Steam engine mechanism. Modern steam engine

Manufacturing difficulty: ★★★★☆

Production time: One day

Materials at hand: ████████░░ 80%

In this article I will tell you how to make a steam engine with your own hands. The engine will be small, single-piston with a spool. The power is quite enough to rotate the rotor of a small generator and use this engine as an autonomous source of electricity when hiking.

Telescopic antenna (can be removed from an old TV or radio), the diameter of the thickest tube must be at least 8 mm
Small tube for a piston pair (plumbing store).
Copper wire with a diameter of about 1.5 mm (can be found in the transformer coil or radio shop).
Bolts, nuts, screws
Lead (in a fishing shop or found in an old car battery). It is needed to mold the flywheel. I found a ready-made flywheel, but this item may be useful to you.
Wooden bars.
Spokes for bicycle wheels
Stand (in my case, from a sheet of textolite 5 mm thick, but plywood is also suitable).
Wooden blocks (pieces of boards)
Olive jar
A tube

Superglue, cold welding, epoxy resin (construction market).
Emery
Drill
soldering iron
Hacksaw

How to make a steam engine

Engine diagram

Cylinder and spool tube.

Cut off 3 pieces from the antenna:
? The first piece is 38 mm long and 8 mm in diameter (the cylinder itself).
? The second piece is 30 mm long and 4 mm in diameter.
? The third is 6 mm long and 4 mm in diameter.

Take tube No. 2 and make a hole in it with a diameter of 4 mm in the middle. Take tube No. 3 and glue it perpendicular to tube No. 2, after the superglue dries, cover everything with cold welding (for example, POXIPOL).

We fasten a round iron washer with a hole in the middle to piece No. 3 (diameter - a little more than tube No. 1), after drying, we strengthen it with cold welding.

In addition, we cover all seams with epoxy resin for better tightness.

How to make a piston with a connecting rod

We take a bolt (1) with a diameter of 7 mm and clamp it in a vise. We begin to wind copper wire (2) around it for about 6 turns. We coat each turn with superglue. We cut off the excess ends of the bolt.

We cover the wire with epoxy. After drying, we adjust the piston with sandpaper under the cylinder so that it moves freely there without letting air through.

From a sheet of aluminum we make a strip 4 mm long and 19 mm long. We give it the shape of the letter P (3).

We drill holes (4) with a diameter of 2 mm at both ends so that a piece of knitting needle can be inserted. The sides of the U-shaped part should be 7x5x7 mm. We glue it to the piston with the side that is 5 mm.

We make a connecting rod (5) from a bicycle knitting needle. Glue to both ends of the spokes on two small pieces of tubes (6) from the antenna with a diameter and length of 3 mm. The distance between the centers of the connecting rod is 50 mm. Next, we insert the connecting rod with one end into the U-shaped part and fix it with a knitting needle.

We glue the knitting needle at both ends so that it does not fall out.

Triangle connecting rod

The triangle connecting rod is made in a similar way, only on one side there will be a piece of a knitting needle, and on the other a tube. Connecting rod length 75 mm.

Triangle and spool

steam boiler

The steam boiler will be a jar of olives with a sealed lid. I also soldered a nut so that water could be poured through it and tightly tightened with a bolt. I also soldered the tube to the lid.
Here is a photo:

Photo of the engine assembly

We assemble the engine on a wooden platform, placing each element on a support

Steam engine video
Version 2.0

Cosmetic modification of the engine. The tank now has its own wooden platform and a saucer for a dry fuel tablet. All details are painted in beautiful colors. By the way, as a heat source it is best to use homemade

Steam engines were used as a driving engine in pumping stations, locomotives, on steam ships, tractors, steam cars and others. Vehicle Oh. Steam engines contributed to the widespread commercial use of machines in enterprises and were the energy basis of the industrial revolution of the 18th century. Steam engines were later superseded by internal combustion engines, steam turbines, electric motors, and nuclear reactors, which are more efficient.

Steam engine in action

invention and development

The first known steam-powered device was described by Heron of Alexandria in the first century, the so-called "Heron's bath" or "aeolipil". The steam coming out tangentially from the nozzles fixed on the ball made the latter rotate. It is assumed that the transformation of steam into mechanical motion was known in Egypt during the period of Roman rule and was used in simple devices.

First industrial engines

None of the described devices has actually been used as a means of solving useful problems. The first steam engine used in production was the "fire engine", designed by the English military engineer Thomas Savery in 1698. Savery received a patent for his device in 1698. It was a reciprocating steam pump, and obviously not very efficient, since the heat of the steam was lost each time the container was cooled, and quite dangerous in operation, because due to the high pressure of the steam, the tanks and engine pipelines sometimes exploded. Since this device could be used both to turn the wheels of a water mill and to pump water out of mines, the inventor called it a "miner's friend."

Then the English blacksmith Thomas Newcomen demonstrated his "atmospheric engine" in 1712, which was the first steam engine for which there could be commercial demand. It was an improved Savery steam engine in which Newcomen significantly reduced operating pressure pair. Newcomen may have been based on a description of Papin's experiments held by the Royal Society of London, to which he may have had access through a member of the society, Robert Hooke, who worked with Papin.

Diagram of the Newcomen steam engine.
– Steam is shown in purple, water in blue.
– Open valves are shown in green, closed valves in red

The first application of the Newcomen engine was to pump water from a deep mine. In the mine pump, the rocker was connected to a rod that descended into the mine to the pump chamber. The reciprocating movements of the thrust were transmitted to the piston of the pump, which supplied water to the top. The valves of early Newcomen engines were opened and closed by hand. The first improvement was the automation of the valves, which were driven by the machine itself. Legend tells that this improvement was made in 1713 by the boy Humphrey Potter, who had to open and close the valves; when he got tired of it, he tied the valve handles with ropes and went to play with the children. By 1715, a lever control system was already created, driven by the mechanism of the engine itself.

