The Steam Engine: Driving Force of the Industrial Revolution

Summary:

• The steam engine, invented by Thomas Savery and improved by Thomas Newcomen and James Watt, revolutionized power generation and transformed industries.
• Before the steam engine, factories relied on unreliable power sources such as horses, water, and wind, limiting their efficiency and location.
• Watt’s partnership with Mathew Boulton led to the development of an improved atmospheric engine, which set the stage for the Industrial Revolution.
• The steam engine’s application in transportation, including boats, trains, and road wagons, facilitated the rapid industrialization of Europe and the United States.

For years society has enjoyed tremendous technological innovations due to the rapid development of the Industrial Revolution. Though several events are responsible for the advancement of the Industrial Revolution, the one innovation that sits at the helm of the discussion is the steam engine.

The steam engine is a device that converts energy from steam into mechanical work with versatile applications. The development of the steam engine was a technological wonder that transformed the way factories and workers operated, leading to increased efficiency, reduced time, and tremendous power output.

Factories started moving from riverside and outdoor areas to indoor locations while workers enjoyed the economies of scale that accompanied the development. However, even though the steam engine brought with it enormous benefits, the traditional methods used before were not entirely abandoned.

Before the Steam Engine

Before the development of the first commercial steam engine, factories relied on horses, water, and wind as their primary source of power. Most factories were either situated near riversides or around areas with high wind intensity. 

Factories near the riverside often used the water from the river to drive their water wheels and power their equipment while others used a combination of horses and wind energy for their source of power. 

Though these power sources were getting the job done for most factories, they were often unreliable. Rivers could sometimes run into dry spells or freeze up due to weather conditions, while changes in wind intensity could spell doom for factories running on wind power.

The need for a better and more reliable power source arose when the British switched from wood to coal as the heating source for their homes. This switch increased the demand for coal, forcing miners to dig deeper in order to find more coal to meet the demand.

However, there was just one problem, water. Digging deeper meant that miners frequently encountered underground water sources. These water sources rushed into the mines, interrupting the digging process, and by the time they finally found coal, the mines would usually be over flooded.

To combat the flooding, the miners used an intricate system of pulleys pulled by horses to pump out water from the mines. While this proved functional at the time, the process was often tedious, slow, and costly because horses had to be fed and maintained. This newfound problem posed a significant challenge to miners, and the engineers had to revisit their drawing boards in search of a better solution.

The Invention of the Steam Engine

The steam engine as we know it today went through several stages of development and improvements before finally arriving at the model that ushered in the industrial revolution. It was initially invented to help miners pump water out of flooded mines.

And even though British Engineer Thomas Savery is often credited with inventing the steam engine, the knowledge of steam power has been available for decades and was first showcased through the Aeolipile.

The Aeolipile

The Aeolipile was a device invented by the Greek mathematician Hero Alexander during the first century. The device was a combination of a hollow sphere mounted on top of boiling water using a pair of tubes.

The tubes conveyed steam generated from the water to the sphere, which turned the sphere in a rotary motion upon contact. The exhausted steam was subsequently expelled through two tubes located on the sphere’s equator. 

Hero’s invention never had any practical applications, but it was the first time the world saw the power of steam. After Hero’s discovery, several other scientists built upon his work over the centuries, which finally led to the development of the steam engine by Thomas Savery.

Savery’s Engine (The fire engine)

In 1698, British Engineer Thomas Savery patented and developed the first commercial steam engine. In his words, “Engine by fire,” his engine would use fire to pump water out of mines. Savery’s engine worked by filling a tank with steam and then subsequently isolating the tank from the steam source. 

When the temperature in the steam-filled tank dropped due to isolation, the steam condensed, creating a vacuum in the tank. The vacuum was formed by the difference in volume between the liquid and gaseous phases of water.

Water from the mines rushed in to fill the vacuum, and although the vacuum system was successful, it could only work efficiently at shallow depths. The water drawn into the tank was then expelled or forced higher up to 80 feet using steam pressure.

Despite the fact that Savery’s engine was cheaper and more efficient than horses, it came at a considerable cost to life due to the frequent boiler explosions that occurred during operations. Moreover, Savery’s engine was designed for intermittent operations, so engineers had to work harder to search for an engine capable of working continuously.

Newcomen’s Atmospheric Engine

By 1712, Thomas Newcomen developed a solution to Savery’s engine, which was called the atmospheric engine. Newcomen’s engine was the first device capable of transmitting continuous power to a machine. 

His device worked by condensing steam under a piston which created a vacuum responsible for drawing water from below. Instead of using excessive steam pressure, Newcomen found a way to use steam pressure equal to 1 atmosphere to achieve continuous work, which is why it’s referred to as an atmospheric engine.

