3600 x 2956 px | 30,5 x 25 cm | 12 x 9,9 inches | 300dpi
Aufnahmedatum:
15. Januar 2014
Weitere Informationen:
A beam engine is a type of steam engine where a pivoted overhead beam is used to apply the force from a vertical piston to a vertical connecting rod. This configuration, with the engine directly driving a pump, was first used by Thomas Newcomen around 1705 to remove water from mines in Cornwall. The efficiency of the engines was improved by engineers including James Watt who added a condenser, Jonathan Hornblower and Arthur Woolf who compounded the cylinders, and William McNaught (Glasgow) who devised a method of compounding an existing engine. Beam engines were first used to pump water out of mines or into canals, but could be used to pump water to supplement the flow for a waterwheel powering a mill. William McNaught was a steam engine engineer from Rochdale, Lancashire, England. McNaught was born in Manchester and apprenticed with a Mr Mills of Heywood, Bury. He then worked in London for John & Thomas Rennie before coming to Alexander Petrie & Son, around 1838. McNaught became chief designer and superintendent at James Petrie's and designed a cutoff gear for use on a stationary steam engine. This was patented by James Petrie in 1844. Petrie started to build mill engines in 1819, McNaught joined in 1838 and remained until 1858, when he started his own company. Before this patent, there were problems with slide valves which suffered excessive wear. The Petrie and McNaught cutoff valves were circular with sloping faces that allowed a variable cut-off; they could be easily connected to the governor that McNaught patented in 1850. In 1860 he left Petrie's to set up his own business building steam engines at the former Halstead's 'Union Foundry' at Wet Rake on Drake Street, Rochdale. He was so successful that by 1863 he had built the St George's Foundry on Crawford St. Rochdale. . When he retired in 1870, the firm was taken over by his sons John and William and became known as J&W McNaught. They later amalgamated with John Petrie becoming Petrie and McNaught.
