Updated: 9 Mar 2008
New:
The Alport engines
Water Engines: Page 2 |
Updated: 9 Mar 2008
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WESTGARTH AND SMEATON: 1765
According to A Textbook of Mechanical Engineering, by Wilfred J Lineham, (1912), the first hydraulic piston engines in England were introduced by Armstrong in 1838. However... a little research soon showed that this is quite wrong. Immediately below is shown the Westgarth-Smeaton engine below, built in 1765; this was probably the first water engine constructed in Great Britain. There is also the Mainwaring engine below, which must have been built before 1835, as it is described in The Engineer's and Mechanic's Encyclopaedia by Hebert, which was written in that year.
See Victorian Water Engines
for more on Armstrong and his innovations.
 | Left: The Westgarth-Smeaton water engine: 1765
Unfortunately the function of the various parts is none too clear. D is the engine and C is the pump, er, or it might be the other way round. There should be three pipes leading to the machine; the supply of water to power it, the exhaust water leaving the engine, and the delivery pipe for the water being lifted, but only two are visible. |
My best guess is that there are actually two pipes on the right, one behind the other, rather than one with a Y-junction at the bottom. One is the supply and the other the pump delivery. If that is the case, then C is the engine, with exhaust at B, and D is the pump. The water supply comes in via pipe A, is controlled by the plug-cock at Q, and then splits to feed the engine C and the pump D. N is an air-vessel to absorb pulsations in water delivery, and P is a similar vessel to cushion sudden changes in water demand as the engine valves work. The spidery arrangement to the left of the crankshaft may be some sort of valvegear for the engine section.
Note the connecting rod F, joining the beam L to the crank of the flywheel G; this is arranged so it can be disconnected in the middle. The side elevation below shows a big handle which must be for hand-pumping when the power water supply fails. As later parts of this page show, a flywheel is not essential to a water engine, but might be desirable to steady hand pumping.
It looks as though there might be another (closed) disconnector in rod E. I am by no means sure my interpretation of the parts is right- it is possible that C is the pump and D is the engine. If that's so, the second disconnector would be to uncouple the engine cylinder when hand pumping was in use.
 | Left: side elevation of the Westgarth-Smeaton water engine: 1765
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After the middle of the eighteenth century, power-driven pumps were in common use to drain the greater part of the mine systems below the level of the main drainage adits. (Adits are near-horizontal tunnels used for drainage by gravity- they can only drain that part of a mine above a valley floor) With exquisite irony, extensive use of water power for pumping meant that during droughts the water supply failed and the mines could flood. To try to prevent this extensive networks of waterways and dam ponds were built. Ice could also be a problem in the winter.
Steam was found to be very expensive to operate compared with hydraulic engines, which were almost as effective and much cheaper; in the era before railways coal was difficult to transport and was consequently expensive to use in areas distant from coal mines. There are several cases on record of Newcomen-type engines being installed but later abandoned because of prohibitive fuel costs. An example is the Wheal Rose mine in Cornwall, where an engine was installed in 1727, but the fuel costs were so high that the proprietors found it more economical to drive a 1.5 mile drainage adit and discontinue use of the engine. [Palmer}
A steam engine also required constant supervision from skilled men, and even given that a boiler explosion was always an interesting possibility. Surprisingly perhaps, the economic advantage of water engines persisted for many years, well into the railway era; for example, by 1872 the last of the steam engines at the Derwent lead mines in the Pennines had been replaced by a water pressure engine.
 | Left: An early water engine: pre-1835
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 | Left: Operational Details of The Mainwaring engine.
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 | Left: Operational Details of The Mainwaring engine.
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 | Left: Operational Details of The Mainwaring engine.
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 | Left: Another early water engine
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MR DICKSON'S PATENT WATER ENGINE: 1820
"The general appearance of the water engine, which has been invented by Mr Dickson, engineer of this town, much resembles the steam engine, there being several parts of the former so contrived, that water, when applied to it, works with the smoothness of an elastic fluid."
The bit about "collecting water on the top of their house" seems to imply that you could run a water-engine on rain-water. This is not likely to be very practical, even under extreme monsoon conditions. What the writer means about using a water-engine for exercise I cannot imagine.
MR DEANS' ENGINE: 1830
A Mr Deans of Hexham erected several water engines, which were described by Weisbach as "simple and efficient". He built a water engine at Wanlockhead, in Scotland, in 1830 or 31. It had a fall-bob (whatever that is) for working the valves. [Weisbach]
MORE ALPORT WATER ENGINES: 1842
Six water engines were erected at the Alport lead mines, near Bakewell in Derbyshire, to the design of Mr Darlington, the Alport mine engineer. They were constructed under a Mr John Taylor of the Butterly Iron Company. (According to SciMusLib John Taylor was the actual designer)Apparently they were similiar to Juncker's design. Date currently unclear; whether these engines replaced the Trevithick water engines because they were worn out or for some other reason is also obscure.
"The water comes in a pipe from the reservoir to the cylinder of the engine, in this, by its natural weight, corresponding to the pressure of the steam, and if there can be got a declivity from the cylinder, the suction of the water in the pipe leading from the cylinder corresponds to the condensation. Taking the force upon the piston of a common steam engine, at 18 Ibs upon every square inch, which is allowing 3 Ibs for pressure, and 15 Ibs for the condensation, a column of water 40 feet high will have the same force upon the piston, and although the whole height may lie above the cylinder, yet the power will be undiminished, if there should be 34 feet leading from the cylinder, and in that case, the pressure and suction will be the same as in a common steam engine. As the water engine can be accommodated to a fall of any height above it, and retain the power of the water for 34 feet perpendicular below where the cylinder is placed, (the fall both to or from the cylinder may be at any slope) it will work with a great power in some situations, where an overshot water wheel, even of the diameter of 30 feet, will have very little effect. Besides the benefit that may be derived from using the water engine on a large scale, the great convenience from the small space occupied, the freedom from damp, and the safety from explosions or fire, makes it an object to gentlemen, manufacturers, or others, having reservoirs or the means of collecting water on the top of their house, who wish a small power, for useful purposes, exercise, or amusement."
From Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine p689, 1820
 | Left: Alport engine
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