The first two-cylinder vacuum steam engine in Russia was designed by the mechanic I.I. Polzunov in 1763 and built in 1764 to drive the blower bellows at the Barnaul Kolyvano-Voskresensky factories.

Humphrey Gainsborough built a model condenser steam engine in the 1760s. In 1769, Scottish mechanic James Watt (perhaps using Gainsborough's ideas) patented the first significant improvements to the Newcomen vacuum engine, which made it much more fuel efficient. Watt's contribution was to separate the condensation phase of the vacuum engine in a separate chamber while the piston and cylinder were at steam temperature. Watt added a few more important details to the Newcomen engine: he placed a piston inside the cylinder to expel steam and converted the reciprocating movement of the piston into the rotational movement of the drive wheel.

Based on these patents, Watt built a steam engine in Birmingham. By 1782, Watt's steam engine was more than 3 times as efficient as Newcomen's. The improvement in the efficiency of the Watt engine led to the use of steam power in industry. In addition, unlike the Newcomen engine, the Watt engine made it possible to transmit rotational motion, while in early models of steam engines the piston was connected to the rocker arm, and not directly to the connecting rod. This engine already had the main features of modern steam engines.

A further increase in efficiency was the use of high pressure steam (American Oliver Evans and Englishman Richard Trevithick). R. Trevithick successfully built high-pressure industrial single-stroke engines, known as "Cornish engines". They operated at 50 psi, or 345 kPa (3.405 atmospheres). However, with increasing pressure, there was also a greater danger of explosions in machines and boilers, which initially led to numerous accidents. From this point of view, the most important element of the high-pressure machine was the safety valve, which released excess pressure. Reliable and safe operation began only with the accumulation of experience and the standardization of procedures for the construction, operation and maintenance of equipment.

French inventor Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot demonstrated the first working self-propelled steam vehicle in 1769: the "fardier à vapeur" (steam cart). Perhaps his invention can be considered the first automobile. The self-propelled steam tractor turned out to be very useful as a mobile source of mechanical energy that set in motion other agricultural machines: threshers, presses, etc. In 1788, a steamboat built by John Fitch was already operating a regular service along the Delaware River between Philadelphia (Pennsylvania) and Burlington (state of New York). He lifted 30 passengers on board and went at a speed of 7-8 miles per hour. J. Fitch's steamboat was not commercially successful, as a good overland road competed with its route. In 1802, Scottish engineer William Symington built a competitive steamboat, and in 1807, American engineer Robert Fulton used a Watt steam engine to power the first commercially successful steamboat. On 21 February 1804, the first self-propelled railway steam locomotive, built by Richard Trevithick, was on display at the Penydarren ironworks at Merthyr Tydfil in South Wales.

Reciprocating steam engines

Reciprocating engines use steam power to move a piston in a sealed chamber or cylinder. The reciprocating action of a piston can be mechanically converted into linear motion for piston pumps, or into rotary motion to drive rotating parts of machine tools or vehicle wheels.

vacuum machines

Early steam engines were called at first "fire engines", and also "atmospheric" or "condensing" Watt engines. They worked on the vacuum principle and are therefore also known as "vacuum engines". Such machines worked to drive piston pumps, in any case, there is no evidence that they were used for other purposes. During the operation of a vacuum-type steam engine at the beginning of the steam cycle low pressure is admitted into the working chamber or cylinder. The inlet valve then closes and the steam cools and condenses. In a Newcomen engine, the cooling water is sprayed directly into the cylinder and the condensate escapes into a condensate collector. This creates a vacuum in the cylinder. Atmospheric pressure at the top of the cylinder presses on the piston, and causes it to move down, that is, the power stroke.

Constant cooling and reheating of the working cylinder of the machine was very wasteful and inefficient, however, these steam engines allowed pumping water from a greater depth than was possible before their appearance. A version of the steam engine appeared in the year, created by Watt in collaboration with Matthew Boulton, the main innovation of which was the removal of the condensation process in a special separate chamber (condenser). This chamber was placed in a cold water bath and connected to the cylinder by a tube closed by a valve. A special small vacuum pump (a prototype of a condensate pump) was attached to the condensation chamber, driven by a rocker and used to remove condensate from the condenser. The resulting hot water was supplied by a special pump (a prototype of the feed pump) back to the boiler. Another radical innovation was the closure of the upper end of the working cylinder, at the top of which was now low-pressure steam. The same steam was present in the double jacket of the cylinder, maintaining its constant temperature. During the upward movement of the piston, this steam was transferred through special tubes to the lower part of the cylinder in order to be condensed during the next stroke. The machine, in fact, ceased to be "atmospheric", and its power now depended on the pressure difference between low-pressure steam and the vacuum that could be obtained. In the Newcomen steam engine, the piston was lubricated with a small amount of water poured on top of it, in Watt's engine this became impossible, since there was now steam in the upper part of the cylinder, it was necessary to switch to lubrication with a mixture of grease and oil. The same grease was used in the cylinder rod stuffing box.

Vacuum steam engines, despite the obvious limitations of their efficiency, were relatively safe, using low-pressure steam, which was quite consistent with the general low level of 18th century boiler technology. The power of the machine was limited by low steam pressure, cylinder size, the rate of fuel combustion and water evaporation in the boiler, and the size of the condenser. The maximum theoretical efficiency was limited by the relatively small temperature difference on either side of the piston; this made vacuum machines intended for industrial use too large and expensive.

