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Collects steam at the top of the boiler (well above the water level) so that it can be fed to the engine via the main steam pipe, or dry pipe, and the regulator/throttle valve. [2] [5] [6]: 211–212 [3]: 26 Air pump / Air compressor Westinghouse pump (US+) Powered by steam, it compresses air for operating the train air brake system.
The steam then either travels directly along and down a steam pipe to the engine unit or may first pass into the wet header of a superheater, the role of the latter being to improve thermal efficiency and eliminate water droplets suspended in the "saturated steam", the state in which it leaves the boiler. On leaving the superheater, the steam ...
This will give evenly spaced exhausts when the engine is working compound. Two arrangements are also possible on a four-cylinder engine: all four cranks set at 90 degrees. With this arrangement the cylinders act in pairs, so there are four impulses per revolution, as with a two-cylinder engine. Most four-cylinder engines are of this type.
A steam engine is a heat engine that performs mechanical work using steam as its working fluid. The steam engine uses the force produced by steam pressure to push a piston back and forth inside a cylinder. This pushing force can be transformed by a connecting rod and crank into rotational force for work.
During the 1830s, the most popular valve drive for steam locomotives was known as gab motion in the United Kingdom and V-hook motion in the United States. [3] The gab motion incorporated two sets of eccentrics and rods for each cylinder; one eccentric was set to give forward and the other backwards motion to the engine and one or the other could accordingly engage with a pin driving the ...
With piston valves, the steam passages can be made shorter. This, particularly following the work of André Chapelon, reduces resistance to the flow of steam and improves efficiency; The usual locomotive valve gears such as Stephenson, Walschaerts, and Baker valve gear, can be used with either slide valves or piston valves.
A high-pressure steam locomotive is a steam locomotive with a boiler that operates at pressures well above what would be considered normal for other locomotives. Most locomotives operate with a steam pressure of 200 to 300 psi (1.38 to 2.07 MPa). [1] In the later years of steam, boiler pressures were typically 200 to 250 psi (1.38 to 1.72 MPa).
The steam locomotive, as commonly employed, has its pistons directly attached to cranks on the driving wheels; thus, there is no gearing, one revolution of the driving wheels is equivalent to one revolution of the crank and thus two power strokes per piston (steam locomotives are almost universally double-acting, unlike the more familiar internal combustion engine).