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In 1781 James Watt patented a way to turn the up-and-down push of a steam engine's piston into continuous rotation. His rotative engines let steam, rather than water or wind, drive factory machinery directly.

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Earlier steam engines, such as Thomas Newcomen's of 1712, were used mainly to pump water out of mines. Watt had already made the engine far more efficient with a separate condenser, a chamber where the steam was cooled outside the main cylinder so that the cylinder itself stayed hot. The obvious way to get rotation was a crank, but James Pickard had patented its use in 1780, so Watt's firm used a ‘sun and planet’ gear suggested by his employee William Murdoch, in which one gear wheel travels round another. With his business partner Matthew Boulton, Watt sold engines across Britain; by 1800 the firm had built about 500, more than half of them driving mill machinery. Mills and factories no longer had to stand beside a fast river and could be built almost anywhere.

Türkçe oku
James Watt, 1781'de buhar makinesindeki pistonun inip kalkışını kesintisiz bir dönme hareketine çeviren düzeneğin patentini aldı. Böylece fabrikalardaki tezgâhları su ya da rüzgâr yerine doğrudan buhar çalıştırabildi.

Thomas Newcomen'in 1712'de yaptığı makine gibi ilk buhar makineleri çoğunlukla madenlerdeki suyu boşaltmak için kullanılıyordu. Watt, makineyi daha önce ayrı bir yoğuşturucuyla çok daha verimli hâle getirmişti: Buhar ana silindirin dışındaki bir haznede soğutuluyor, böylece silindir hep sıcak kalıyordu. Dönme hareketi elde etmenin en kolay yolu krank kullanmaktı, ama James Pickard 1780'de bunun patentini almıştı. Bu yüzden Watt'ın şirketi, çalışanlarından William Murdoch'un önerdiği “güneş ve gezegen” dişlisini kullandı; bu düzenekte bir dişli çark ötekinin çevresinde döner. Watt, ortağı Matthew Boulton ile makinelerini bütün Britanya'ya sattı. Şirket 1800'e kadar yaklaşık 500 makine yapmıştı ve bunların yarısından fazlası fabrika tezgâhlarını çalıştırıyordu. Değirmenler ve fabrikalar artık hızlı akan bir nehrin kıyısına mahkûm değildi; hemen her yerde kurulabiliyordu.

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