Reciprocating Parts of Steam Engines

Scientific American, Volume XXIV., No. 12, March 18, 1871 by Various, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here. Reciprocating Parts of Steam Engines.

Reciprocating Parts of Steam Engines.

Messrs. Editors:—In one of the late numbers of your journal, you publish a paper, read by Mr. Porter before some learned society in New York, on something about the possibility or practicability of running a steam engine at a high rate of speed, and claiming to give a scientific explanation of the why and wherefore. Now, scientifically, I know nothing about a steam engine; practically, I know how to stop and start one. Therefore, you will understand that what I say is not as coming from one who claims to be wise above what is written, but as simply being a statement of the case, as it appears to one who wants to learn, and takes this way to draw out the truth. A scientific theory, invested with all its sines, coefficients, and other paraphernalia, is a very pretty thing to look at, no doubt, for those who understand it, and, when properly applied, is invaluable; but when, as in this case, a practical question is to be decided, by the aid of a scientific demonstration, it will not do to throw aside the main elements of the problem, or any, in fact, of the minor points, no matter how trivial they may appear.

Mr. Porter's labors were strictly of a scientific nature. He starts out with the proposition that what he is about to explain is very simple, and very likely it is; but, for one, I can't see it, and I want more light. He says that it takes a certain number of pounds to overcome the inertia of the reciprocating parts of a certain weight, to give it a certain speed. What is inertia? He says, "we will not take into account the friction of parts." Now, my understanding of this point is, that friction is practically one of the main elements in the problem. How can we hope to obtain a correct solution when he rubs out one of the terms of the equation? What is friction doing all the time, while he is theoretically having his reciprocating parts storing up power and then giving it out again, just at the right time, and in the right quantity?

What an immense amount of iron has been wasted by being cast into fly wheels, when a fraction of the amount, if only put into cross heads, would render fly wheels unnecessary!

Mr. Porter stops short in his discussion. He should have added a table giving the proportionate length of stroke, weight of parts, and number of revolutions required to produce the effect of an engine running at a high speed, without the least fraction of inequality in the strain on the crank, and then the sun would have fairly risen in the "dawn of a new era for the steam engine." But, as it is so very simple, we can all figure it out for ourselves.

In the diagram Mr. Porter gives, to illustrate the travel of the piston, he wets his finger and draws it over another term in the equation (a method of elimination not taught by Hutton, Davies, and other mathematicians). It is a quick way, but is it correct? He says, "the distance traveled by the piston is the versed sine of an angle formed by a line from the center of the crank pin, in any part of its stroke to the center of the circle described by the crank pin, leaving out of the calculation the angular vibration of the connecting rod." What he means by the "angular vibration," I do not know. He is wrong in the statement. If he will think of it he will see it. If he meant to say that the piston's travel was measured by the versed sine of the angle formed by the connecting rod and the line of horizontal centers, he is wrong again, yet nearer the truth than before, just as the proportion between the length of the connecting rod and the half diameter of the circle described by the crank pin. This can quickly be seen by supposing the connecting rod to be detached, and allowed to fall down on the center line, at any part of the stroke. If he understood this (as no doubt he did), he should not ignore the facts.

What I am aiming at is this. When a man attempts to demonstrate a thing mathematically, he must take into his calculation everything essentially connected with the problem, just exactly as it is, and not as he would have it; otherwise, he cannot, by any possibility, attain a correct result. When he claims, as now, the practicability of running engines at a high speed, I think he is claiming too much. Build an engine of proper materials, make it strong, and fit everything as it should be, balance crank and fly wheel to a nicety, keep everything snugly in its place, and the terrors of a quick stroke vanish.

S. W. H.

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