Compression

The outlet port of a steam engine cylinder closes slightly before the piston reaches its end position, leaving some exhaust steam in the cylinder. This means that there is a compression phase in the cycle of operation, which forms the so-called “vapor cushion”, which slows down the movement of the piston in its extreme positions. It also eliminates the sudden pressure drop at the very beginning of the intake phase when fresh steam enters the cylinder.

Advance

The described effect of the "steam cushion" is also enhanced by the fact that the intake of fresh steam into the cylinder begins somewhat earlier than the piston reaches the extreme position, that is, there is some advance of the intake. This advance is necessary so that before the piston starts its working stroke under the action of fresh steam, the steam would have time to fill the dead space that arose as a result of the previous phase, that is, the intake-exhaust channels and the volume of the cylinder not used for piston movement.

simple extension

A simple expansion assumes that the steam only works when it expands in the cylinder, and the exhaust steam is released directly into the atmosphere or enters a special condenser. The residual heat of the steam can then be used, for example, to heat a room or a vehicle, as well as to preheat the water entering the boiler.

Compound

During the expansion process in the cylinder of a high-pressure machine, the temperature of the steam drops in proportion to its expansion. Since there is no heat exchange (adiabatic process), it turns out that the steam enters the cylinder at a higher temperature than it leaves it. Such temperature fluctuations in the cylinder lead to a decrease in the efficiency of the process.

One of the methods of dealing with this temperature difference was proposed in 1804 by the English engineer Arthur Wolfe, who patented Wulff high-pressure compound steam engine. In this machine, high-temperature steam from the steam boiler entered the high-pressure cylinder, and then the steam exhausted in it at a lower temperature and pressure entered the low-pressure cylinder (or cylinders). This reduced the temperature difference in each cylinder, which generally reduced temperature losses and improved the overall efficiency of the steam engine. The low-pressure steam had a larger volume, and therefore required a larger volume of the cylinder. Therefore, in compound machines, the low pressure cylinders had a larger diameter (and sometimes longer) than the high pressure cylinders.

This arrangement is also known as "double expansion" because the expansion of the steam occurs in two stages. Sometimes one high-pressure cylinder was connected to two low-pressure cylinders, resulting in three approximately the same size cylinders. Such a scheme was easier to balance.

Two-cylinder compounding machines can be classified as:

Cross compound- Cylinders are located side by side, their steam-conducting channels are crossed.
Tandem compound- Cylinders are arranged in series and use one rod.
Angle compound- The cylinders are at an angle to each other, usually 90 degrees, and operate on one crank.

After the 1880s, compound steam engines became widespread in manufacturing and transportation, and became virtually the only type used on steamboats. Their use on steam locomotives was not as widespread as they proved to be too complex, partly due to the difficult operating conditions of steam engines in rail transport. Although compound locomotives never became a mainstream phenomenon (especially in the UK, where they were very rare and not used at all after the 1930s), they gained some popularity in several countries.

Multiple expansion

Simplified diagram of a triple expansion steam engine.
High pressure steam (red) from the boiler passes through the machine, leaving the condenser at low pressure (blue).

The logical development of the compound scheme was the addition of additional expansion stages to it, which increased the efficiency of work. The result was a multiple expansion scheme known as triple or even quadruple expansion machines. Such steam engines used a series of double-acting cylinders, the volume of which increased with each stage. Sometimes, instead of increasing the volume of low pressure cylinders, an increase in their number was used, just as on some compound machines.

The image on the right shows a triple expansion steam engine in operation. Steam flows through the machine from left to right. The valve block of each cylinder is located to the left of the corresponding cylinder.

The appearance of this type of steam engines became especially relevant for the fleet, since the size and weight requirements for ship engines were not very strict, and most importantly, this scheme made it easy to use a condenser that returns the exhaust steam in the form of fresh water back to the boiler (use salty sea water to power the boilers was not possible). Ground-based steam engines usually did not experience problems with water supply and therefore could emit exhaust steam into the atmosphere. Therefore, such a scheme was less relevant for them, especially considering its complexity, size and weight. The dominance of multiple expansion steam engines ended only with the advent and widespread use of steam turbines. However, modern steam turbines use the same principle of dividing the flow into high, medium and low pressure cylinders.

Direct-flow steam engines

Once-through steam engines arose as a result of an attempt to overcome one drawback inherent in steam engines with traditional steam distribution. The fact is that the steam in an ordinary steam engine constantly changes its direction of movement, since the same window on each side of the cylinder is used for both inlet and outlet of steam. When the exhaust steam leaves the cylinder, it cools its walls and steam distribution channels. Fresh steam, accordingly, spends a certain part of the energy on heating them, which leads to a drop in efficiency. Once-through steam engines have an additional port, which is opened by a piston at the end of each phase, and through which the steam leaves the cylinder. This improves the efficiency of the machine as the steam moves in one direction and the temperature gradient of the cylinder walls remains more or less constant. Once-through machines with a single expansion show about the same efficiency as compound machines with conventional steam distribution. In addition, they can work for more high revs, and therefore, before the advent of steam turbines, they were often used to drive electric generators that required high rotational speeds.

Once-through steam engines are either single or double acting.

Steam turbines

A steam turbine is a series of rotating disks fixed on a single axis, called the turbine rotor, and a series of fixed disks alternating with them, fixed on a base, called the stator. The rotor disks have blades on the outer side, steam is supplied to these blades and turns the disks. The stator discs have similar blades set at opposite angles, which serve to redirect the steam flow to the following rotor discs. Each rotor disc and its corresponding stator disc is called a turbine stage. The number and size of the stages of each turbine are selected in such a way as to maximize the useful energy of the steam of the speed and pressure that is supplied to it. The exhaust steam leaving the turbine enters the condenser. Turbines spin at very high speeds, and so special step-down transmissions are commonly used when transferring power to other equipment. In addition, turbines cannot change their direction of rotation, and often require additional reverse mechanisms (sometimes additional reverse rotation stages are used).

