Advantages and disadvantages of the steam engine

Already in the late 17th In the 19th century, Denis Papin and Thomas Savery developed the first test steam engines. These have not yet found any application.

Steam engine - designer James Watt not inventor

Newcomen developed the first usable steam engine in 1712 for pumping out water in a mine. However, it only had a low level of efficiency of less than one percent.

• Only James Watt, often wrongly named as the inventor of the steam engine, was able to significantly improve the efficiency with his design in 1769. The discovery of the utility of steam expansion resulted in massive machine use, known as the Industrial Revolution.
• For more than 200 years, these machines using steam shaped the image of industrial production plants and agriculture. Further developments were steam locomotives, steam ships and steam trucks. The most modern pressure-operated machines do their job in power plants. Turbines are used instead of the reciprocating piston design. In thermal power plants, steam turbines convert steam into rotary motion.
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Major disadvantages and advantages of the machine

• The steam turbines based on steam engine technology are also limited in terms of efficiency and possible uses and have numerous disadvantages. When manufacturing turbines, high accuracy is essential. Turbines are also high-speed runners with a high level of wear and tear. Disadvantages arise from the air slip. A certain percentage of the steam flows past unused.


Construction of a steam engine

Even if it already seems out of date for many purposes, the steam engine is still ...

• Steam technology is an overall simple construction. In developing countries, old steam locomotive technology is often used, also because it is not prone to failure and is easy to maintain. In addition, steam can be generated with any energy source.
• The advantages of the first steam engines can be seen in the drive of stationary and moving machines. A mechanically driven mine elevator or a machine tool, later steam locomotives and steam ships, paved the way for a "mobile society". The use of energy sources (wood, coal, oil) is too high and uneconomical compared to the efficiency achieved. A lot of evaporation energy is lost.
• Incidentally, steam locomotives are not limited to locomotives with firing. Because they are also available as so-called steam storage locomotives without fires. The steam is sufficient for six to eight hours of operation in the shunting and moving service.

Compared to a diesel locomotive, the steam storage locomotive works much more cost-effectively and with less emissions. Modern inventors hardly use these advantages. Because steam technology is too old for them.