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CHAPTER XIV. HYDRAULIC APPARATUS FOR TRANSMITTING POWER.
Although a system but recently developed, the employment of hydraulic machinery for transmitting and applying power has reached an extended application to a variety of purposes, and gives promise of a still more extensive use in future. Considered as a means of transmitting regularly a constant amount [54] of power, water apparatus is more expensive and inferior in many respects to belts or shafts, and its use must be traced to some special principle involved which adapts hydraulic apparatus to the performance of certain duties. This principle will be found to consist in storing up power in such a manner that it may be used with great force at intervals; and secondly, in the facilities afforded for multiplying force by such simple mechanism as pumps. An engine of ten-horse-power, connected with machinery by hydraulic apparatus, may provide for a force equal to one hundred horse-power for one-tenth part of the time, the power being stored up by accumulators in the interval; or in other words, the motive power acting continuously can be accumulated and applied at intervals as it may be required for raising weights, operating punches, compressive forging, or other work of an intermittent character. Hydraulic machinery employed for such purposes is more simple and inexpensive than gearing and shafts, especially in the application of a great force acting for a considerable distance, and where a cylinder and piston represent a degree of strength which could not be attained with twice the amount of d............
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