Turbines convert steam energy directly into rotation and do not require additional mechanisms for converting reciprocating motion into rotation. In addition, turbines are more compact than reciprocating machines and have a constant force on the output shaft. Since turbines are of a simpler design, they tend to require less maintenance.

Other types of steam engines

Application

Steam engines can be classified according to their application as follows:

Stationary machines

steam hammer

Steam engine in an old sugar factory, Cuba

Stationary steam engines can be divided into two types according to the mode of use:

Variable duty machines such as rolling mills, steam winches and similar devices that must stop and change direction frequently.
Power machines that rarely stop and do not have to change direction of rotation. These include power motors in power stations, as well as industrial motors used in factories, factories, and cable railways before the widespread use of electric traction. Low power engines are used in marine models and in special devices.

The steam winch is essentially a stationary engine, but mounted on a base frame so that it can be moved around. It can be secured by a cable to the anchor and moved by its own thrust to a new location.

Transport vehicles

Steam engines were used to power various types of vehicles, among them:

Land vehicles:
- steam car
- steam tractor
- Steam excavator, and even
Steam plane.

In Russia, the first operating steam locomotive was built by E. A. and M. E. Cherepanov at the Nizhny Tagil plant in 1834 to transport ore. He developed a speed of 13 miles per hour and carried more than 200 pounds (3.2 tons) of cargo. The length of the first railway was 850 m.

Advantages of steam engines

The main advantage of steam engines is that they can use almost any heat source to convert it into mechanical work. This distinguishes them from engines internal combustion, each type of which requires the use of a certain type of fuel. This advantage is most noticeable when using nuclear energy, since a nuclear reactor is not able to generate mechanical energy, but only produces heat, which is used to generate steam that drives steam engines (usually steam turbines). In addition, there are other sources of heat that cannot be used in internal combustion engines, such as solar energy. An interesting direction is the use of the energy of the temperature difference of the World Ocean at different depths.

Other types of external combustion engines also have similar properties, such as the Stirling engine, which can provide very high efficiency, but are significantly larger and heavier than modern types of steam engines.

Steam locomotives perform well at high altitudes, since their efficiency does not drop due to low atmospheric pressure. Steam locomotives are still used in the mountainous regions of Latin America, despite the fact that in the lowlands they have long been replaced by more modern types of locomotives.

In Switzerland (Brienz Rothhorn) and Austria (Schafberg Bahn), new steam locomotives using dry steam have proved their worth. This type of steam locomotive was developed on the basis of Swiss Locomotive and Machine Works (SLM) models, with many modern improvements such as the use of roller bearings, modern thermal insulation, burning light oil fractions as fuel, improved steam pipelines, etc. . As a result, these locomotives have 60% lower fuel consumption and significantly lower maintenance requirements. The economic qualities of such locomotives are comparable to modern diesel and electric locomotives.

In addition, steam locomotives are significantly lighter than diesel and electric locomotives, which is especially true for mining. railways. A feature of steam engines is that they do not need a transmission, transferring power directly to the wheels.

Efficiency

The coefficient of performance (COP) of a heat engine can be defined as the ratio of useful mechanical work to the spent amount of heat contained in the fuel. The rest of the energy is released into the environment in the form of heat. thermal efficiency machine is equal to

Often, steam locomotives or Stanley Steamer cars come to mind when you think of "steam engines," but the use of these mechanisms is not limited to transportation. Steam engines, which were first created in a primitive form about two thousand years ago, have become the largest sources of electricity over the past three centuries, and today steam turbines produce about 80 percent of the world's electricity. To better understand the nature of the physical forces behind such a mechanism, we recommend that you make your own steam engine out of ordinary materials using one of the methods suggested here! To get started, go to Step 1.

Steps

Steam engine from a tin can (for children)

Cut off the bottom of the aluminum can at a distance of 6.35 cm. Using metal shears, cut the bottom of the aluminum can evenly to about a third of its height.

Bend and press the bezel with pliers. To avoid sharp edges, bend the rim of the can inward. When performing this action, be careful not to injure yourself.

Press down on the bottom of the jar from the inside to make it flat. Most aluminum beverage cans will have a round base that curves inwards. Flatten the bottom by pressing down on it with your finger or using a small, flat-bottomed glass.

Make two holes in opposite sides of the jar, stepping back 1.3 cm from the top. To make holes, both a paper hole punch and a nail with a hammer are suitable. You will need holes with a diameter of just over three millimeters.

Place a small heating candle in the center of the jar. Crumple up the foil and place it underneath and around the candle so it doesn't move. Such candles usually come in special stands, so the wax should not melt and flow into the aluminum can.

Wind the central part of the copper tube 15-20 cm long around the pencil for 2 or 3 turns to make a coil. The 3 mm tube should bend easily around the pencil. You'll need enough curved tubing to run across the top of the jar, plus an extra 5cm straight on each side.

Insert the ends of the tubes into the holes in the jar. The center of the serpentine should be above the candle wick. It is desirable that the straight sections of the tube on both sides of the can be the same length.

Bend the ends of the pipes with pliers to make a right angle. Bend the straight sections of the tube so that they look in opposite directions from different sides of the can. Then again bend them so that they fall below the base of the jar. When everything is ready, the following should turn out: the serpentine part of the tube is located in the center of the jar above the candle and passes into two inclined "nozzles" looking in opposite directions on both sides of the jar.

