Development After Watt
The development of machine tools, such as the lathe, planing and shaping machines powered by these engines, enabled all the metal parts of the engines to be easily and accurately cut and in turn made it possible to build larger and more powerful engines.
In the early 19th century after the expiration of Watt's patent, the steam engine underwent great increases in power due to the use of higher pressure steam which Watt had always avoided because of the danger of exploding boilers, which were in a very primitive state of development.
Until about 1800, the most common pattern of steam engine was the beam engine, built as an integral part of a stone or brick engine-house, but soon various patterns of self-contained portative engines (readily removable, but not on wheels) were developed, such as the table engine. Further decrease in size due to use of higher pressure came towards the end of the 18th Century when the Cornish engineer, Richard Trevithick and the American engineer, Oliver Evans, independently began to construct higher pressure (about 40 pounds per square inch (2.7 atm)) engines which exhausted into the atmosphere. This allowed an engine and boiler to be combined into a single unit compact and light enough to be used on mobile road and rail locomotives and steam boats.
Trevithick was a man of versatile talents, and his activities were not confined to small applications. Trevithick developed his large Cornish boiler with an internal flue from about 1812. These were also employed when upgrading a number of Watt pumping engines, greatly increasing power and productivity; this led to the highly efficient large Cornish engines that continued to be built right up to the end of the 19th Century.
Read more about this topic: Steam Power During The Industrial Revolution
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