Steam Engine

A steam engine is an engine which performs mechanical work using steam as its driving force. Though very scarcely put to use today, steam engines were a revolutionary invention and it is considered as one of the greatest achievements of the modern world. 

♦ James Watt:

                           ♠ James Watt is credited as the inventor of Steam Engine, Thomas Savery and Thomas Newcomen were two inventors who designed the crude and very basic steam engine.

                           ♠ Thomas Savery, an English military engineer, was the first to patent the basic crude steam engine in 1698, based on the designs of Denis Papin's pressure cooker. 

           Thomas Newcomen's Steam Engine 

Thomas Newcomen later improved upon Savery's design. But it was Scotsman James Watt's improved design which helped in ushering a new era of Industrial Revolution.

Right side - Thomas Newcomen ; Left side -  Thomas Savery 

• James Watt coined the term, “ horsepower ” as a way to help explain how much work his steam engines could do for a potential buyer. One horsepower is equal to 746 Watts. 

• In 1765, James Watt, a professor in the University of Glasgow, was asked to work on improving the workability of Newcomen's designed steam engine. He attached a separate condenser connected to a cylinder by a value. This design became very popular as it was workable and thus, James Watt is regarded as the inventor of a commercially useful steam engine.

           Scotsman James Watt ( 1736 - 1819 )

♦ Working of a Steam Engine:

                                                    • A steam engine is equipped with a heating furnace and a water boiler. Coal is used to burn the furnace and give huge amount of heat. This heat turns the water in the boiler into steam. This steam after reaching high pressure is passed through pistons and turbines. When these pistons and turbines expand, they move, and along with it moves the shaft, which at one end is attached to the wheels. This way, the heat energy is converted into mechanical energy.

                                                   • Basically, a steam engine is able to harness the energy of steam to move machinery. It is a fairly clean source of energy. Steam engines were used to a great effect to run locomotives and steamships...

 “ Science Owes More To The Steam Engine Than The Steam Engine Owes To Science. ” 

                                      — Lawrence Henderson.   

Electric Motor

An Electric Motor is a device which turns or coverts electrical energy into mechanical energy.  

• Electric motors are found in many appliances,  ranging from small devices like electric wrist watch, pump, geyser, blower, mixer-juicer, to bigger appliances like fans, air conditioners,  coolers, industrial mills, etc.

• Electric motors of high efficiency were started being made from 1821. however, the first commercially successful motor are made in 1873. The working of an electric motor is based  on Faraday's law of induction.

♦ AC Motor By Nikola Tesla:

                                            ♠ Nikola Tesla made the first Alternating Current or AC Motor in the year, 1888. AC or Alternate Current Motor was an admirable step towards highly efficient and less heat generating motor advancement. Prior to that, in the year 1886, Frank Julián Sprague had made a DC or Direct Current Motor. The AC motors had an advantage over DC motors as the former provided high efficiency and could run most of the appliances without conversion.

                                            ♠ Today, only Alternating Current or AC motors are mostly used  because AC is the general form in which  electricity  is carried to homes, offices, businesses, industries, etc.

♦ Working of an Electric Motor:

                                                       ♣ A simple motor consists of six parts — Rotor, Commutator,  Brushes, Axle, Field Magnet and Power Supply.

                                                       ♣ The field  magnet is a permanent magnet. The wire coil is wrapped  around an armature. The wire coil attached to a source of current. When the electric current flows through the wire coil, a magnetic field develops  around the armature. Thus, the armature behaves  like an electromagnet. Now the field magnet  attracts and repels the magnetised armature. This  makes the armature move a full rotation. This  armature is attached with a shaft at one end with  the help of an axle. When the axle moves because  of repeated rotation of the armature, mechanical  energy is produced. Thus, the electrical energy is  converted into mechanical energy...  

   

      “  Everybody Recognizes That If You Can Make Very Efficient Electric Motors, You Can Make A Quantum Leap Forward. ”

                                         — James Dyson.