The Beam Engine

#1

Post by glinscott » Wed, Jul 22, 2026, 2:16 PM UTC

Re: The Beam Engine

#2

Post by glinscott » Wed, Jul 22, 2026, 2:23 PM UTC

Author here. The beam engine created power from steam, and was a key part of the early Industrial Revolution. The article is a deep dive into the engine: how it works, the history behind it, and the engineering tradeoffs the builders faced. There are quite a few interactive figures that I hope make the concepts easier to see.

Re: The Beam Engine

#3

Post by monkmartinez » Wed, Jul 22, 2026, 2:31 PM UTC

glinscott wrote: post #2

Author here. The beam engine created power from steam, and was a key part of the early Industrial Revolution. The article is a deep dive into the engine: how it works, the history behind it, and the engineering tradeoffs the builders faced. There are quite a few interactive figures that I hope make the concepts easier to see.

Really cool site! Did you create the animations with videos of assemblies in a CAD package? Very noice!!!

Re: The Beam Engine

#4

Post by glinscott » Wed, Jul 22, 2026, 2:33 PM UTC

monkmartinez wrote: post #3

glinscott wrote: post #2

Author here. The beam engine created power from steam, and was a key part of the early Industrial Revolution. The article is a deep dive into the engine: how it works, the history behind it, and the engineering tradeoffs the builders faced. There are quite a few interactive figures that I hope make the concepts easier to see.

Really cool site! Did you create the animations with videos of assemblies in a CAD package? Very noice!!!

Thanks! Yes, some of the animations were created from this onshape model, which I rigged for motion: https://cad.onshape.com/documents/ebc9190f428cf30153c06148/w....

For other animations I put together a style guide and worked together with Fable to build them.

Re: The Beam Engine

#5

Post by frereubu » Thu, Jul 23, 2026, 9:00 PM UTC

For those in London who want to see one of these in the flesh, as it were, there's one in Tottenham: https://www.mbeam.org/

Re: The Beam Engine

#6

Post by constantlm » Thu, Jul 23, 2026, 9:03 PM UTC

Cool! If you're in New Zealand, there is a massive, two story Double Woolf beam engine at MOTAT museum in Auckland, along with an array of other steam driven engines that they run from time to time.

Re: The Beam Engine

#7

Post by delta_p_delta_x » Thu, Jul 23, 2026, 9:05 PM UTC

This reminds me a lot of https://ciechanow.ski, down to the body typeface. (IBM Plex Sans?) Also, the SI units everywhere here make me beam. Thank you :)

Re: The Beam Engine

#8

Post by glinscott » Thu, Jul 23, 2026, 9:08 PM UTC

delta_p_delta_x wrote: post #7

This reminds me a lot of https://ciechanow.ski , down to the body typeface. (IBM Plex Sans?) Also, the SI units everywhere here make me beam. Thank you :)

100% - his articles were a major inspiration, and first line in the credits: - Thanks to Bartosz Ciechanowski, whose exceptionally well written and designed articles inspired this one.

Glad you enjoyed the units :).

Re: The Beam Engine

#9

Post by a_shovel » Thu, Jul 23, 2026, 9:10 PM UTC

This is what finally made the idea behind Watt's condenser click for me.

Re: The Beam Engine

#10

Post by glinscott » Thu, Jul 23, 2026, 9:14 PM UTC

a_shovel wrote: post #9

This is what finally made the idea behind Watt's condenser click for me.

Awesome! It's pretty amazing all the concepts that need to come together for even these very old engines. I found I built a better understanding of what was going on as I built out the animations as well.