Dip the jar in a bowl of water, while the ends of the tube should be immersed. Your "boat" should hold securely on the surface. If the ends of the tube are not submerged enough in the water, try to make the jar a little heavier, but in no case drown it.

Fill the tube with water. by the most in a simple way will lower one end into the water and pull from the other end like through a straw. You can also block one outlet from the tube with your finger, and substitute the other under a stream of water from the tap.

Light a candle. After a while, the water in the tube will heat up and boil. As it turns into steam, it will exit through the "nozzles", causing the entire jar to start spinning in the bowl.

Paint can steam engine (for adults)

Cut a rectangular hole near the base of the 4 liter paint can. Make a 15 x 5 cm horizontal rectangular hole in the side of the jar near the base.
- You need to make sure that this can (and the other one in use) contained only latex paint, and also wash it thoroughly with soapy water before use.
Cut a 12 x 24 cm strip of metal mesh. Bend 6 cm along the length from each edge at an angle of 90 o. You will end up with a 12 x 12 cm square "platform" with two 6 cm "legs". Place it in the jar with the "legs" down, aligning it with the edges of the cut hole.

Make a semicircle of holes around the perimeter of the lid. Subsequently, you will burn coal in a can to provide heat to the steam engine. With a lack of oxygen, coal will burn poorly. In order for the jar to have the necessary ventilation, drill or punch several holes in the lid that form a semicircle along the edges.
- Ideally, the diameter of the ventilation holes should be about 1 cm.
Make a coil out of a copper tube. Take about 6 m of soft copper tube with a diameter of 6 mm and measure from one end 30 cm. Starting from this point, make five turns with a diameter of 12 cm. Bend the remaining length of the pipe into 15 turns of 8 cm in diameter. .

Pass both ends of the coil through the vent holes in the cover. Bend both ends of the coil so that they are pointing up and pass both through one of the holes in the cover. If the length of the pipe is not enough, then you will need to slightly unbend one of the turns.

Place the serpentine and charcoal in the jar. Place the serpentine on the mesh platform. Fill the space around and inside the coil with charcoal. Close the lid tightly.

Drill holes for the tube in the smaller jar. Drill a hole with a diameter of 1 cm in the center of the lid of a liter jar. Drill two holes with a diameter of 1 cm on the side of the jar - one near the base of the jar, and the second above it near the lid.

Insert the sealed plastic tube into the side holes of the smaller jar. Using the ends of the copper tube, make holes in the center of the two plugs. Insert a rigid plastic tube 25 cm long into one plug, and the same tube 10 cm long into the other plug. They should sit tightly in the plugs and look out a little. Insert the cork with the longer tube into the bottom hole of the smaller jar and the cork with the shorter tube into the top hole. Secure the tubing to each plug with clamps.

Connect the tube of the larger jar to the tube of the smaller jar. Place the smaller jar on top of the larger jar with the stopper tube facing away from the larger jar's vents. Using metal tape, secure the tube from the bottom plug to the tube coming out of the bottom of the copper coil. Then, similarly fasten the tube from the top plug to the tube coming out of the top of the coil.

Paste copper tube into the junction box. Use a hammer and screwdriver to remove the center of the round metal electrical box. Fix the clamp under the electrical cable with a retaining ring. Insert 15 cm of 1.3 cm copper tubing into the cable tie so that the tubing protrudes a few centimeters below the hole in the box. Blunt the edges of this end inward with a hammer. Insert this end of the tube into the hole in the lid of the smaller jar.

Insert the skewer into the dowel. Take an ordinary wooden BBQ skewer and insert it into one end of a 1.5 cm long, 0.95 cm diameter hollow wooden dowel.
- During the operation of our engine, the skewer and dowel will act as a "piston". To better see the piston movement, you can attach a small paper "flag" to it.
Prepare the engine for work. Remove the junction box from the smaller top can and fill the top can with water, allowing it to overflow into the copper coil until the can is 2/3 full of water. Check for leaks at all connections. Fasten the jar lids tightly by tapping them with a hammer. Put the junction box back in place over the smaller top jar.
Start the engine! Crumple up pieces of newspaper and place them in the space under the net at the bottom of the engine. Once the charcoal has ignited, let it burn for about 20-30 minutes. As the water in the coil heats up, steam will begin to accumulate in the upper bank. When the steam reaches enough pressure, it will push the dowel and skewer up. After the pressure is released, the piston will move down under the force of gravity. If necessary, cut off part of the skewer to reduce the weight of the piston - the lighter it is, the more often it will "float". Try to make a skewer of such weight that the piston "walks" at a constant pace.
- You can speed up the burning process by increasing the flow of air into the vents with a hair dryer.
Stay safe. We believe it goes without saying that care must be taken when working and handling a homemade steam engine. Never run it indoors. Never run it near flammable materials such as dry leaves or overhanging tree branches. Operate the engine only on a solid, non-combustible surface such as concrete. If you are working with children or teenagers, they should not be left unattended. Children and teenagers must not approach the engine when charcoal is burning in it. If you do not know the temperature of the engine, then assume that it is so hot that it should not be touched.
- Make sure steam can come out of the top "boiler". If for any reason the piston gets stuck, pressure can build up inside the smaller can. In the worst case scenario, the bank may explode, which very dangerously.

Place the steam engine on the plastic boat, dipping both ends into the water to make a steam toy. You can cut a simple boat shape out of a plastic soda or bleach bottle to make your toy more "green".

