Chiltern Model Beam Steam Engine Details and Explanations | 100 fps slow motion

Описание: Watch a miniature Chiltern Beam Steam Engine running on air in slow motion, whith close-up details and explanations of important technical components and their historical importance.

A little history lesson
This model beam engine illustrates the typical design of an early beam engine and shows many of the interesting details of steam engines of the early steam age. It features the cleverly thought-out Watt's linkage consisting of interconnected bars that eliminate lateral stresses on the piston rod as it lifts and lowers the beam which follows an arc. It also features a piston valve automatically controlled by an eccentric, and it is double-acting with a top gland around the piston rod.

James Watt lived in a world where many steam engines had already been built and put in operation. Contrary to popular belief, he did not invent the steam engine, but he did invent so many improvements to the existing designs that the common misconception, that Watts invented the steam engine, is not entirely unwarranted.

Watt mainly improved on the earlier Newcomen steam engine, improving its efficiency by adding a separate condensor; making it double acting by improving the cylinder seals and by implementing his famous Watt's parallel motion linkage. He also invented the flyball centrifugal governor for steam engines. Also, because steam engines at the time were used for pumping action (pumping water out of mines), nobody had yet come up with an efficient solution to converting the engine's piston motion into rotation. In all seriousness, some contemporary inventors even claimed that the only way to convert a steam engine's up/down piston motion into rotation was by using it to pump water into an elevated pond, and then let the water power a water wheel. That does not sound like an efficient solution.

The problem of converting linear motion to rotation
Watt found a solution for converting the piston stroke into rotation, making the machine useful for more than just pumping water. Now mills, machine looms and other machines could be powered by steam, paving the way for the next stage of the industrial revolution. Until that point in history, industries requiring rotative power had to be located near sources of water wheel, but now industry could be placed anywhere a steam engine could be built and fed with water and coals.

Oddly enough, Watt's engines did not feature a crank for converting the piston stroke into rotation, but instead featured an awkward-looking gear arrangement that converted one up/down cycle of the piston into two rotations (a regular crank converts one piston cycle into just one rotation) . On first glance this is very surprising, as Watt was obviously a first-rate inventor, and the crank mechanism was already a well known way to convert between linear motion and rotation. Why did Watt come up with such an arcane solution?

The answer is simple: Watt's problem was that one of his competitors had recently patented the crank. Instead of trading patent rights with the competitor Watt came up with the Sun-and-Planet gear arrangement which is occasionally seen on old drawings of Watt's steam engines. When the patent expired, all engines could use the simpler crank mechanism.

About this model engine:
I recently built this steam engine as a kit by Chiltern Model Steam Engines in the UK. It was an easy yet interesting build, and the engine runs very smoothly on low-pressure air.

Specifications
Cylinder bore: 14 mm
Piston stroke: 18 mm
Flywheel diameter: 120 mm
Weight: 3.1 kg

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