Cylinder (engine) in the context of "Compound steam engine"

A piston is a component of reciprocating engines, reciprocating pumps, gas compressors, hydraulic cylinders and pneumatic cylinders, among other similar mechanisms. It is the moving component that is contained by a cylinder and is made gas-tight by piston rings. In an engine, its purpose is to transfer force from expanding gas in the cylinder to the crankshaft via a piston rod and/or connecting rod. In a pump, the function is reversed and force is transferred from the crankshaft to the piston for the purpose of compressing or ejecting the fluid in the cylinder. In some engines, the piston also acts as a valve by covering and uncovering ports in the cylinder.

The cylinder is the power-producing element of the steam engine powering a steam locomotive. The cylinder is made pressure-tight with end covers and a piston; a valve distributes the steam to the ends of the cylinder. Cylinders were initially cast iron, but later made of steel. The cylinder casting includes other features such as (in the case of Stephenson's Rocket) valve ports and mounting feet. The last big American locomotives incorporated the cylinders as part of huge one-piece steel castings that were the main frame of the locomotive. Renewable wearing surfaces were needed inside the cylinders and provided by cast-iron bushings.

The way the valve controlled the steam entering and leaving the cylinder was known as steam distribution and shown by the shape of the indicator diagram. What happened to the steam inside the cylinder was assessed separately from what happened in the boiler and how much friction the moving machinery had to cope with. This assessment was known as "engine performance" or "cylinder performance". The cylinder performance, together with the boiler and machinery performance, established the efficiency of the complete locomotive. The pressure of the steam in the cylinder was measured as the piston moved and the power moving the piston was calculated and known as cylinder power. The forces produced in the cylinder moved the train but were also damaging to the structure which held the cylinders in place. Bolted joints came loose, cylinder castings and frames cracked and reduced the availability of the locomotive.

James Watt FRS FRSE (/wɒt/; 30 January 1736 (19 January 1736 OS) – 25 August 1819) was a Scottish inventor, engineer and chemist who improved on Thomas Newcomen's 1712 Newcomen steam engine with his Watt steam engine in 1776, which was fundamental to the changes brought by the Industrial Revolution in both his native Great Britain and the rest of the world.

While working as an instrument maker at the University of Glasgow, Watt became interested in the technology of steam engines. At the time engineers such as John Smeaton were aware of the inefficiencies of Newcomen's engine and aimed to improve it. Watt's insight was to realise that contemporary engine designs wasted a great deal of energy by repeatedly cooling and reheating the cylinder. Watt introduced a design enhancement, the separate condenser, which avoided this waste of energy and radically improved the power, efficiency, and cost-effectiveness of steam engines. Eventually, he adapted his engine to produce rotary motion, greatly broadening its use beyond pumping water.

Honing is an abrasive machining process that produces a precision surface on a metal workpiece by scrubbing an abrasive grinding stone or grinding wheel against it along a controlled path. Honing is primarily used to improve the geometric form of a surface, but can also improve the surface finish.

Typical applications are the finishing of cylinders for internal combustion engines, air bearing spindles and gears. There are many types of hones, but all consist of one or more abrasive stones that are held under pressure against the surface they are working on.

In machining, boring is the process of enlarging a hole that has already been drilled (or cast) by means of a single-point cutting tool (or of a boring head containing several such tools), such as in boring a gun barrel or an engine cylinder. Boring is used to achieve greater accuracy of the diameter of a hole, and can be used to cut a tapered hole. Boring can be viewed as the internal-diameter counterpart to turning, which cuts external diameters.

There are various types of boring. The boring bar may be supported on both ends (which only works if the existing hole is a through hole), or it may be supported at one end (which works for both, through holes and blind holes). Lineboring (line boring, line-boring) implies the former. Backboring (back boring, back-boring) is the process of reaching through an existing hole and then boring on the "back" side of the workpiece (relative to the machine headstock).

A centrifugal governor is a specific type of governor with a feedback system that controls the speed of an engine by regulating the flow of fuel or working fluid, so as to maintain a near-constant speed. It uses the principle of proportional control.

A centrifugal governor was invented by Huygens in the seventeenth century, where it was used "for the regulation of windmills and water wheels". The devices are also known as "centrifugal regulators" and "fly-ball governors". In 1788, James Watt adapted one to control his steam engine, where it regulated the admission of steam into the engine's cylinders. This development proved so important that Watt is sometimes called the inventor. Centrifugal governors' widest use was on steam engines during the Steam Age in the 19th century. They are also found on stationary internal combustion engines, variously fueled turbines, and in some modern striking clocks.

In an internal combustion engine, the engine block is the structure that contains the cylinders and other components. The engine block in an early automotive engine consisted of just the cylinder block, to which a separate crankcase was attached. Modern engine blocks typically have the crankcase integrated with the cylinder block as a single component. Engine blocks often also include elements such as coolant passages and oil galleries.

The term "cylinder block" is often used interchangeably with "engine block". However, technically, the block of a modern engine (i.e., multiple cylinders integrated with another component) would be classified as a monobloc.

In a piston engine, the cylinder head sits above the cylinders, forming the roof of the combustion chamber. In sidevalve engines the head is a simple plate of metal containing the spark plugs and possibly heat dissipation fins. In more modern overhead valve and overhead camshaft engines, the head is a more complicated metal block that also contains the inlet and exhaust passages, and often coolant passages, valvetrain components, and fuel injectors.

In automotive engineering, an exhaust manifold collects the exhaust gases from multiple cylinders into one pipe. The word manifold comes from the Old English word manigfeald (from the Anglo-Saxon manig [many] and feald [fold]) and refers to the folding together of multiple inputs and outputs (in contrast, an inlet or intake manifold supplies air to the cylinders).

Exhaust manifolds are generally simple cast iron or stainless steel units which collect engine exhaust gas from multiple cylinders and deliver it to the exhaust pipe. For many engines, there are aftermarket tubular exhaust manifolds known as headers in American English, as extractor manifolds in British and Australian English, and simply as "tubular manifolds" in British English. These consist of individual exhaust headpipes for each cylinder, which then usually converge into one tube called a collector. Headers that do not have collectors are called zoomie headers.