On April 12, 1933, William Besler took off from the Oakland Municipal Airfield in California in a steam-powered aircraft.
The newspapers wrote:

“The takeoff was normal in every respect, except for the absence of noise. In fact, when the plane had already left the ground, it seemed to the observers that it had not yet gained sufficient speed. At full power, the noise was no more noticeable than with a gliding aircraft. Only the whistling of air could be heard. When working at full steam, the propeller produced only a slight noise. It was possible to distinguish through the noise of the propeller the sound of the flame...

When the plane was landing and crossed the field boundary, the propeller stopped and started up slowly in reverse side by reversing and then slightly opening the throttle. Even with a very slow reverse rotation of the screw, the descent became noticeably steeper. Immediately after touchdown, the pilot gave full reverse, which, together with the brakes, quickly stopped the car. The short run was especially noticeable in this case, since during the test there was a calm weather, and usually the landing run reached several hundred feet.

At the beginning of the 20th century, records of the height reached by aircraft were set almost annually:

The stratosphere promised considerable benefits for flight: less air resistance, constancy of winds, absence of clouds, stealth, inaccessibility to air defense. But how to fly up to a height of, for example, 20 kilometers?

[Gasoline] engine power drops faster than air density.

At an altitude of 7000 m, the engine power decreases by almost three times. In order to improve the high-altitude qualities of aircraft, at the end of the imperialist war, attempts were made to use pressurization, in the period 1924-1929. superchargers are even more introduced into production. However, it is becoming increasingly difficult to maintain the power of an internal combustion engine at altitudes above 10 km.

In an effort to raise the "height limit", the designers of all countries are increasingly turning their eyes to the steam engine, which has a number of advantages as a high-altitude engine. Some countries, like Germany, for example, were pushed to this path by strategic considerations, namely, the need to achieve independence from imported oil in the event of a major war.

In recent years, numerous attempts have been made to install a steam engine in aircraft. The rapid growth of the aviation industry on the eve of the crisis and the monopoly prices for its products made it possible not to hurry with the implementation of experimental work and accumulated inventions. These attempts, which took on a special scope during the economic crisis of 1929-1933. and the depression that followed, is not an accidental phenomenon for capitalism. In the press, especially in America and France, large concerns were often reproached for having agreements to artificially delay the implementation of new inventions.

Two directions have emerged. One is presented in America by Besler, who installed a conventional piston engine on an airplane, while the other is due to the use of a turbine as an aircraft engine and is mainly associated with the work of German designers.

The Besler brothers took Doble's piston steam engine for a car as a basis and installed it on a Travel-Air biplane. [a description of their demonstration flight is given at the beginning of the post].
Video of that flight:

The machine is equipped with a reversing mechanism, with which you can easily and quickly change the direction of rotation of the machine shaft, not only in flight, but also during landing. In addition to the propeller, the engine drives a fan through the coupling, which blows air into the burner. At the start, they use a small electric motor.

The machine developed a power of 90 hp, but under the conditions of a well-known forcing of the boiler, its power can be increased to 135 hp. from.
Steam pressure in the boiler 125 at. The steam temperature was maintained at about 400-430°. In order to automate the operation of the boiler as much as possible, a normalizer or device was used, with the help of which water was injected under a known pressure into the superheater as soon as the steam temperature exceeded 400 °. The boiler was equipped with a feed pump and a steam drive, as well as primary and secondary feed water heaters heated by exhaust steam.

The aircraft was equipped with two capacitors. A more powerful one was converted from the radiator of the OX-5 engine and mounted on top of the fuselage. The less powerful one is made from the condenser of Doble's steam car and is located under the fuselage. The capacity of the condensers, it was stated in the press, was insufficient to run the steam engine at full throttle without venting to the atmosphere, "and corresponded approximately to 90% of cruising power." Experiments showed that with a consumption of 152 liters of fuel, it was necessary to have 38 liters of water.

The total weight of the steam plant of the aircraft was 4.5 kg per 1 liter. from. Compared with the OX-5 engine that powered this aircraft, this gave an extra weight of 300 pounds (136 kg). There is no doubt that the weight of the entire installation could be significantly reduced by lightening the engine parts and capacitors.
The fuel was gas oil. The press claimed that "no more than 5 minutes elapsed between turning on the ignition and starting at full speed."

Another direction in the development of a steam power plant for aviation is associated with the use of a steam turbine as an engine.
In 1932-1934. information about the original steam turbine for an aircraft designed in Germany at the Klinganberg electric plant penetrated into the foreign press. The chief engineer of this plant, Hütner, was called its author.
The steam generator and turbine, together with the condenser, were here combined into one rotating unit having a common housing. Hütner notes: "The engine represents a power plant, the distinctive characteristic feature of which is that the rotating steam generator forms one constructive and operational unit with the counter-rotating turbine and condenser."
The main part of the turbine is a rotating boiler formed from a number of V-shaped tubes, with one elbow of these tubes connected to the feed water header, the other to the steam collector. The boiler is shown in Fig. 143.

The tubes are located radially around the axis and rotate at a speed of 3000-5000 rpm. The water entering the tubes rushes under the action of centrifugal force into the left branches of the V-shaped tubes, the right knee of which acts as a steam generator. The left elbow of the tubes has fins heated by the flame from the injectors. Water, passing by these ribs, turns into steam, and under the action of centrifugal forces arising from the rotation of the boiler, an increase in steam pressure occurs. The pressure is adjusted automatically. The difference in density in both branches of the tubes (steam and water) gives a variable level difference, which is a function of the centrifugal force, and hence the speed of rotation. A diagram of such a unit is shown in Fig. 144.

