUBJECT AREA: Steam and internal combustion engines[br]b. 19 January 1735 Greenock, Renfrewshire, Scotlandd. 19 August 1819 Handsworth Heath, Birmingham, England[br]Scottish engineer and inventor of the separate condenser for the steam engine.[br]The sixth child of James Watt, merchant and general contractor, and Agnes Muirhead, Watt was a weak and sickly child; he was one of only two to survive childhood out of a total of eight, yet, like his father, he was to live to an age of over 80. He was educated at local schools, including Greenock Grammar School where he was an uninspired pupil. At the age of 17 he was sent to live with relatives in Glasgow and then in 1755 to London to become an apprentice to a mathematical instrument maker, John Morgan of Finch Lane, Cornhill. Less than a year later he returned to Greenock and then to Glasgow, where he was appointed mathematical instrument maker to the University and was permitted in 1757 to set up a workshop within the University grounds. In this position he came to know many of the University professors and staff, and it was thus that he became involved in work on the steam engine when in 1764 he was asked to put in working order a defective Newcomen engine model. It did not take Watt long to perceive that the great inefficiency of the Newcomen engine was due to the repeated heating and cooling of the cylinder. His idea was to drive the steam out of the cylinder and to condense it in a separate vessel. The story is told of Watt's flash of inspiration as he was walking across Glasgow Green one Sunday afternoon; the idea formed perfectly in his mind and he became anxious to get back to his workshop to construct the necessary apparatus, but this was the Sabbath and work had to wait until the morrow, so Watt forced himself to wait until the Monday morning.Watt designed a condensing engine and was lent money for its development by Joseph Black, the Glasgow University professor who had established the concept of latent heat. In 1768 Watt went into partnership with John Roebuck, who required the steam engine for the drainage of a coal-mine that he was opening up at Bo'ness, West Lothian. In 1769, Watt took out his patent for "A New Invented Method of Lessening the Consumption of Steam and Fuel in Fire Engines". When Roebuck went bankrupt in 1772, Matthew Boulton, proprietor of the Soho Engineering Works near Birmingham, bought Roebuck's share in Watt's patent. Watt had met Boulton four years earlier at the Soho works, where power was obtained at that time by means of a water-wheel and a steam engine to pump the water back up again above the wheel. Watt moved to Birmingham in 1774, and after the patent had been extended by Parliament in 1775 he and Boulton embarked on a highly profitable partnership. While Boulton endeavoured to keep the business supplied with capital, Watt continued to refine his engine, making several improvements over the years; he was also involved frequently in legal proceedings over infringements of his patent.In 1794 Watt and Boulton founded the new company of Boulton \& Watt, with a view to their retirement; Watt's son James and Boulton's son Matthew assumed management of the company. Watt retired in 1800, but continued to spend much of his time in the workshop he had set up in the garret of his Heathfield home; principal amongst his work after retirement was the invention of a pantograph sculpturing machine.James Watt was hard-working, ingenious and essentially practical, but it is doubtful that he would have succeeded as he did without the business sense of his partner, Matthew Boulton. Watt coined the term "horsepower" for quantifying the output of engines, and the SI unit of power, the watt, is named in his honour.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsFRS 1785. Honorary LLD, University of Glasgow 1806. Foreign Associate, Académie des Sciences, Paris 1814.Further ReadingH.W.Dickinson and R Jenkins, 1927, James Watt and the Steam Engine, Oxford: Clarendon Press.L.T.C.Rolt, 1962, James Watt, London: B.T. Batsford.R.Wailes, 1963, James Watt, Instrument Maker (The Great Masters: Engineering Heritage, Vol. 1), London: Institution of Mechanical Engineers.IMcN
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