Aeolipile or Hero's Engine

[editor@glue-it.com]

Sometimes you get an idea in your head and mine was to make a Heron of Alexandria Steam Engine. Heron’s Aeolipile reaction steam engine from circa 10–70 AD is just an interesting toy. But maybe it inspired a few people on the 2000 year timeline of engines?

More details of the dome forming here: https://www.glue-it.com/gallery/hero...-steam-engine/

Anybody interested in plans?

[mklotz]

My version here...

The toilet steam engine

My (then young) daughters asked where I got the globe used as a boiler. I told them I took it out of the toilet. From then on, it was, for them, the toilet engine.

[editor@glue-it.com]

maybe "War of the Worlds" - what do you think?

[mklotz]

I love it ! Maybe a shorter three-legged alcohol burner that mirrors the shape under it. Mother "creature" and offspring ?

[editor@glue-it.com]

the final engine

what do you think?

[mklotz]

Heron would be proud to know that his invention is still produced and enjoyed two millenia later. You have a real talent for artistic presentation.

[editor@glue-it.com]

Heron would be proud to know that his invention is still produced and enjoyed two millenia later. You have a real talent for artistic presentation.

thank you, very kind

[hemmjo]

I like it!!

[editor@glue-it.com]

I've had a lot of interest in this little engine and so thought I would talk you through the design, hope this is of some interest and use

[mklotz]

More importantly, the Aeolipile is proof that Heron understood both the idea that steam can provide mechanical power and the notion of action/reaction evident in the device's jets. And all this in the first century AD.

He lived in Alexandria so there's a good chance his writings were in the library. Had the dumbass Romans not burned it, we might know today that he thought of the basic idea of a steam engine - steam pushing on a piston which then pushed on some mechanism to perform a task.