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A steam locomotive from East Germany. This class of engine was built in 1942–1950 and operated until 1988. A steam engine is a heat engine that performs mechanical work using steam as its working fluid. The steam engine uses the force produced by steam pressure to push a piston back and forth inside a cylinder.
Advanced steam technology (sometimes known as modern steam) reflects an approach to the technical development of the steam engine intended for a wider variety of applications than has recently been the case. Particular attention has been given to endemic problems that led to the demise of steam power in small- to medium-scale commercial ...
The Watt steam engine design was an invention of James Watt that became synonymous with steam engines during the Industrial Revolution, and it was many years before significantly new designs began to replace the basic Watt design. The first steam engines, introduced by Thomas Newcomen in 1712, were of the "atmospheric" design.
The first steam engine to be applied industrially was the "fire-engine" or "Miner's Friend", designed by Thomas Savery in 1698. This was a pistonless steam pump, similar to the one developed by Worcester. Savery made two key contributions that greatly improved the practicality of the design.
Timeline of steam power. Steam power developed slowly over a period of several hundred years, progressing through expensive and fairly limited devices in the early 17th century, to useful pumps for mining in 1700, and then to Watt's improved steam engine designs in the late 18th century. It is these later designs, introduced just when the need ...
Despite the advent of electric and diesel locomotives in the mid-20th century, steam locomotives continued to be used and constructed into the 21st century. Steam locomotives constructed in the 21st century fall into two broad categories: those that use advanced steam technology to be commercially competitive with diesels; and those built to ...
James Watt's later engine design was an improved version of the Newcomen engine that roughly doubled fuel efficiency. Many atmospheric engines were converted to the Watt design, for a price which was based on a fraction of the fuel-savings. As a result, Watt is today better known than Newcomen in relation to the origin of the steam engine.
High pressure steam enters, red, and exhausts, yellow. The uniflow type of steam engine uses steam that flows in one direction only in each half of the cylinder. Thermal efficiency is increased by having a temperature gradient along the cylinder. Steam always enters at the hot ends of the cylinder and exhausts through ports at the cooler centre.