General Category > Outside Links & Suggested Reading
Interactive article on Beam Engines
glinscott:
Hi,
I've been interested in steam engines for a long time. Recently, I was reading through Richard L Hills "Power from Steam", and "Power in the Industrial Revolution". The books are wonderful, but it's sometimes difficult to build an intuition for the concepts from static pictures. That led me to do a deep dive into the beam engine: how it works, the history behind it, and the engineering tradeoffs the builders faced. The article has quite a few interactive figures that I hope make the concepts easier to see.
Article: https://glinscott.github.io/beam-engine/
The engine is based on this great CAD model: https://grabcad.com/library/horizontal-beam-engine-1, which is in turn based on https://www.ajreeves.com/model-engineer-beam-engine-me-beam.html. I rigged it on OnShape, and wrote a custom exporter so the article could show the different mechanisms clearly.
I would be very grateful for any corrections or feedback.
Thanks,
Gary
Sanjay F:
I have just skim read this and looked at the pictures and animations; I'm totally blown away by your fantastic effort and am now getting a cup of tea and some biscuits and am going to read each every word top to bottom - thank you :ThumbsUp:
glinscott:
--- Quote from: Sanjay F on July 17, 2026, 07:24:41 pm ---I have just skim read this and looked at the pictures and animations; I'm totally blown away by your fantastic effort and am now getting a cup of tea and some biscuits and am going to read each every word top to bottom - thank you :ThumbsUp:
--- End quote ---
Thanks! Enjoy the tea and biscuits :).
Michael S.:
This is good information if you want to learn about the history of steam engines.
I can still clearly remember the demonstration here in Magdeburg of Otto von Guericke’s experiment with the hemispheres and horses.
Michael
Sanjay F:
--- Quote from: Michael S. on July 17, 2026, 09:17:15 pm ---This is good information if you want to learn about the history of steam engines.
I can still clearly remember the demonstration here in Magdeburg of Otto von Guericke’s experiment with the hemispheres and horses.
Michael
--- End quote ---
I always thought you were old, but didn't realise you were that old to remember the experiment! :Lol:
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