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THE ABBREVIATED HISTORY OF THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION IN 19TH CENTURY EUROPE: |
(Source:) © 1999-2000 Britannica.com Inc. http://www.britannica.com/bcom/eb/article/6/0,5716,108606+2+106072,00.html
Transportation:
Technological change soon spilled over from manufacturing into
other areas. Increased production heightened demands on the transportation
system to move raw materials and finished products. Massive road
and canal building programs were one response, but steam engines
also were directly applied as a result of inventions in Britain
and the United States. Steam shipping plied major waterways soon
after 1800 and by the 1840s spread to oceanic transport. Railroad
systems, first developed to haul coal from mines, were developed
for inter-city transport during the 1820s; the first commercial
line opened between Liverpool and Manchester in 1830. During the
1830s local rail networks fanned out in most western European
countries, and national systems were planned in the following
decade, to be completed by about 1870.
In communication, the invention of the telegraph allowed faster
exchange of news and commercial information than ever before.
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THE DEVELOPMENT OF A RAILROAD LINE IN THE 19TH CENTURY: |
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DEVELOPMENT OF THE STEAM ENGINE: |
History of the steam engine:
(Source:) "Steam engine," Microsoft® Encarta®
Online Encyclopedia 2001
http://encarta.msn.com ©
1997-2001 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
The first piston engine was developed in 1690 by the French physicist and inventor Denis Papin and was used for pumping water. Papin's engine, which was little more than a curiosity, was a crude machine in which the actual work was done by air rather than steam pressure. It consisted of a single cylinder that also served as a boiler. A small amount of water was placed in the bottom of the cylinder and heated until steam was formed. The pressure of this steam raised a piston fitting in the cylinder, and, after it was raised, the source of heat was removed from the bottom of the cylinder. As the cylinder cooled, the steam condensed and air pressure on the upper side of the piston forced the piston down.
In 1698, the English engineer Thomas Savery built a steam engine that used two copper vessels alternately filled with steam from a boiler. Savery's engine was used for pumping water, but could only raise water about 6 m (20 ft) without using pressures which risked explosion, and was quickly abandoned. The first practical steam engine, the so-called atmospheric engine, was built by the English inventor Thomas Newcomen in 1712. ... Newcomen's engine was not efficient, but it was sufficiently practical to be used extensively for pumping water from coal mines.
In the course of making improvements to the Newcomen engine, the Scottish engineer and inventor James Watt produced a series of inventions that made possible the modern steam engine. Watt's first important development was the design of an engine that incorporated a separate condensing chamber for the steam. This engine, patented in 1769, greatly increased the economy of the Newcomen machine by avoiding the loss of steam that occurred in alternate heating and cooling of the engine cylinder. In Watt's engine, the cylinder was insulated and remained at steam temperature. The separate condenser chamber, which was water-cooled, was equipped with a pump to maintain a vacuum so that the steam was drawn from the cylinder to the condenser. The pump was also used to remove the water from the condenser chamber.
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Another radical departure in the design of the early Watt engines was the use of steam pressure instead of atmospheric pressure to perform the actual work of the engine. Watt also devised a method in which the reciprocating pistons of engines drove a revolving flywheel. ... Watt's other improvements and inventions included application of the principle of double action...
The next important development in the field of steam engines was the introduction of practical noncondensing engines. Although Watt had recognized the principle of the noncondensing engine, he had been unable to perfect machines of this type, probably because he used steam at extremely low pressure. At the beginning of the 19th century the British engineer and inventor Richard Trevithick and the American inventor Oliver Evans devised successful noncondensing engines using the high-pressure steam. Trevithick used this model of steam engine to power the first railroad locomotive ever made (see Locomotive). Both Trevithick and Evans also built steam-powered carriages for road travel.
At about the same time, the first compound steam engines were built by the British engineer and inventor Arthur Woolf... The advantage of compounding two or more cylinders is that less energy is lost in the heating of the cylinder walls; as a result, the engine is more efficient.
One could say that the steam engine was invented by Richard Trevithick, and leave it at that, but that would be robbing many important people of well-deserved credit. The truth is that Richard Trevithick just had the sense to combine the idea of a locomotive on a railroad and the steam engine, and he had the know-how to make it. Before him, there were many significant developments leading up to the first steam locomotive. After all, the steam engine marked one of the biggest developments of the Industrial Revolution which ushered in the modern age.
The background of the steam locomotive can be traced all the way back to 1698, when a man named Thomas Savery thought of a way to use steam to pump coal out of mines. This wasn't a real engine at all, but it did lead to the development of the first real steam engine, invented by Thomas Newcomen. His design also only pushed coal out of mines, and it only had a one-way piston, but it was an engine nonetheless. The first revolutionary idea came in 1763 courtesy of James Watt. He devised a way to push a piston back and forth inside a cylinder, and have that piston turn a shaft, called a crankshaft. This was the precursor of many engines we still have today. It was quite an amazing idea at the time. Unfortunately, he did not receive the kind of monetary support may inventors receive today, so he couldn't take his engine any further. But along came Richard Trevithick, who took Watt's steam engine, and the coal locomotives that had been in use for a while now, and combined them. He created the first steam locomotive.
