Atmospheric engine
an early form of single-acting engine in which the power stroke is provided by atmospheric pressure acting upon a piston in an exhausted cylinder.
Historical Examples
The change of the “atmospheric engine” of Newcomen into the modern steam-engine was now completed in its essential details.
A History of the Growth of the Steam-Engine Robert H. Thurston
As we have seen, it was an atmospheric engine, in no sense a steam engine.
James Watt Andrew Carnegie
The essential features of the atmospheric engine were not new.
Stories of Invention Edward E. Hale
The cylinder was let down into the top of the boiler, and like Newcomen’s atmospheric engine had no cylinder cover.
Life of Richard Trevithick, Volume II (of 2) Francis Trevithick
This is the extent as far as I know of Savory’s claim to be the inventor of the atmospheric engine.
The Stoker’s Catechism W. J. Connor
This Piston T S, acts only one way, like that of an atmospheric engine, a thing now quite out of date!
A New Century of Inventions James White
On the other hand, the atmospheric engine was limited in its power only by the dimensions of its piston.
The Steam Engine Explained and Illustrated (Seventh Edition) Dionysius Lardner
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- Atmospheric pressure
the pressure exerted by the earth’s atmosphere at any given point, being the product of the mass of the atmospheric column of the unit area above the given point and of the gravitational acceleration at the given point. a value of standard or normal atmospheric pressure, equivalent to the pressure exerted by a column of […]
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a movement of atmospheric masses caused by the gravitational attraction of the sun and moon and by daily solar heating. Historical Examples This atmospheric tide is due, no doubt, to the same cause that produces the aqueous tides—the attraction of the moon. Memoirs of Service Afloat, During the War Between the States Raphael Semmes
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