<P> The first safe and successful steam power plant was introduced by Thomas Newcomen in 1712 . Newcomen apprently conceived his machine quite independently of Savery , but as the latter had taken out a very wide - ranging patent , Newcomen and his associates were obliged to come to an arrangement with him , marketing the engine until 1733 under a joint patent . Newcomen 's engine appears to have been based on Papin 's experiments carried out 30 years earlier , and employed a piston and cylinder , one end of which was open to the atmosphere above the piston . Steam just above atmospheric pressure ( all that the boiler could stand ) was introduced into the lower half of the cylinder beneath the piston during the gravity - induced upstroke ; the steam was then condensed by a jet of cold water injected into the steam space to produce a partial vacuum ; the pressure differential between the atmosphere and the vacuum on either side of the piston displaced it downwards into the cylinder , raising the opposite end of a rocking beam to which was attached a gang of gravity - actuated reciprocating force pumps housed in the mineshaft . The engine 's downward power stroke raised the pump , priming it and preparing the pumping stroke . At first the phases were controlled by hand , but within ten years an escapement mechanism had been devised worked by of a vertical plug tree suspended from the rocking beam which rendered the engine self - acting . </P>
<P> The first safe and successful steam power plant was introduced by Thomas Newcomen in 1712 . Newcomen apprently conceived his machine quite independently of Savery , but as the latter had taken out a very wide - ranging patent , Newcomen and his associates were obliged to come to an arrangement with him , marketing the engine until 1733 under a joint patent . Newcomen 's engine appears to have been based on Papin 's experiments carried out 30 years earlier , and employed a piston and cylinder , one end of which was open to the atmosphere above the piston . Steam just above atmospheric pressure ( all that the boiler could stand ) was introduced into the lower half of the cylinder beneath the piston during the gravity - induced upstroke ; the steam was then condensed by a jet of cold water injected into the steam space to produce a partial vacuum ; the pressure differential between the atmosphere and the vacuum on either side of the piston displaced it downwards into the cylinder , raising the opposite end of a rocking beam to which was attached a gang of gravity - actuated reciprocating force pumps housed in the mineshaft . The engine 's downward power stroke raised the pump , priming it and preparing the pumping stroke . At first the phases were controlled by hand , but within ten years an escapement mechanism had been devised worked by of a vertical plug tree suspended from the rocking beam which rendered the engine self - acting . </P>
when was the steam engine invented in the industrial revolution
when was the steam engine invented in the industrial revolution
1712
1712