The atmospheric engine was a significant improvement to Savery’s engine. The British used it to draw water from wells, pump water from mines, and provide water to factories that operated with water wheels. 

The device went unchallenged for about 50 years, but its major flaw was that it consumed excessive steam to reheat the piston during each heating and cooling stroke. This process was extremely wasteful and inefficient, which led to the development of the Watt engine.

Watt’s Engine

In 1765, James Watt, a Scottish engineer working at the University Glasgow, was tasked with repairing a lab-scale model of the Newcomen’s engine. The small-scale models were effective, but the large-scale models consumed excessive steam and would usually stop working after a few strokes.

While studying the engine, Watt found that the problem was due to an undersized boiler that couldn’t provide enough steam for reheating the cylinder during its heating and cooling sessions. 

After a series of experiments, he discovered that introducing a separate condenser would solve the problem of excess steam consumption, allowing the cylinder to remain constantly hot. This discovery was groundbreaking, but he couldn’t implement it due to financial reasons.

Years went by, but Watt was still no closer to implementing his discovery into a fully working steam engine. Nevertheless, he continued his work on the machine while waiting for a windfall to come his way. 

It wasn’t until 1775, 10 years after his discovery, that he finally got his much-needed breakthrough in the form of a partnership with Mathew Boulton. Their partnership led to the birth of the Watt atmospheric engine, which is often called the Watt-Boulton engine.

Like Newcomen’s engine, Watt’s engine operated on the principle of pressure difference but differed in that the cylinder of Watt’s engine remained hot at all times. This improvement significantly increased the engine’s efficiency and made it acceptable across other factories aside from the mining sector.

Steam Engine and the Industrial Revolution 

The development of Watt’s atmospheric engine set the stage to usher in the Industrial Revolution. The Industrial Revolution was an era driven by the idea of replacing human labor with machines that were more efficient and cost-effective in the long run.

This era was facilitated by two crucial developments: Watt and Boulton’s engineering partnership and the subsequent development of Watt’s new and improved atmospheric engine. Watt’s engine allowed factories to be situated away from river heads as was done in the past. And by the beginning of the 19th century, the engine saw applications across different sectors, including mining, agriculture, and textile mills, where workers used it to power large machines.

Trevithick’s Development

Further improvements on the steam engine by Richard Trevithick in 1803 saw its application transcend into the transportation sector. Trevithick developed a device known as a high-pressure engine that used high-pressure steam to provide power for useful work.

His work facilitated the manufacture of smaller engines which were subsequently adapted to different modes of transportation. By the mid 19th century, boats, trains, and road wagons were all running on steam engines.

This improvement meant that crops could be transported from the production area to different parts of the world within a shorter timer frame. The integration of the steam locomotive in trains also effectively reduced the cost and time of transporting people, raw materials, and goods from the mining site to the factories and from the factories to the consumer market.

The Spread of the Industrial Revolution

Though the Industrial Revolution started in Britain, it didn’t take long before the rest of Europe and the United States caught up. In the United States, the steam engine fostered the era of westward expansion. It led to the development of railroads, steamboats, and various manufacturing companies responsible for transforming the US economy.

Another factor that led to the rapid industrialization of the world was partnerships. Watts’s partnership with Boulton was an engineering and engine-building partnership responsible for tackling various manufacturing problems and sharing solutions with other companies.

Soon enough, other firms followed suit and began researching and sharing information. The widespread collaboration between firms remarkably reduced the time it took to solve problems and develop equipment and goods needed to boost progress in society.

Moving forward

Moving along to the late 19th century, Engineers started developing ways of improving the steam engine’s efficiency. The steam engine was getting the job done, but its efficiency was only about 30 percent. 

By 1884, the Steam Turbine was invented, which eliminated the need for a crank and a flywheel while considerably increasing the power output and efficiency of steam power. Following the development of the Steam Turbine, the internal combustion engine was developed and later adopted as a better and efficient means of powering machines and running vehicles.

 The adoption of the internal combustion engine slowly began to phase out steam engines. By the middle of the 20th century, most factories and vehicles were powered by internal combustion engines.

Nowadays, even though steam engines as we know them are no longer in use in most parts of the world, steam power still has various applications in industries, especially in power generation. 

Geothermal and Nuclear plants use energy generated from underground sources and fission reactions respectively to produce superheated steam, which is used to turn steam turbines to generate electricity.

Regardless of the technological advancements that have happened over centuries, some companies have turned back to steam engines as a potential replacement for internal combustion engines in a bid to reduce air pollution.

Updated: March 14, 2024