Classification of early Western mechanical control methods: Ancient Greece and Rome from 600 BC to 400 AD. This stage is called the classical cultural period. Some famous philosophers and scientists were born in ancient Greece. They made outstanding contributions to the development of ancient machinery. For example, scholar Hero's theory of five simple machines (levers, picks, pulleys, wheels and axles, and threads) that push heavy objects is still relevant today. During this period, woodworking tools were greatly improved. In addition to the commonly used sets of tools for woodworking such as axes, bow saws, bow drills, shovels and chisels, ball drills, claw hammers that can pull out iron nails, and two-man saws for logging were also developed. wait. Also in widespread use were long-axis lathes and foot lathes, used to make furniture and wheel spokes. The pedal lathe was used until the Middle Ages, laying the foundation for the development of modern lathes.
The stamping of coins was a major achievement in metal processing during this period and was the germ of modern mass production technology. But with the fall of the Roman Empire, this technique was lost for hundreds of years. Around the 1st century BC, the ancient Greeks made stone wheel mills based on hand mills. This was an advance in mechanics and machines. Around the same time, ancient Rome also developed donkey-pulled mills and similar stone-wheel mills.
The earliest application of gear trains in Europe was on the odometer of a chariot that recorded the mileage. The application of the lever principle in machinery has become more common at this time, such as pulleys and double pulleys used for lifting heavy objects on buildings. Carriages and chariots were also improved. The development of fluid machinery and power machinery is: firstly, the scope of use of orange-type water lifting tools and bucket-type waterwheels has been expanded; newly created fluid machinery includes turbine wheels and Norse water mills. The former relies on rotating a threaded rod to lift water from a low place to a high place. It was mainly used for water supply in Roman cities. The latter is used to grind grain and relies on water flow to push a square impeller to rotate. Its power is less than half a horsepower. The more powerful one is the Vitruvia water mill. The water wheel is driven by the water flowing down. The speed of the water mill can be adjusted by appropriately selecting the number of teeth of the large and small gears. Its power is about 3 horsepower, which was later increased to 50 horsepower, making it the most powerful prime mover at that time. Pressure pumps and suction pumps made of pistons and cylinders also developed during this period. The first one that appeared was the Philo pressure pump used to extinguish fires. Later there were suction pumps and pressure pumps to lift water from wells, as well as the double-barrel plunger pumps used by the Romans to extinguish fires. Thermal machinery appeared mainly as a plaything of Greek scholars and philosophers at this time. In the 1st century AD, Hero's steam ball (also called the Fengshen wheel) was an example of a steam ball with a steamer at the bottom to hold water, and a hollow ball connected to it by a branch pipe. The ball has two tangential nozzles in opposite directions. When a fire is put under the pot and the water in the ball boils and turns into steam and spurts out, if the generated jet reaction thrust is large enough, it will push the ball to rotate continuously. The steam ball is world-famous as the first device to convert steam pressure into mechanical power. It was perhaps the earliest device to apply the principle of jet reaction.
The period from 400 to 1750 in Europe belongs to the Middle Ages. The period before 1000 is the early Middle Ages, and the period from 1000 to 1500 is the late Middle Ages. The next 250 years are approaching the period of the Industrial Revolution. The early period lasted for about 600 years, and the development of mechanical technology came to a long standstill due to the decline of the classical culture of ancient Greece and Rome. In the later period, with the development of agriculture and handicrafts, Italy, France, Britain and other countries successively established universities to develop natural sciences and humanities and cultivate talents. At the same time, they absorbed the advanced science and technology of China, Arabia and the Islamic Empire at that time. Mechanical technology began Recovery and development. Western Europe began to use coal to smelt pig iron and create large castings. With the development of water turbines, there was enough power to drive large bellows made of leather to obtain higher melting temperatures. The number of workshops casting cannons and bells gradually increased, and the weight of castings gradually increased. In agriculture, plowshares equipped with curved concave moldboards were created to replace the pointed plowshares of Roman times. Hand drills also appeared during this period, and their construction showed that the principle of the crank-link mechanism had been used in machinery. In terms of processing machinery, lathes with large wheel discs appeared. In the 12th century and the second half of the 13th century, primitive clocks equipped with rope escapements and balance-style clocks appeared.
The balance clock was the first mechanical clock to be used in practical applications. It was equipped with hour and second hands, indicating that the clock gear system had further developed. It was widely used in European families in the 15th century.
Watches began to be manufactured 1,500 years ago. Important improvements were the use of coil springs instead of weights to generate power, and the addition of a ratchet mechanism. The success of mechanical clock creation was not only necessary for modern civilization, but also promoted the manufacturing technology of precision parts. Mechanical clocks were later comprehensively improved, such as the pendulum clock replacing the original balance clock. In 1676, Britain produced two precision clocks with different pendulum lengths for the Greenwich Observatory. The pocket watch uses a bimetal strip to solve the problem of temperature compensation of the balance wheel. In terms of fluid machinery, there are downstroke or upstroke water turbines (water mills), as well as wind mills and wind turbines. The horizontal downflow turbine was improved from early water mills and was used as power for mining, crushing, smelting and other operations by the 12th and 13th centuries. This kind of water turbine was improved and developed into a large upward water turbine in the 14th century, which was used to lift ore. During this period, Western Europe made great progress in the utilization of water power, and turbine workshops increased rapidly. From 1500 to 1750, mechanical technology developed extremely rapidly. Progress in materials is mainly reflected in the use of steel, especially pig iron, instead of wood to make machines, instruments and tools. At the same time, in order to solve the transportation problem in mining, around 1770, the British developed horse-drawn railcars. First wooden rails were used, and later they were replaced by railroad rails. Machine tools also achieved many achievements during this period: they manufactured hydraulic rolling machines and several machine tools, such as gear cutting machines, thread lathes, small pedal grinders, and polishing machines for grinding optical instrument lenses.
Water pumps also developed during this period. They were mainly used to solve the problems of mine drainage and urban water supply at that time, including mine drainage pumps, forward rotation pumps (1588) and centrifugal pumps (1689). At this time, Italy invented the hydraulic air compressor (commonly known as the water air box). It can be used as a blower for smelting steel, replacing the old Pihu. In 1759, large blowers appeared again. Wind-powered machinery such as wind mills also became more widely used and increased in number, with thousands of them in the UK alone, used for grinding flour, pumping water and sawing wood. In terms of power machinery, the mine steam pump manufactured by T. Savery in England in 1698 was known as the "Miner's Friend". It pioneered the use of steam to generate power. In 1705, T. Newcomen of England invented the atmospheric steam engine. Although it was very imperfect, it was the first steam engine that worked reliably. It was mainly used to lift water and had a power of up to 6 horsepower. This steam engine was used in 1750. It has been promoted in Europe before and later spread to the United States. During this period, engineering science was born in Europe. Many scientists, such as Newton, Galileo, Leibniz, Boyle and Hooke, etc., laid various theoretical foundations for the new science. To encourage invention, Italy and England established patent agencies in 1474 and 1561 respectively. Scientific societies were established in the 1760s, such as the Royal Society. Britain began publishing scientific seminar documents in 1665. France established the French Academy of Sciences around the same time. Russia and Germany also established the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Berlin Academy of Sciences in 1725 and 1770 respectively. These academic institutions broke through the restrictions of the church at that time to conduct free discussions and exchange academic opinions and experimental results, thus promoting the development of science, technology and mechanical engineering.