全速前进:托马斯·纽科门的旅程to James Watt

在以技术为主题的2021年冬季版本中Lapham’s Quarterlymagazine, writer Simon Winchester makes note of what he calls “one demonstrable and inalienable fact: water heated to its boiling point transmutes into a gaseous state, steam, which occupies a volume fully 1700 times greater than its liquid origin”.

温彻斯特（WinchesterarticleBBC历史网站上描述了Watt“以他在蒸汽机技术方面的改进而闻名”。

温彻斯特补充说：“因此，工业革命完全归功于瓦特：开创性的设备不超过其发动机，其无数衍生物将诞生近两个世纪”。

Watt was an innovator who saw the flaws in previous steam-powered engines and came up with vital improvements. Before him, there had been several attempts at constructing an effective machine. One in particular, developed in Britain by Thomas Newcomen in the early 1700s, had been in widespread use driving pumps to remove water from mines, which was one of the biggest industrial challenges of the 18th century.

1763年，格拉斯哥大学（University of Glasgow）用作精密工具和仪器的制造商Watt被要求检查新的引擎。美国密歇根州立大学工程学院的副教授卡尔里拉说，这些都是“极低效率”的能量机器。

里拉说，到1765年，瓦特（Watt）提出了他的“突破性发展”，尽管“他花了11年的时间才在实践中看到该设备。”

Newcomen was born in Dartmouth, Britain, on 28 February 1664. His father was a merchant and ship owner, and Thomas became a blacksmith and ironworker.

A 2012article美国工程教育协会（ASEE）出版了《纽科森》在1712年建造了他的第一台成功的蒸汽机，“他的设计是从1712年到1820年代左右的大量建造，一直使用到1930年左右。”

The ASEE says Newcomen “was the first to develop a working steam engine based on the principles and designs of the engineers and scientists before him, notably a steam piston cylinder device demonstrated, but never commercialised, by Denis Papin”.papinwas a French inventor born on 22 August 1647.

Working with John Calley, a plumber and glazier by trade, Newcomen took seven years to develop a properly working engine. It was installed in 1712 at the Coneygree Coal Works in the West Midlands, England, pumping water from the mine.

ASEE说，发动机“尤其是其原始形式，非常效率低下，但非常有能力从以前无法实现的深度中抽出大量水”。据报道，一些新的发动机从地下300米的矿山中抽出。

里拉说，用于发展基于蒸汽的力量的基本原理之一是“水蒸气的凝结可以产生真空”。

他说，纽康（Newcomen）的机器“被称为“大气”发动机，因为所使用的最大蒸汽压力接近大气压力”。

ASEE解释说，发动机的基本配置“由三个主要部分组成：蒸汽活塞和圆柱体，摇摆束和往复式水泵。活塞和气缸通过凝结蒸汽提供了动力，从而在圆柱体中产生了真空。然后，活塞顶部的大气压力导致活塞移动。摇杆被用来将动力从活塞传递到泵，从而使水从矿山升起。”

Mark Csele, a professor at Niagara College in Ontario, Canada, who writes about the history of technology, describes one of the later Newcomen machines as having “an output power of approximately 14.9kW (2HP) and operated at 14 strokes per minute (and so the piston cycles once every four seconds – quite fast for the weight of the engine. It had a 28-inch (71cm) cylinder bore and a stroke of 72 inches (182cm).”

里拉说，当瓦特检查新科恩引擎时，他“认识到需要多少能量”来运行它。“蒸汽缸被加热并反复冷却，从而浪费能量以加热钢，并引起巨大的热应力。”

里拉说，瓦特的主要开发是为发动机添加单独的冷凝器。“像新Comen发动机一样，瓦特发动机是根据真空在活塞一侧产生的压力差的原理运行的，以将蒸汽活塞推向下方。但是，瓦特的蒸汽缸始终保持热。阀使蒸汽流入一个单独的冷凝器中，然后将冷凝物与使用空气泵的任何气体一起泵送。

“新Comen Engine是60年来最好的技术！一些新型发动机的使用时间更长，尽管它们与随后的瓦特发动机的差异显着。”

纽康（Newcomen）于1729年8月5日在伦敦去世。他的1712发动机的全面复制品在英国伯明翰附近的黑人乡村生活博物馆展出。