Pneumatic Components And Their Uses Over The Years
The origins of pneumatic principles go back much farther than most people realize, with the ancient Greek mathematician Hero of Alexandria having written about various inventions of his that utilized steam or wind as a source of power in the first century. Although pneumatic equipment in the form of pneumatic components or pneumatic valves were not invented and used until much more recently, the fact remains that anything powered by air or gas is making use of pneumatic principles and that this had already happened more than 1800 years ago.
As with so many other inventions, pneumatics began as a form of scientific curiosity, with scientists first developing experiments that showcased the principles of pneumatics and its possibilities but no concrete applications. Hence Otto von Guericke’s invention of the vacuum pump in the 17th century and his experiment showing that if two copper hemispheres were placed together and the air inside of them pumped out, the resulting vacuum generated enough force to hold the hemispheres together. This gave scientists their first indication of the potential for vacuum-based transportation systems.
In the 19th century, capsule transportation was invented, which essentially involved a tube which generated a constant vacuum that would pull items placed at one to the other end. Capsule transportation technology was first implemented in Victorian England as a means of communication, transporting telegrams from one telegraph station to another much more quickly than any human runner could travel.
The Scottish engineer William Murdoch had previously suggested the application of pneumatics to the postal services, but it seems that he did no more than write about the possibilities, without having implemented them. John Wanamaker, an American merchant who also held the job of postmaster general of the United States Post Office, installed pneumatic tubes in the post offices and in department stores that could transport money from one section of a store to another.
And while it might sound like something from the future, pneumatic tubes that transported people were invented and actually built in 1867 by an American inventor named Alfred Beach. Beach invented and built the pneumatic subway line, and constructed a small-scale working version that could transport a few people in a capsule through a pneumatic tube. This amazing technology never gained widespread use, however, because Beach was unable to obtain the necessary permission to extend the pneumatic subway line.
Today, pneumatic technology is used in many factories and industrial plants where precision is required or where using mechanical motors to drive certain processes would simply require motors that are too unwieldy and inefficient. A pneumatic nail gun, for example, could be replaced by a nail gun that made use of a motor to drive the nail out with sufficient force, however such a tool would certainly be much heavier and bulkier than the pneumatic version. Pneumatic components such as pneumatic valves continue to be manufactured and used in a wide variety of equipment and will most probably continue to be used for many years to come.
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