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How do Beam Engines work? Newcomen built the first commercially successful steam engine for pumping water out of mines in 1712. James Watt improved on the design 60-70 years later. And the Cornish Beam engine was a further refinement. This video carefully explains exactly how these three types of engine worked with the use of animations created by the narrator. It is interesting that the Newcomen engines were only 0.5% efficient at converting heat energy into mechanical energy, but coal was plentiful in coal mines. The Greek's developed a steam engine about 2000 years ago and it had similar efficiency as described in my web site . These animations show the water pump on the left “sucking“ water up, out of the mine. This relies on atmospheric pressure in the mine, pushing the water up. The weight of 32 feet of water in a vertical pipe creates a pressure equal to atmospheric pressure. This means that atmospheric pressure cannot push water up more than 32 feet of pipe. In practice the limit is much less than 32 feet. Since many mines are much deeper than that, they had to find an alternative method. So instead of sucking water up the pipe they placed the pump underground and pushed the water up instead. In the gold mines in Thames, New Zealand they pumped water more than 1000 feet (300m) by using three pumps at 100m, 200m, and 300m.
