Watt's Steam Engine
A small model of a steam engine as designed by James Watt, around 1800. The engine is of the "beam" or "balancier" pattern.
The model features all the important elements:
- a steam cylinder with attached sliding valve
- the air pump to keep the condenser evacuated
- a small feeder pump, to provide fresh water to the boiler
- the piston rod is guided in its linear motion by Watt's parallelogram
- the to-and-fro motion of the piston is tranferred via a massive wooden beam to the crankshaft
- there it is converted into rotary motion by Watt's planetary motion gear
- the speed governor acts upon the steam valve, to keep the engine speed constant
The steam engine was crucial to industrialization, by providing nearly limitless power to industry. It is connected to many branches of science: not only engineering and technology, but also thermodynamics, social science, history, and others.
The model consists of 215 parts. The motions are a beauty to behold.
Mr_Kleinstein
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I agree to the LEGO Ideas Terms of Service, I can confirm/prove my submission is made up of between 50 and 1,000 elements.
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