TITLE: The Newcome atmospheric steam engine
NAME: G_ry Flament
COUNTRY: France
EMAIL: Gerard_Flament@compuserve.com
TOPIC: physics and maths
COPYRIGHT: I SUBMIT TO THE STANDARD RAYTRACING COMPETITION COPYRIGHT.
JPGFILE: newcomen.jpg
ZIPFILE: newcomen.zip
RENDERER USED: 
    povray 3.01

TOOLS USED: 
    Paint Shop Pro

RENDER TIME: 
    1h50

HARDWARE USED: 
    Pentium 100

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: 

The Newcomen engine is the first "steam" engine that had been a commercial
success. The engine was created in 1712 and a hundred of these engines were
built in Great Britain during the eighteenth century. The first purpose of this
machine was to pump water from the mines. This "steam" engine is actually an
atmospheric engine because it's the atmospheric pressure which does the work to
lift the water. The atmospheric pressure, which I have symbolised by a blue
genius, exerts a force  against the piston and this is transmited, thanks to
the trings and the beam, to the pump inside the mine shaft. When the piston has
reached the bottom of the cylinder, the steam tap is opened and the pressure of
the steam (symbolised by a red genius) makes the piston to lift. When the
piston is at the top, the steam tap is closed and some cold water is introduced
directly into the cylinder to condensate the steam, so a vaccum is created
inside, and since the force of the atmospheric pressure is no more balance, the
piston is pushed down, and so on. The engine was able to make 12 strokes a
minute, and with a piston of 7 inches (18 cm) of diameter it could lift 10
gallons (45 l) from  51 yards (46 m) of depth. At first the taps were turned
manually, but as soon as 1715 they were linked with the movement of the piston
so the machine could work automatically. At the end of the 18 th century James
Watt(1736-1819) made some great improvements to the machine, in particular he
invented a condenser separated from the engine, so the cylinder was no more
heated and then cooled useslessly. This leads him to invent the first actual
steam engine which was moved only by steam presure.
If you are interested in the history of steam engines and you read French, you
can visit the site http://imacwww.epfl.ch/HDC-ALOIS/HDC313.html from which I
have taken the drawing of the engine that I have put as an image map on the
wall. Newcomen engines could be outdoor or indoor as I saw on ancient drawings.
The building I built around is from my imagination.
 

DESCRIPTION OF HOW THIS IMAGE WAS CREATED: 

I created this image entirely by hand. I used Paint Shop Pro to create the
image_maps on the geniuses, but all the other letters are Povray objects. I
mainly used the texture furnished with Povray in the include file for the
metals and the woods. The main difficulty I had is to create the texture for
the arches of bricks of the windows.
The body of the genius are blobs but their tails are spirals made with cylinders
and spheres.

