Talk:Resolution (beam engine)

Type

We have a Watt engine in the body replacing the atmospheric. The infobox has the opposite. I know it's an early Watt, but this is after the Smethwick (which is also has the type Watt). Widefox; talk 21:20, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

There is no such thing as a "Watt engine" (as a type). This is sheer WP:NEOLOGISM. As discussed before, Watt made several inventions. Simplistically, any engine incorporating these might be called a "Watt engine". More credibly, engines (and only engines, or at least engines with the same operating cycle) from the Lap Engine onwards might be called "Watt engines".

Resolution was a Newcomen atmospheric engine with Watt's first innovation of the separate condenser. It had none of Watt's later inventions. I don't know if it's a "Watt steam engine" or not because nowhere outside WP is that term defined. Andy Dingley (talk) 22:25, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

Simplistic (but not wrong) seems appropriate for a single field "type". If simplistic, a link helps. In {{Infobox locomotive}} (or elsewhere e.g. phone) there's more fields, so I'd be in favour of using more than one term and/or more fields to make it less simplistic. i.e. Watt, beam, (and secondary such as water returning).

By linking to Newcomen readers can't see any addition(s) this engine had over the one it replaced, so linking to Watt seems more useful as well as within the scope of that article. Put this way, no Newcomen engines were built with a separate condenser, however we define atmospheric or Watt. Patents were playing a big role - giving exclusivity to Watt (irrespective of modern analysis such as operating cycle etc).

Isn't the definition of a Watt engine best taken up at that page (although yes it spills over here in this field). If there's no definition in sources I'd agree that needs noting there, and then a link from here is even more useful. It's not a new phrase though, so NEOLOGISM seems strong. Agree it's a broad definition (probably circular based on "an engine designed by Watt"). A table of engines with features would help clarify.

It was single-acting, separate condenser like the previous "Watt engines". Is there any reason why Resolution is more of an atmospheric? The same argument applies to Old Bess, and the Smethwick Engine if not. On those we call them Watt. Widefox; talk 13:00, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

Wasn't Resolution's cylinder the same as all the other Watt engines? ...

• Watt: sealed from the atmosphere at both ends, strokes:
  • The power stroke using non-atmospheric pressures on both sides of the piston
    • 1. Steam (slightly) above atmospheric vs partial vacuum (power stroke)
    • 2. moving the steam to the other side of the piston (non-power stroke)

vs

• Newcomen: unsealed atmospheric on one side:
  • strokes:
    • 1. steam (slightly) above atmospheric vs atmosphere (i.e. similar pressure "non-power" stroke)
    • 2. then partial vacuum vs atmosphere (power stroke)

In a Watt neither side of the piston is at atmospheric, ie not an "atmospheric engine". Widefox; talk 10:01, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

I can only restate my original comment. Watt did not invent "a Watt engine", he invented a number of incremental improvements. The first of these was the separate condenser, applied to single-acting atmospheric engines with open-topped cylinders and (usually) chain arch heads to the beam. Resolution was of this type, so is the Newcomen Memorial Engine.

He focussed later, pressed by Boulton, to ignore mining drainage engines (as Smeaton, Woolf, Hornblower and Bull were having success with in Cornwall) in favour of a rotative engine that could be sold to the growing factories of the midlands. He required a number of innovations to achieve this: the enclosed double-acting cylinder, the bidirectional linkage of the parallel motion and either Pickard's crank or his own sun and planet gear. This is the Lap Engine.

Note also that the Cornish engine is something else. This is what happens when an application that only makes use of a single-acting power stroke is developed for efficiency. Despite having a working volume on both sides of the piston, the Cornish engine is still single-acting. Nor is any engine in Cornwall, or built in Cornwall, a "Cornish engine" - even though many of them were built there by Harvey's of Hayle. Andy Dingley (talk) 10:46, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for confirming it's an open atmospheric Andy. The earlier Old Bess and Smethwick are closed cylinder, so it stands out. Still, an atmospheric with an external condenser makes it a different type from a Newcomen atmospheric as the cylinder doesn't have the same hot/cold cycle. Newcomen atmospheric is narrowly defined, and Watt broadly. I'd personally favour "Watt atmospheric beam engine" or "Watt atmospheric beam engine" and clarifying there (with a table of examples to illustrate). Newcomen atmospheric engine#Successor has "In the Watt steam engine, condensation took place in a separate container, attached to the steam cylinder via a pipe. ", so we're currently linking to that article but it matches the description of the successor. A better place for linking and clarifying is in the broader Watt steam engine, not Newcomen atmospheric engine. Widefox; talk 11:37, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

About the other points, so that makes at least three major engine differences ("operating cycles"?) that Watt used (just concentrating on the cylinder): 1. Atmospheric (external condenser), 2. single-acting (near atmospheric), 3. double-acting. Any more?

Re Cornish - caveat it appears to need expert help (just like at Watt steam engine) which I'm not: the article looks like it needs to disambiguate Cornish-type / Cornish-built (per skimming the talk page and what I understand of above). The cycle seems a higher-pressure 2. - which I guess makes it not a 2. at all. A {{incoherent}} may help warn. Maybe both would be helped with an {{expert}} tag on them Andy until they are clarified? Widefox; talk 13:39, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

Location

The article states that the engine was located to pump water back to the Upper Furnace Pool, and explicitly mentions that it was not used to fill the New Pool. However, the accompanying photograph showing the "approximate location" is located at the upper end of the New Pool, which seems to contradicts this. The location is not very well constrained in the text, but can it at least be pinned down well enough from one source or another for a more appropriate photo to be found? --160.5.141.54 (talk) 08:58, 17 April 2018 (UTC)

The location is given pretty well by the maps in the Industrial Archaeology Review article [1] or the Shropshire GIS [2] (if you can work it!). There are more images on Commons now, so it might be possible to find one that's nearer. Certainly that's not the best photo to show the location. Andy Dingley (talk) 09:46, 17 April 2018 (UTC)

• I've updated the photo to the nearest publicly-accessible location. The houses illustrated are named 'Engine Row' [3]. This is about 50 yards West of the previous photo, also somewhat higher up the side of the valley (the Armco barrier on the side of School Road is needed!)

Sources vary as to whether the engine stood behind the site of the houses (and so the houses were probably built after its demolition), or if it stood further to the West of them, so they might date from after it fell from use, but was still standing. Andy Dingley (talk) 18:05, 26 November 2018 (UTC)