And the gas turbine itself (steam variant) had been created by the late 19th century.
Going from steam turbine to kerosene-fueled jet engine took some doing, but the fundamental concept had been validated. What needed to happen were improvements in fluid mechanics, in materials science, in machining, and in the iterative process of design, build, test, and refinement that simply takes build cycles.
Both the Germans and British were flying jet-powered aircraft by the end of WWII (though only the Germans flew these in combat IIRC). So again, the fundamental principles had been worked out, but iterating on design took more development.
I'm kicking around an ontology of technological mechanisms (or dynamics), which tries to detail what the specific bases of technological change are.
* The engine itself is an energy transformation system (converting fuel to thrust), and relies on numerous other energy transmission and transformation components (shafts, bearings, fan blades, turbine blades, actuators).
* It relies on fuel -- vast amounts of cheap liquid hydrocarbons, or similarly energy-dense fuels which are safe and convenient to handle.
* It requires a fundamental understanding of fluid dynamics -- systemic scientific knowledge.
* It requires materials capable of supporting operation under the conditions of a jet engine: very high RPM, high stress, high thermal load, high pressure load, resistance to material creep, resistance to vapour or cavitation damage, etc. Containment that is light but effective for the fan casing itself.
* High levels of precision in specification, machining, and inspection of components.
* Specific imaging and sensing capabilities (multiple x-ray, acoustic, and other sensing beyond mere human abilities) are required.
* Organisational structures capabile of designing, producing, operating, and maintaining highly technical equipment.
* Information recording, processing, and transmission of the technical requirements for building, operating, and maintaining highly technical equipment.
* The technical domain skills required to design, build, operate, and maintain HTE.
* Understandings and mitigation of adverse consequences of design and operations.
Vaclav Smil has a book dedicated to the two most significant prime movers of the 20th century, diesel engines and gas turbines, which might have a better breakdown of power output over time. In his earlier Energy in World History (1994), his plot of gas turbine outputs from about 1940 - 1990 increases from about 10^5 watts to 10^8 watts, with a distinct trailing off toward the last decade or two of the plot. (Steam turbines exceed these with maximum power in the gigawatt range.)
The gas turbine plot on a log-linear scale (log power, linear time) is largely linear through the 1970s, though detail is low. Sources aren't provided, I suspect this is Smil's own compilation.
Funny thing about steam engines is that we think about them as a thing of the past. But in reality steam engines just scaled up and turned into steam turbines, which are a backbone of society
Sure. But they never worked on airplanes, and they're only a distant ancestor to the jet and rocket engine. You don't see people investing in steam engines these days.
Thesis covers an earlier time frame than you want (up to 1800), but is this the kind of analysis you are after?
Would pull in development of precision machining, and various improvements in steel making I imagine. The paper below has a time line and details of 'start ups' involved in UK.
In twentieth century various people tried to adapt the steam turbine to rail use with varying success. Marine turbines dominated ship engines then for larger ships.
I think a carefully worded question on a UK railway forum might yield some results. I can just about remember steam locomotives clinging on in the early 60s (my mother hated them - put your washing out and watch the soot land...)
Well, in 1912, jet-engine-powered aircraft and atomic energy would not seem like far-fetched ideas. Certainly not to educated research engineers at GE, anyway. People routinely underestimate how technologically advanced the world was prior to WW1. Aerospace was advancing rapidly, and chemistry was quite well understood in 1912. A jet engine requires precision manufacturing but otherwise is not a complex idea. Radiation had already been studied for over a decade, and the concept of splitting an atom and harnessing the radiation to heat water would not seem like completely alien technology to people who understood chemistry.
Internal combustion piston engines weren't used much for blue water ships in the World Wars. Steam engines, both piston and turbine, were more common for power, cost, and efficiency reasons. ICEs were mostly used on smaller boats, as well as submarines.
ICEs were crucial for aviation during the World Wars. Even today we're barely able to build electric airplanes that can go anywhere.
It's really promising. I'm a bit surprised they're apparently considering a piston steam engine over a turbine; after all turbines superceded most other steam engines in boats, power plants, etc?
There were lots of physically huge reciprocating steam engines in power houses and pumping stations just before turbines came in. The power ratings were low by modern standards.
I imagine the vast majority of people equate steam engines with steam powered trains seen in cinema. Unlike those clanking piston based engines, modern turbines whir -> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHhNrQL7Azc
The steam turbine (invented by Hero of Alexandria in the 1st century BC, and improved dramatically since then by Parsons, among others) is a kind of steam engine. With regard to reciprocating steam engines, I don't know of any in current use either, but I would be surprised if there weren't at least a few niche uses.
You are certainly correct about high-pressure steam being essential. Did Watt's patent make it illegal to develop high-pressure steam engines, or just uneconomic?
If you include 'steam turbines' into the steam engine category then steam has never left. And even if you don't there are some interesting tricks that steam can do that only electrical comes close (such as all the torque at 0 RPM) which makes steam uniquely suitable for some purposes (very heavy offshore cranes for instance, deck catapults on flight decks for another).
Fun fact, there was so much technological momentum behind water power, that for a time the primary use of steam power was to pump water uphill to power a water wheel.
Fun fact: the early steam engines were abysmally inefficient, and were only adopted because the main use case was pumping water out of coal mines, so there was a large supply of fuel easily on hand.
1900s was a long time out. From 1812 to 1880 steamships required sail backups. Without a massive investment in the technology steam would have stayed unreliable and expensive.
Really what kickstarted the whole thing was pumping water from mines which didn’t need anything close to 24/7 operation and could thus handle the expensive, heavy, and unreliable nature of early steam engines.
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