著者

小林 学

出版者

日本科学史学会

雑誌

科学史研究 (ISSN:21887535)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.41, no.221, pp.14-25, 2002 (Released:2021-08-16)

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The author discusses the relation between material technology and technology development. As a case study, The author selects steam boiler because the influence of material is especially remarkable and the development process has been clear. The low-pressure steam engine's boiler Materials had changed from copper to Wrought iron. This change hadn't necessarily taken place technological merits. This had taken place cost and ease of acquisition. When development of High-pressure steam engine began in 1800, Cylindrical Boiler was developed so that the boiler could deal with High-pressure steam safety and could have more heating surface. However, it was difficult for steam boilers to resist high-pressure steam at 19th century. Many Engineers required the material to have high tensile strength and corrosion resistance so that they might prevent steam-boiler explosions. Thus, Material Technology is important for development of steam boiler. Nevertheless, few studied how about material developments influenced developments of steam boiler. William Fairbairn, Daniel Adamson, and Henry Bessemer made a great contribution to the improvement of Steam Pressure-resistant in boilers. The author shows as follow, Firstly new material didn't have to substitute old one because it's impossible to make new materials into the form to work very well. Secondary the changing of boiler type is major; the change of materials is secondary. One boiler types gradually was improved the material technology. However, the change of types of boilers occurred when one type couldn't satisfy the demand in power and thermal efficiency. Thirdly, it's important for the development of one steam boiler, that it changed the material technology. But at all, we also found another tending, it was neglected till now. Because one specific works restricted machines and mechanism early in steam boiler development. For this reason, the factor of materials is most important, but materials problem was solved lately.