When expanded through pistons or turbines, mechanical work is done. In the cycle, water is heated and transforms into steam within a boiler operating at a high pressure. The ideal thermodynamic cycle used to analyze this process is called the Rankine cycle. Non-combustion heat sources such as solar power, nuclear power or geothermal energy may be used. Steam engines are external combustion engines, where the working fluid is separate from the combustion products. The stationary steam engine was a key component of the Industrial Revolution, allowing factories to locate where water power was unavailable. Steam engines could also be applied to vehicles such as traction engines and the railway locomotives. By 1883, engines that could provide 10,000 hp had become feasible. The engines could be sited anywhere that water and coal or wood fuel could be obtained. Watt's ten-horsepower engines enabled a wide range of manufacturing machinery to be powered.
In 1781 James Watt patented a steam engine that produced continuous rotary motion. Thomas Newcomen's atmospheric engine was the first commercial true steam engine using a piston, and was used in 1712 for pumping in a mine. Savery's steam pump used condensing steam to create a vacuum and draw water into a chamber, and then applied pressurized steam to further pump the water. In 1698 Thomas Savery patented a steam pump that used steam in direct contact with the water being pumped.
The Spanish inventor Jerónimo de Ayanz y Beaumont patented in 1606 the first steam engine. Using boiling water to produce mechanical motion goes back over 2000 years, but early devices were not practical. A steam engine is a heat engine that performs mechanical work using steam as its working fluid.
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