Monday, March 20, 2017

Tandem Corliss engine driving electric light plant, 1907

Cyclopedia of Modern Shop Practice.  Chicago:  American Technical Society, 1907.

According to Wikipedia, "A Corliss steam engine (or Corliss engine) is a steam engine, fitted with rotary valves and with variable valve timing patented in 1849, invented by and named after the American engineer George Henry Corliss of Providence, Rhode Island."  There's an example at the London Science Museum that you can watch on YouTube.

Founded in 1886 in Milwaukee, in 1944 Nordberg designed and built the largest diesel engine that has ever been built in the United States. It was placed in a Victory ship.  As another interesting piece of history, Adolphus Busch, of Anheuser-Busch beer fame, had acquired the first American rights to the diesel engine in 1898.  He founded the Busch-Sulzer Diesel Engine Company in 1911, and Nordberg bought it in 1946.  Nordberg itself was bought and sold several times, finally by the Finns who closed the Milwaukee factory in 2004.

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