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steam engine
steam engine machine for converting heat energy into mechanical energy using steam as a medium, or working fluid. When water is converted into steam it expands, its volume increasing about 1,600 times. The force produced by the conversion is the basis of all steam engines. Steam engines operate by ...
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compressor
compressor machine that decreases the volume of air or other gas by the application of pressure. Compressor types range from the simple hand pump and the piston-equipped compressor used to inflate tires to machines that use a rotating, bladed element to achieve compression. The four basic types o...
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rotary engine
rotary engine internal-combustion engine whose cycle is similar to that of a piston engine, but which produces rotary motion directly without any conversion from reciprocating motion. A major problem associated with engines of this type is preventing the leakage of combustion gases. The only type o...
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Walter Piston
Walter Piston 1894-1976, American composer and teacher, b. Rockland, Maine. Piston studied at Harvard and with Nadia Boulanger in Paris; he joined the faculty of Harvard in 1926. He became a Guggenheim Fellow in 1934. Piston was a neoclassicist composer, using traditional forms with sure technique ...
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internal-combustion engine
internal-combustion engine one in which combustion of the fuel takes place in a confined space, producing expanding gases that are used directly to provide mechanical power. Such engines are classified as reciprocating or rotary, spark ignition or compression ignition, and two-stroke or four-stroke...
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diesel engine
diesel engine type of internal-combustion engine invented by the German engineer Rudolf Diesel and patented by him in 1892. Although his engine was designed to use coal dust as fuel, the diesel engine now burns low-cost fuel oil.
The diesel engine does not require a large water supply or a l...
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concertina
concertina , musical instrument whose tone is produced by free reeds. It was invented by Sir Charles Wheatstone in 1829. It is a chromatic instrument similar to the accordion , but its bellows are attached to hexagonal blocks having handles and buttons (finger pistons), and it is smaller. It is mai...
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flywheel
flywheel heavy metal wheel attached to a drive shaft, having most of its weight concentrated at the circumference. Such a wheel resists changes in speed and helps steady the rotation of the shaft where a power source such as a piston engine exerts an uneven torque on the shaft or where the load is ...
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pump
pump device to lift, transfer, or increase the pressure of a fluid (gas or liquid) or to create a vacuum in an enclosed space by the removal of a gas (see vacuum pumps under vacuum ). The centrifugal pump, the most common kind, consists basically of a rotating device, called an impeller, inside a ...
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brake
brake in technology, device to slow or stop the motion of a mechanism or vehicle.
Types
Friction Brakes
Friction brakes, the most common kind, operate on the principle that friction can be used to convert the mechanical energy of a moving object into heat energy, which is absorbed by...
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