著者

小林 学

出版者

日本科学史学会

雑誌

科学史研究. 第II期 (ISSN:00227692)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.49, no.254, pp.65-77, 2010-06-25

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Seikan Ishigai argued that the most critical innovation involving boilers was changing their shapes, for example from cylindrical to water-tube boilers. Poor material and processing technology made the development of the water-tube boiler difficult in the 19th century. Ishigai didn't pay enough attention to the material technology of boilers. In the late 1930's, H.W. Dickinson and E.C. Smith wrote a comprehensive history of the stationary and marine steam engine respectively. But they didn't pay proper attention to the relationship between engines and boilers. The author tries to explain the transition from cylindrical to water-tube boilers using steel for marine navigation. The popularization of thermodynamics among engineers and ship-owners stimulated the invention of the high-pressure marine steam engine. In the 1870's, Alexander Carnegie Kirk tried to make a water-tube boiler for the triple expansion engine. But it was too complex to put the water-tube boiler into practical use. Around the same time, William Siemens invented the open hearth steel process. In the 1880's, Kirk adopted cylindrical steel boilers and triple expansion engines. The practical application of the water-tube boilers required the invention of seamless steel tube. Understanding the transition from cylindrical to water-tube boilers alone isn't sufficient to understand the comprehensive history of the steam engine. Material and processing technology played a decisive role in the development of the marine boiler in that period.