The design feature of the boiler is the arrangement of tubes, in which during rotation a vacuum is created in the combustion chamber, and thus the boiler acts as if it were a suction fan. Thus, according to Hütner, "the rotation of the boiler is simultaneously determined by its power, and the movement of hot gases, and the movement of cooling water."

Starting the turbine in motion requires only 30 seconds. Hütner expected to achieve a boiler efficiency of 88% and a turbine efficiency of 80%. The turbine and boiler need starting motors to start.

In 1934, a message flashed in the press about the development of a project for a large aircraft in Germany, equipped with a turbine with a rotating boiler. Two years later, the French press claimed that in conditions of great secrecy, a special aircraft was built by the military department in Germany. For him, a steam power plant of the Hütner system with a capacity of 2500 liters was designed. from. The length of the aircraft is 22 m, the wingspan is 32 m, the flight weight (approximate) is 14 tons, the absolute ceiling of the aircraft is 14,000 m, the flight speed at an altitude of 10,000 m is 420 km / h, the ascent to a height of 10 km is 30 minutes.
It is quite possible that these press reports are greatly exaggerated, but it is certain that the German designers are working on this problem, and the forthcoming war may bring unexpected surprises here.

What is the advantage of a turbine over an internal combustion engine?
1. The absence of reciprocating motion at high rotational speeds makes it possible to make the turbine quite compact and smaller than modern powerful aircraft engines.
2. An important advantage is also the relative noiselessness of the steam engine, which is important both from a military point of view and in terms of the possibility of lightening the aircraft due to soundproofing equipment on passenger aircraft.
3. The steam turbine, unlike internal combustion engines, which are almost never overloaded, can be overloaded for a short period up to 100% at a constant speed. This advantage of the turbine makes it possible to reduce the length of the takeoff run of the aircraft and facilitate its rise into the air.
4. The simplicity of design and the absence of a large number of moving and triggered parts are also an important advantage of the turbine, making it more reliable and durable compared to internal combustion engines.
5. The absence of a magneto on the steam plant, the operation of which can be influenced by radio waves, is also essential.
6. The ability to use heavy fuel (oil, fuel oil), in addition to economic advantages, determines the greater safety of the steam engine in terms of fire. It also creates the possibility of heating the aircraft.
7. The main advantage of a steam engine is to maintain its rated power with the rise to a height.

One of the objections to the steam engine comes mainly from aerodynamicists and comes down to the size and cooling capabilities of the condenser. Indeed, the steam condenser has a surface 5-6 times larger than the water radiator of an internal combustion engine.
That is why, in an effort to reduce the drag of such a capacitor, the designers came to place the capacitor directly on the surface of the wings in the form of a continuous row of tubes that follow exactly the contour and profile of the wing. In addition to imparting significant rigidity, this will also reduce the risk of aircraft icing.

There are, of course, a number of other technical difficulties in operating a turbine in an aircraft.
- Nozzle behavior at high altitudes is unknown.
- To change the fast load of the turbine, which is one of the conditions for the operation of an aircraft engine, it is necessary to have either a supply of water or a steam collector.
- The development of a good automatic device for adjusting the turbine presents certain difficulties.
- The gyroscopic effect of a rapidly rotating turbine on an aircraft is also unclear.

Nevertheless, the successes achieved give reason to hope that in the near future the steam power plant will find its place in the modern air fleet, especially on commercial transport aircraft, as well as on large airships. The hardest part in this area has already been done, and practical engineers will be able to achieve ultimate success.

The industrial revolution began in the middle of the 18th century. in England with the emergence and introduction of technological machines into industrial production. The industrial revolution was the replacement of manual, handicraft and manufacturing production with machine factory production.

The growth in demand for machines that were no longer built for each specific industrial facility, but for the market and became a commodity, led to the emergence of mechanical engineering, a new branch of industrial production. The production of means of production was born.

The widespread use of technological machines made the second phase of the industrial revolution absolutely inevitable - the introduction of a universal engine into production.

If the old machines (pestles, hammers, etc.), which received movement from water wheels, were slow-moving and had an uneven course, then new ones, especially spinning and weaving machines, required rotational movement at high speed. Thus, the requirements for technical specifications engines have acquired new features: a universal engine must give work in the form of a unidirectional, continuous and uniform rotational movement.

Under these conditions, engine designs appear that try to meet the urgent requirements of production. In England, more than a dozen patents have been issued for universal engines of a wide variety of systems and designs.

However, the first practical universal steam engines machines created by the Russian inventor Ivan Ivanovich Polzunov and the Englishman James Watt are considered.

In Polzunov's car, from the boiler, through pipes, steam with a pressure slightly higher than atmospheric was supplied alternately to two cylinders with pistons. To improve the seal, the pistons were filled with water. By means of rods with chains, the movement of the pistons was transmitted to the furs of three copper-smelting furnaces.

The construction of Polzunov's car was completed in August 1765. It had a height of 11 meters, a boiler capacity of 7 meters, a cylinder height of 2.8 meters, and a power of 29 kW.

Polzunov's machine created a continuous force and was the first universal machine that could be used to set in motion any factory mechanisms.

Watt began his work in 1763 almost simultaneously with Polzunov, but with a different approach to the engine problem and in a different setting. Polzunov began with a general energy statement of the problem of the complete replacement of locally dependent hydro power plants universal heat engine. Watt began with a private task - to improve the efficiency of the Newcomen engine in connection with the work entrusted to him as a mechanic at the University of Glasgow (Scotland) to repair a model of a dewatering steam plant.

Watt's engine received its final industrial completion in 1784. In Watt's steam engine, two cylinders were replaced by one closed one. Steam acted alternately on both sides of the piston, pushing it first in one direction, then in the other. In such a double-acting machine, the exhaust steam was condensed not in the cylinder, but in a vessel separate from it - a condenser. The constancy of the flywheel speed was maintained by a centrifugal speed controller.

