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Cornish engine
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Cornish engine
A Cornish engine is a type of steam engine developed in Cornwall, England, mainly for pumping water from a mine. It is a form of beam engine that uses steam at a higher pressure than the earlier engines designed by James Watt. The engines were also used for powering man engines to assist the underground miners' journeys to and from their working levels, for winching materials into and out of the mine, and for powering on-site ore stamping machinery.
Cornwall has long had tin, copper and other metal ore mines, but if mining is to take place at greater depths, a means to dewater the mine must be found. Lifting the weight of water up from the depths requires great amounts of work input. This energy may be weakly supplied by horse power or a waterwheel to operate pumps, but horses have limited power and waterwheels need a suitable stream of water. Accordingly, the innovation of coal-fired steam power to work pumps was more versatile and effective to the mining industry than primitive means.
The mine Wheal Vor had one of the earliest Newcomen engines (in-cylinder condensing engines, utilising sub-atmospheric pressure) before 1714, but Cornwall has no coalfield and coal imported from south Wales was expensive. The cost of fuel for pumping was thus a significant part of mining costs. Later, many of the more efficient early Watt engines (using an external condenser) were erected by Boulton and Watt in Cornwall. They charged the mine owners a royalty based on a share of the fuel saving. The fuel efficiency of an engine was measured by its "duty", expressed in the work (in foot-pounds) generated by a bushel (94 pounds (43 kg)) of coal. Early Watt engines had a duty of 20 million, and later ones over 30 million.
The principal advantage of the Cornish engine was its increased efficiency, accomplished by making more economical use of higher-pressure steam. At the time, improvements in efficiency were important in Cornwall because of the high cost of coal; there are no coal fields in Cornwall and all the coal used had to be brought in from outside the county.[citation needed]
Increasing the boiler pressure above the very low, virtually atmospheric pressure steam used by James Watt was an essential element of the improvement in efficiency of the Cornish engine. Simply increasing the boiler pressure would have made an engine more powerful without increasing its efficiency. The key advance was allowing the steam to expand in the cylinder. While James Watt had conceived of the idea of allowing expansive working of steam—and included it in his 1782 patent, he realized that the low steam pressure of his application made the improvement in efficiency negligible, and so did not pursue it.[citation needed]
In a Watt engine, steam is admitted throughout the piston's power stroke. At the end of the stroke, the steam is exhausted, and any remaining energy is wasted in the condenser, where the steam is cooled back to water.
In a Cornish engine, by contrast, the intake valve is shut off midway through the power stroke, allowing the steam already in that part of the cylinder to expand through the rest of the stroke to a lower pressure. This results in the capture of a greater proportion of its energy, and less heat being lost to the condenser, than in a Watt engine.[citation needed]
Other characteristics include insulation of steam lines and the cylinder, and steam jacketing the cylinder, both of which had previously been used by Watt.
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Cornish engine
A Cornish engine is a type of steam engine developed in Cornwall, England, mainly for pumping water from a mine. It is a form of beam engine that uses steam at a higher pressure than the earlier engines designed by James Watt. The engines were also used for powering man engines to assist the underground miners' journeys to and from their working levels, for winching materials into and out of the mine, and for powering on-site ore stamping machinery.
Cornwall has long had tin, copper and other metal ore mines, but if mining is to take place at greater depths, a means to dewater the mine must be found. Lifting the weight of water up from the depths requires great amounts of work input. This energy may be weakly supplied by horse power or a waterwheel to operate pumps, but horses have limited power and waterwheels need a suitable stream of water. Accordingly, the innovation of coal-fired steam power to work pumps was more versatile and effective to the mining industry than primitive means.
The mine Wheal Vor had one of the earliest Newcomen engines (in-cylinder condensing engines, utilising sub-atmospheric pressure) before 1714, but Cornwall has no coalfield and coal imported from south Wales was expensive. The cost of fuel for pumping was thus a significant part of mining costs. Later, many of the more efficient early Watt engines (using an external condenser) were erected by Boulton and Watt in Cornwall. They charged the mine owners a royalty based on a share of the fuel saving. The fuel efficiency of an engine was measured by its "duty", expressed in the work (in foot-pounds) generated by a bushel (94 pounds (43 kg)) of coal. Early Watt engines had a duty of 20 million, and later ones over 30 million.
The principal advantage of the Cornish engine was its increased efficiency, accomplished by making more economical use of higher-pressure steam. At the time, improvements in efficiency were important in Cornwall because of the high cost of coal; there are no coal fields in Cornwall and all the coal used had to be brought in from outside the county.[citation needed]
Increasing the boiler pressure above the very low, virtually atmospheric pressure steam used by James Watt was an essential element of the improvement in efficiency of the Cornish engine. Simply increasing the boiler pressure would have made an engine more powerful without increasing its efficiency. The key advance was allowing the steam to expand in the cylinder. While James Watt had conceived of the idea of allowing expansive working of steam—and included it in his 1782 patent, he realized that the low steam pressure of his application made the improvement in efficiency negligible, and so did not pursue it.[citation needed]
In a Watt engine, steam is admitted throughout the piston's power stroke. At the end of the stroke, the steam is exhausted, and any remaining energy is wasted in the condenser, where the steam is cooled back to water.
In a Cornish engine, by contrast, the intake valve is shut off midway through the power stroke, allowing the steam already in that part of the cylinder to expand through the rest of the stroke to a lower pressure. This results in the capture of a greater proportion of its energy, and less heat being lost to the condenser, than in a Watt engine.[citation needed]
Other characteristics include insulation of steam lines and the cylinder, and steam jacketing the cylinder, both of which had previously been used by Watt.
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