The Watt Steam Engine
Watt Steam Engine, Industrial Revolution in England
The Watt steam engine (alternatively known as the Boulton and Watt steam engine) was the first type of steam engine to make use of steam at a pressure just above atmospheric to drive the piston helped by a partial vacuum. Improving on the design of the 1712 Newcomen engine, the Watt steam engine, developed sporadically from 1763 to 1775, was the next great step in the development of the steam engine. Offering a dramatic increase in fuel efficiency, the new design replaced Newcomen engines in areas where coal was expensive, and then went on to be used in the place of most natural power sources such as wind and water. James Watt's design became synonymous with steam engines, due in no small part to his business partner, Matthew Boulton.
It is fitting that the first person to devise a working steam engine would be a man named Hero.
Sixteen hundred years after the ancient Greek scientist first made mention of the untapped power of steam, the technology would become the hero and the engine that drove the Industrial Revolution.
When it was refined by 18th century scientists such as James Watt, steam power overcame the limitations of using relatively weak men or tired horses to do grunt work and sped factories along at a pace never before seen.
Hampered by beasts
The Middle Ages aren't usually associated with industry, but societies across Europe, the Middle East, and parts of Asia and Africa did indeed have factories and manufacturing plants, albeit slow-working ones.
Textile production, for example, was a bustling trade, but had to deal with the geographic separation of the grazing sheep that provided the wool, the water-powered mills built along mountain streams and the cities where the cloth was purchased at market. The packhorses or mules that transported goods between them were expensive and slowed down by the weight of their load. Horses were also used to lug buckets of water out of flooded mines, but
The Watt steam engine (alternatively known as the Boulton and Watt steam engine) was the first type of steam engine to make use of steam at a pressure just above atmospheric to drive the piston helped by a partial vacuum. Improving on the design of the 1712 Newcomen engine, the Watt steam engine, developed sporadically from 1763 to 1775, was the next great step in the development of the steam engine. Offering a dramatic increase in fuel efficiency, the new design replaced Newcomen engines in areas where coal was expensive, and then went on to be used in the place of most natural power sources such as wind and water. James Watt's design became synonymous with steam engines, due in no small part to his business partner, Matthew Boulton.
It is fitting that the first person to devise a working steam engine would be a man named Hero.
Sixteen hundred years after the ancient Greek scientist first made mention of the untapped power of steam, the technology would become the hero and the engine that drove the Industrial Revolution.
When it was refined by 18th century scientists such as James Watt, steam power overcame the limitations of using relatively weak men or tired horses to do grunt work and sped factories along at a pace never before seen.
Hampered by beasts
The Middle Ages aren't usually associated with industry, but societies across Europe, the Middle East, and parts of Asia and Africa did indeed have factories and manufacturing plants, albeit slow-working ones.
Textile production, for example, was a bustling trade, but had to deal with the geographic separation of the grazing sheep that provided the wool, the water-powered mills built along mountain streams and the cities where the cloth was purchased at market. The packhorses or mules that transported goods between them were expensive and slowed down by the weight of their load. Horses were also used to lug buckets of water out of flooded mines, but