The main disadvantage of the first steam engines was low, not exceeding 9%, efficiency.

Specialization of steam power plants and further development

steam engines

The expansion of the scope of the steam engine required ever wider versatility. The specialization of thermal power plants began. Water-lifting and mine steam installations continued to be improved. The development of metallurgical production stimulated the improvement of blowers. Centrifugal blowers with high-speed steam engines appeared. Rolling steam power plants and steam hammers began to be used in metallurgy. A new solution was found in 1840 by J. Nesmith, who combined a steam engine with a hammer.

An independent direction was formed by locomobiles - mobile steam power plants, the history of which begins in 1765, when the English builder J. Smeaton developed a mobile unit. However, locomobiles received noticeable distribution only from the middle of the 19th century.

After 1800, when the ten-year term of the privileges of Watt and Bolton, which brought enormous capital to the partners, ended, other inventors finally got a free hand. Almost immediately, progressive methods not used by Watt were implemented: high pressure and double expansion. The rejection of the balancer and the use of multiple steam expansion in several cylinders led to the creation of new structural forms of steam engines. Double expansion engines began to take shape in the form of two cylinders: high pressure and low pressure, either as compound machines with a wedging angle between the cranks of 90 °, or as tandem machines in which both pistons are mounted on a common rod and work on one crank.

Of great importance for increasing the efficiency of steam engines was the use of superheated steam from the middle of the 19th century, the effect of which was pointed out by the French scientist G.A. Girn. The transition to the use of superheated steam in the cylinders of steam engines required a long work on the design of cylindrical spools and valve distribution mechanisms, the development of technology for obtaining mineral lubricating oils capable of withstanding high temperature, and on the design of new types of seals, in particular with metal packing, in order to gradually move from saturated steam to superheated steam with a temperature of 200 - 300 degrees Celsius.

The last major step in the development of steam piston engines was the invention of the once-through steam engine, made by the German professor Stumpf in 1908.

In the second half of the 19th century, all constructive forms of steam piston engines were basically formed.

A new direction in the development of steam engines arose when they were used as engines of electric generators at power stations from the 80s to 90s of the 19th century.

The requirement for high speed, high uniformity of rotational motion and continuously increasing power was imposed on the primary engine of the electric generator.

Technical capabilities the piston steam engine - the steam engine - which was the universal engine of industry and transport throughout the 19th century, no longer met the needs that arose at the end of the 19th century in connection with the construction of power plants. They could be satisfied only after the creation of a new heat engine - a steam turbine.

steam boiler

The first steam boilers used atmospheric pressure steam. The prototypes of steam boilers were the design of digestive boilers, from which the term "boiler" that has survived to this day arose.

The growth in the power of steam engines gave rise to the still existing trend in boiler building: an increase in

steam capacity - the amount of steam produced by the boiler per hour.

To achieve this goal, two or three boilers were installed to power one cylinder. In particular, in 1778, according to the project of the English engineer D. Smeaton, a three-boiler plant was built for pumping water from the Kronstadt sea docks.

However, if the increase in the unit power of steam power plants required an increase in the steam output of boiler units, then to increase the efficiency, an increase in steam pressure was required, for which more durable boilers were needed. Thus arose the second and still active trend in boiler construction: the increase in pressure. Already by the end of the 19th century, the pressure in the boilers reached 13-15 atmospheres.

The requirement to increase the pressure was contrary to the desire to increase the steam capacity of the boilers. A ball is the best geometric shape of a vessel that can withstand high internal pressure, gives a minimum surface for a given volume, and a large surface is needed to increase steam production. The most acceptable was the use of a cylinder - the geometric shape following the ball in terms of strength. The cylinder allows you to arbitrarily increase its surface by increasing the length. In 1801 O. Ehns in the USA built a cylindrical boiler with a cylindrical internal furnace with an extremely high pressure for that time, about 10 atmospheres. In 1824 St. Litvinov in Barnaul developed a project of an original steam power plant with a once-through boiler unit consisting of finned tubes.

To increase the boiler pressure and steam output, it was necessary to reduce the diameter of the cylinder (strength) and increase its length (productivity): the boiler turned into a pipe. There were two ways of crushing boiler units: the gas path of the boiler or the water space was crushed. Thus, two types of boilers were defined: fire-tube and water-tube.

In the second half of the 19th century, sufficiently reliable steam generators were developed, which made it possible to have a steam capacity of up to hundreds of tons of steam per hour. The steam boiler was a combination of thin-walled steel pipes of small diameter. These pipes, with a wall thickness of 3-4 mm, can withstand very high pressures. High performance is achieved due to the total length of the pipes. By the middle of the 19th century, there was constructive type a steam boiler with a bundle of straight, slightly inclined pipes rolled into the flat walls of two chambers - the so-called water-tube boiler. By the end of the 19th century, a vertical water-tube boiler appeared, having the form of two cylindrical drums connected by a vertical bundle of pipes. These boilers, with their drums, could withstand higher pressures.

In 1896, at the All-Russian Fair in Nizhny Novgorod, the boiler of V.G. Shukhov was demonstrated. Shukhov's original collapsible boiler was transportable, had low cost and low metal content. Shukhov was the first to propose a furnace screen, which is used in our time. t£L ##0#lfo 9-1* #5^^^

By the end of the 19th century, water-tube steam boilers made it possible to obtain a heating surface of over 500 m and a productivity of over 20 tons of steam per hour, which increased 10 times in the middle of the 20th century.

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