Текст 6. First inventors

Thomas Newcomen (1663 – 1729) was an ironmonger by profession, but made a significant contribution to the Industrial Revolution with his invention of the atmospheric steam engine.

Thomas Newcomen was born in Dartmouth, Devon in 1663 and established himself as an ironmonger in his home town. Some of his biggest customers were Cornish tin mine owners, who faced considerable difficulties with flooding as mines became progressively deeper. The standard methods to remove the water – manual pumping or teams of horses hauling buckets on a rope – were slow and ex- pensive, and they sought an alternative.

Contemporary engines worked by using condensed steam to make a vacuum, but whereas Thomas Savery's pump of 1698 had just used the vacuum to pull the water up, Newcomen created his vacuum inside a cylinder and used it to pull down a piston. He then used a lever to transfer the force to the pump shaft that went down the mine: it was the first practical engine to use a piston in a cylinder. Cast- ing the cylinders and getting the pistons to fit was pushing the limit of existing technology, so Newcomen deliberately made the piston marginally smaller than the cylinder and sealed the gap with a ring of wet leather or rope. However, to avoid infringing Savery's patent Newcomen was forced to go into partnership with him.

Thomas Newcomen invented his steam engine in 1705 to pump water from English coal mines. This machine was developed by 1720 and remained in use for 50 years.

His first working engine was installed at a coalmine at Dudley Castle in Staffordshire in 1712. It had a cylinder 21 inches in diameter and nearly eight feet long, and it worked at twelve strokes a minute, raising ten gallons of water from a

depth of 156 feet; approximately 5.5 horse power. The engines were rugged and reliable and worked day and night, but were extremely inefficient.

Newcomen engines were extremely expensive but were nevertheless very successful. By the time Newcomen died on 5 August 1729 there were at least one hundred of his engines in Britain and across Europe.

In Russia there was another inventor: Ivan Polzunov (1728–1766)

In 1763 a self-taught man (самоучка), the son of a Russian soldier Ivan Pol- zunov (1728–1766) worked out the project of the first universal steam engine. The construction of the engine involved great difficulties due to lack (из-за недостатка) of necessary instruments, qualified assistants and in general lack of help and support. Polzunov had to do everything with his own hands. Polzunov’s engine had been working from August to November 10, 1766, when it was stopped and put out of operation because of a leak in the boilers. But Polzunov did not live to see the results of his work. He died in poverty on May 27, 1766.

Later, in the course of the industrial revolution in England, a number of in- ventors designed steam engines because the demand for these machines was ur- gent. A prominent place among these early inventors belongs to James Watt, an in- strument maker at the University of Glasgow who perfected Newcomen’s engine.

Текст 7. James Watt (1736–1819)

James Watt was born in Greenock on 18 January 1736. His father was a prosperous shipwright. Watt initially worked as a maker of mathematical instru- ments but soon began to become interested in steam engines. The first working steam engine had been patented in 1698 and by the time of Watt's birth, Newcomen engines were pumping water from mines all over the country.

James Watt worked as an instrument maker at the University of Glasgow. In around 1764 he was given a model Newcomen engine to repair. While repairing the model, Watt noticed the large waste of energy due to alternately heating the steam cylinder with steam and cooling it with injection water. He realized that this

loss could be reduced by keeping the cylinder as hot as possible with insulation. He understood that it was possible to use a separate condenser or water-cooled chamber which could be connected to the steam cylinder at the necessary time by a valve.

Later he closed the top of the steam cylinder with a cover or cylinder head, introduced steam alternately on both sides of the piston and thus made the engine double acting. He invented a governer to regulate the speed of the engine, a slide valve to control the admission, expansion and exhaust of the steam, a pump to re- move the air and condensate from the condenser, and, in fact, brought the steam engine to a fairly high state of development. His first patent in 1769 covered this device and other improvements on Newcomen's engine.

Watt's partner and backer was the inventor John Roebuck. In 1775, Roe- buck's interest was taken over by Matthew Boulton who owned an engineering works in Birmingham. Together he and Watt began to manufacture steam engines. Boulton & Watt became the most important engineering firm in the country, meet- ing considerable demand. Initially this came from Cornish mine owners, but ex- tended to paper, flour, cotton and iron mills, as well as distilleries, canals and wa- terworks. In 1785, Watt and Boulton were elected fellows of the Royal Society.

By 1790 Watt was a wealthy man and in 1800 he retired and devoted him- self entirely to research work. He patented several other important inventions in- cluding the rotary engine, the double-action engine and the steam indicator, which records the steam pressure inside the engine.

Watt died on 19 August 1819. A unit of measurement of electrical and me- chanical power – the watt – is named in his honour.