The principle of the steam engine was very simple. It was nothing more than using the expansion pressure of water when it was heated into steam to drive the movement of the pistons. Then, it used the vacuum generated when the steam was cooled into water to suck the movement of the pistons. The combination of these two movements would drive the pistons to push up and down continuously, and then transmit power to the outside.
In the history of later generations, the practical steam engine appeared in the early 18th century, which was only a few decades ago. One of the more famous ones was the Newcarmen steam engine. The principle of this steam engine was very simple. After the power of steam was used to push the pistons, cold water was sprayed into the cylinder to cool the steam, and the vacuum generated was sucked back into the pistons. Repeating these two movements would allow the transmission to go outward.
In history, thousands of such simple steam engines were produced at one time and were widely used in the coal mines of the Ying country to extract water from the mines. The use of this steam engine helped the Ying country become the largest coal producing area in Europe in the early 18th century.
Lin Feng had never actually built a steam engine before, so he decided to start with the simplest Newton steam engine. First, he would build the Newcastle Steam Engine, then upgrade it.
However, in order to make a steam engine, he first had to make a simple turning machine. Without a machine tool, there was no way to finish processing steel objects. Li Zhi had already made a boring machine. The structure of the machine was similar, but one was a rotating boring tool, and the other was a rotating object to be processed. However, the same thing was to rotate one thing to grind another thing. The structure was similar.
Lin Feng guided the blacksmith and spent five days making a simple turning tool. He used the crucible steel he had refined to make the turning tool. In the end, the lathes could only be said to be the original lathes, but they were enough to be used.
After the lathes were produced, they could be used to turn the pistons. First, he had to make a cylinder with a diameter of 30 centimeters. He had to cast it with pig iron and then use a boring machine to finish it. Inside the boring machine, a 30-centimeter diameter plug was placed. Lin Feng asked the blacksmith to cast it into shape with pig iron and then finish it on the lathes.
After repeated comparison, processing, comparison, and processing, he finally obtained two perfectly fitted cylinders and pistons. He placed the cylinder on top of the boiling water and found that it was completely airtight. Presumably, even if high-pressure water vapor was forced in, the degree of leakage would be very slow.
There was a push rod on the ram, which was pushed by the ram that moved up and down.
Next was the cooling device. Lin Feng fixed a cold water bucket next to the cylinder. The cold water bucket was connected to the bottom of the cylinder, and there was a valve at the connection. There was a mechanism control valve at the outermost end of the push rod. If the push rod was pushed to the top by the steam, the mechanism would be opened, and cold water would be sprayed into the cylinder to cool the steam. Once the steam cooled down, the plungers would move downwards, and when they reached the bottom, they would trigger the mechanism to close the cold water gate, and so on.
Then, he made the boiler. The boiler had to be large enough to generate enough steam to move it. After the boiler was completed, it was connected to the cylinder, and the entire Newcastle steam engine was completed.
After five days, he finished all the parts, screwed them together, and began to test if they were successful.
Once the boiler was heated up, the entire steam engine was leaking air. There wasn't much air leakage between the precision-processed pistons and the cylinder, but the joints of the pipes were screwed together with large gaps. At this moment, water vapor was spewing out everywhere.
However, even if there was air leakage everywhere, the steam engine was still successful because the degree of steam produced by the boiler was higher than the degree of air leakage in the pipeline. The water vapor pushed the pistols to do work and kept moving up and down. Because there was a leak in each pipe, the air pressure in the cylinder was just under control. The push rod's up and down movement was relatively stable, up and down once every seven to eight seconds.
This Newcarmen steam engine was finally completed.
However, the efficiency of the Newcastle steam engine was very low. It burned a lot of firewood to produce a limited thrust. This was because the water vapor in the cylinder cooled the cylinder body at the same time, and then the hot steam came in and heated the cylinder body, wasting a lot of heat. Such an inefficient steam engine obviously could not meet the demand. He had to gradually transform the Newcarmen steam engine into a Watt steam engine.
Watt's greatest improvement to the Newcastle steam engine was the cooler. With a cooler, the cylinder block would not be heated and cooled repeatedly.
The cooler was actually a large metal tank connected to the cylinder, and there was cold water inside. The switch of the cooler was controlled by a mechanism. When the valve was pushed to the top, the switch was opened, and the steam entered the cooler to be cooled into water. The switch was turned off when the valve reached the bottom. The steam had nowhere to escape and gathered in the cylinder, pushing the valve up again.
However, when he was making the cooler, he found that the cooler required a higher air pressure than the water spray cooling method. The leaking pipes could not gather such a high air pressure, so he had to find a way to plug the leaking places.
However, there was no high-temperature rubber in this day and age. After thinking about it, he could not think of anything to block the leaking pipe. He had no choice but to experiment with the softer materials available on the market. However, he had tried all kinds of textile products, but the results were not good. The silk that looked very smooth and soft was burned by the high-temperature steam, turning black and agglomerated. The material that was more resistant to high temperatures was linen, but the pores of the linen were larger and could not block the leaking steam.
After experimenting for several days, he still could not find a material that could stop the air leakage. Lin Feng was a little stumped. The principle of the Watt steam engine was simple, but the details were complicated. Even if a detail was not done well, it would not be able to drive the entire steam engine.
Copper or lead were softer and could withstand a temperature of several hundred degrees. Was he going to use copper and lead as the pipe joints? This was very troublesome to do.
A young blacksmith who had been transferred to make steam engines had been admiring Lin Feng's ability to make the Newcastle Steam Engine. At this moment, he saw the problem and interrupted,"General, if you soak the linen in oil for a day, the pores inside the linen will be blocked by the oil. It might be useful.”
He was stunned. He didn't think that there was such a way.
He patted the young blacksmith's head and followed his instructions. He wrapped the oil-soaked linen cloth around the threaded joint, then tightened the joint and restarted the steam engine.
This time, there was no air leakage on the pipe.
"That's a good suggestion. I'll reward you with ten taels of silver!"”
The young blacksmith earned ten taels of silver with just one sentence. He was overjoyed and smiled so widely that his mouth almost reached the back of his head.
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