This is the first comprehensive history of the steam engine in fifty years. It follows the development of reciprocating steam engines, from their earliest forms to the beginning of the twentieth century when they were replaced by steam turbines.

A history of the creation and evolution of the mechanism that brought precision to the steam power and changed the world. Power without control is unusable power, and long after the invention of the steam engine, finding ways of applying that power to tasks where consistency was of paramount importance was the ‘Holy Grail’ which many steam engineers sought to find. It was the centrifugal governor which brought precision to the application of steam power, and its story can be traced back to seventeenth-century Holland and Christiaan Huygens’ development of both the pendulum clock and system controls for windmills, and governors are still at the heart of sophisticated machinery today—albeit electronic rather than mechanical. Without the centrifugal governor, precise control over the increasingly-complex machinery which has been developed over the past two centuries would not have been possible. It was the first device to give the engineman the control they needed. As machine speed increased, the governor had to evolve to keep pace with the demands for greater precision. Over a hundred British patents were applied for in the nineteenth century alone for ‘improvements’ in governor design, many of which could be fitted, or retro-fitted, to engines from every large manufacturer. Some enginemen, on taking up new appointments—their jobs depending on the precision and consistency of their engine’s operation—would even request that the governor be replaced with their preferred model. This book, the first to deal with the subject, tells the story of the evolution of the original ‘spinning-ball’ governor from its first appearance to the point where it became a small device entirely enclosed in a housing to keep it clean, and thus hidden from view. Praise for The Governor “A beautiful, well-produced book that any engineering-minded person with a passion for steam engines will be proud to own. It traces the story of attempts to get the speed of steam engines and other machinery under control. . . . The book is lavishly illustrated with many beautiful photographs of some of the author's favourite machines. . . . I found this a gloriously well-produced book which I devoured enthusiastically! I commend it to anyone with a serious interest in mechanical engineering.” —Richard Gibbon O.B.E. C.Eng F.I.Mech.E former Head of Engineering, National Railway Museum

This 1999 book examines the important advances in steam power in the fifteen years leading up to its publication.

The present simulation method has been developed at the Institute for Power Technology and Steam Generation (IVD) of the University of Stuttgart. It is being successfully employed in the analysis of processes involving large state changes such as start-ups, shut downs, malfunctions and failures in steam power generating unit, which is a large scale system consisting of several subsystems with distributed parameters, to which the steam generator also belongs. This research resulted from the increasing use of the once-through boiler, while simultaneously raising the steam parameters into the region of the supercritical state, using sliding pressure operation, combined processes with gas and steam turbines etc. The objective of this system simulation is to reduce losses of heat and condensate and to minimise unavoidable thermal stresses. The project was financed between 1979 and 1983 by the German Research Society (DFG) as part of the special research section Nr. 157 'Thermal power plants'. The Westfalen Power Company Inc. (VEW) sponsored the start-up code 'DYSTAR'. We would like to express our thanks for this support. The following members of the IVD were involved in this research project: Dr.-Ing. J. Kley Dipl.-Ing. G. Riemenschneider Dr.-Ing. A. Rolf Dipl.-Ing. U. Mayer Dipl.-lng. E. Dr.-lng. M. Klug Pfleger Dr.-Ing. G. Berndt Presently it is intended to use this non-linear, time-variant model of a power generating unit with a variable process and system struc ture as the basis for simple code versions, which one can employ e.g.

The most comprehensive technical treatments of the design and operation of large power steam turbines. Contents: General characteristics of power steam turbine operation Generic damages and failures of turbines in service and measures to prevent them Turbine transients and their technology Automated control and monitoring, informative support and training for the operational personnel Some design and operation experiences (cycling operation of large power stream turbines, American experience with 1300-MW series of supercritical steam turbines, modern large steam turbines with advanced USC steam conditions) List of symbols and abbreviations Conversion table for main units used.