Hydraulic Power Network - History

History

Joseph Bramah, an inventor and locksmith living in London, registered a patent at the London Patent Office on 29 April 1812, which was principally about a provision of a public water supply network, but included a secondary concept for the provision of a high-pressure water main, which would enable workshops to operate machinery. The high-pressure water would be applied "to a variety of other useful purposes, to which the same has never before been so applied." Major components of the system were a ring main, into which a number of pumping stations would pump the water, with pressure being regulated by several air vessels or loaded pistons. Pressure relief valves would protect the system, which he believed could deliver water at a pressure of "a great plurality of atmospheres", and in concept, this was how later hydraulic power systems worked.

In Newcastle upon Tyne, a solicitor called William Armstrong, who had been experimenting with water-powered machines, was working for a firm of solicitors who were appointed to act on behalf of the Whittle Dene Water Company. The water company had been set up to supply Newcastle with drinking water, and Armstrong was appointed secretary at the first meeting of shareholders. Soon afterwards, he wrote to Newcastle Town Council, suggesting that the cranes on the quay should be converted to hydraulic power. He was required to carry out the work at his own expense, but would be rewarded if the conversion was a success. It was, and he set up the Newcastle Cranage Company, which received an order for the conversion of the other four cranes. Further work followed, with the engineer from Liverpool Docks visiting Newcastle and being impressed by a demonstration of the crane's versatility, given by the crane driver John Thorburn, known locally as "Hydraulic Jack".

While the Newcastle system ran on water from the public water supply, the crane installed by Armstrong at Burntisland was not located where such an option was possible, and so he built a 180-foot (55 m) tower, with a water tank at the top, which was filled by a 6 hp (4.5 kW) steam engine. At Elswick in Glasgow, charges by the Corporation Water Department for the water used persuaded the owners that the use of a steam-powered crane would be cheaper. Bramah's concept of "loaded pistons" was introduced in 1850, when the first hydraulic accumulator was installed as part of a scheme for cranes for the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway. A scheme for cranes at Paddington the following year specified an accumulator with a 10-inch (250 mm) piston and a stroke of 15 feet (4.6 m), which enabled pressures of 600 pounds per square inch (41 bar) to be achieved. Compared to the 80 psi (5.5 bar) of the Newcastle scheme, this increased pressure significantly reduced the volumes of water used. Cranes were not the only application, and hydraulic operation of the dock gates at Swansea reduced the operating time from 15 to two minutes, and the number of men required to operate them from twelve to four. Each of these schemes was for a single customer, and the application of hydraulic power more generally required a new model.