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THE AUTOMOBILE: |
(Source:) "Automobile," Microsoft® Encarta®
Online Encyclopedia 2001
http://encarta.msn.com ©
1997-2001 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
The history of the automobile actually began about 4,000 years ago when the first wheel was used for transportation in India. In the early 15th century the Portuguese arrived in China and the interaction of the two cultures led to a variety of new technologies, including the creation of a wheel that turned under its own power. By the 1600s small steam-powered engine models had been developed, but it was another century before a full-sized engine-powered vehicle was created.
In 1769 French Army officer Captain Nicolas Joseph Cugnot built what has been called the first automobile. Cugnot's three-wheeled, steam-powered vehicle carried four persons. Designed to move artillery pieces, it had a top speed of a little more than 3.2 km/h (2 mph) and had to stop every 20 minutes to build up a fresh head of steam.
As early as 1801 successful but very heavy steam automobiles were introduced in England. Laws barred them from public roads and forced their owners to run them like trains on private tracks. In 1802 a steam-powered coach designed by British engineer Richard Trevithick journeyed more than 160 km (100 mi) from Cornwall to London. Steam power caught the attention of other vehicle builders. In 1804 American inventor Oliver Evans built a steam-powered vehicle in Chicago, Illinois. French engineer Onésiphore Pecqueur built one in 1828.
British inventor Walter Handcock built a series of steam carriages in the mid-1830s that were used for the first omnibus service in London. By the mid-1800s England had an extensive network of steam coach lines. Horse-drawn stagecoach companies and the new railroad companies pressured the British Parliament to approve heavy tolls on steam-powered road vehicles. The tolls quickly drove the steam coach operators out of business.
During the early 20th century steam cars were popular in the United States. Most famous was the Stanley Steamer, built by American twin brothers Freelan and Francis Stanley. A Stanley Steamer established a world land speed record in 1906 of 205.44 km/h (121.573 mph). Manufacturers produced about 125 models of steam-powered automobiles, including the Stanley, until 1932.
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THE INTERNAL COMBUSTION ENGINE: |
(Source:) "History," Microsoft® Encarta®
Online Encyclopedia 2001
http://encarta.msn.com ©
1997-2001 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
Development of lighter steam cars during the 19th century coincided with major developments in engines that ran on gasoline or other fuels. Because the newer engines burned fuel in cylinders inside the engine, they were called internal-combustion engines.
In 1860 French inventor Jean Joseph Étienne Lenoir patented a one-cylinder engine that used kerosene for fuel. Two years later, a vehicle powered by Lenoir's engine reached a top speed of about 6.4 km/h (about 4 mph). In 1864 Austrian inventor Siegfried Marcus built and drove a carriage propelled by a two-cylinder gasoline engine. American George Brayton patented an internal-combustion engine that was displayed at the 1876 Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
In 1876 German engineer Nikolaus August Otto built a four-stroke gas engine, the most direct ancestor to today's automobile engines. In a four-stroke engine the pistons move down to draw fuel vapor into the cylinder during stroke one; in stroke two, the pistons move up to compress the vapor; in stroke three the vapor explodes and the hot gases push the pistons down the cylinders; and in stroke four the pistons move up to push exhaust gases out of the cylinders. Engines with two or more cylinders are designed so combustion occurs in one cylinder after the other instead of in all at once. Two-stroke engines accomplish the same steps, but less efficiently and with more exhaust emissions.
Automobile manufacturing began in earnest in Europe by the late 1880s. German engineer Gottlieb Daimler and German inventor Wilhelm Maybach mounted a gasoline-powered engine onto a bicycle, creating a motorcycle, in 1885. In 1887 they manufactured their first car, which included a steering tiller and a four-speed gearbox. Another German engineer, Karl Benz, produced his first gasoline car in 1886. In 1890 Daimler and Maybach started a successful car manufacturing company, The Daimler Motor Company, which eventually merged with Benz's manufacturing firm in 1926 to create Daimler-Benz. The joint company makes cars today under the Mercedes-Benz nameplate (see DaimlerChrysler AG).
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In France, a company called Panhard-Levassor began making cars in 1894 using Daimler's patents. Instead of installing the engine under the seats, as other car designers had done, the company introduced the design of a front-mounted engine under the hood. Panhard-Levassor also introduced a clutch and gears, and separate construction of the chassis, or underlying structure of the car, and the car body. The company's first model was a gasoline-powered buggy steered by a tiller.
French bicycle manufacturer Armand Peugeot saw the Panhard-Levassor car and designed an automobile using a similar Daimler engine. In 1891 this first Peugeot automobile paced a 1,046-km (650-mi) professional bicycle race between Paris and Brest. Other French automobile manufacturers opened shop in the late 1800s, including Renault. In Italy, Fiat (Fabbrica Italiana Automobili di Torino) began building cars in 1899.