The first machines Lathe: history of invention and modern models The first lathe with a caliper created

March 28, 1693 Andrey Konstantinovich Nartov was born in Moscow, an incredibly gifted mechanic and inventor, a man whose talent and skill will be noted by Peter I. For twelve years, his life and the life of the tsar will be so closely connected that soon he will be called nothing more than "the personal tsar's turner". The Emperor of All Russia will become the godfather to the son of Nartov, and at times Tsar Peter Alekseevich and Andrei Konstantinovich will spend the night together in the “Tokarna” after a long working day ... a certain salary of three hundred rubles a year.

Surprisingly, in the 18th century, not a single line was published about the life of a man who made more than 100 inventions that brought Russia to the forefront in the field of machine tool building. None of the books written by Nartov was published during his lifetime. Separate fragments of his works were published only a hundred years after they were written. In other words, there were no opportunities to spread Nartov's ideas among Russian mechanics, which led to the rapid loss of Russia's leadership in the field of machining technologies.

But the first ever self-propelled mechanical support for a lathe appeared in Russia thanks to Nartov. The first screw-cutting lathe - in Russia. We have the first lathe and copying machine, and all this was also invented by Nartov. After his visit to Paris, the president of the Paris Academy of Sciences, Bignon, in a letter to Peter I, noted his “great successes” in relation to the lathe: “It is impossible to see anything wonderful!” The delight was understandable: Nartov brought to France a machine with a self-propelled caliper, a mechanical cutter holder and a gearbox with interchangeable gears. And this was not his last achievement; he created the machine in 1717, two years before this trip.

1719, Berlin. Seeing the machine brought by Nartov, the Prussian king Friedrich Wilhelm I admitted: “We don’t have such a machine in Berlin.” In the same year, Nartov reported to the tsar from London: “Here I did not find such turning masters who surpassed Russian masters, and I told the masters to make drawings for the machines that your royal majesty ordered to make here, and they cannot do them.”

In his book, which was called "Theatrum Machinarium, that is, the Clear View of the Machines", Nartov placed a complete guide to the design of various machine tools with drawings of individual units and recommendations for future designers (the above are illustrations from this book), but until the end of the century, alas, she never fall into the hands of readers. Remembering Andrei Konstantinovich Nartov, most often they mean his work in the field of machine tool building, but his services to Russia are far from exhausted by this. Today we’ll talk about several lesser-known occupations of the “tsar’s turner”.

“Whoever is not called, let him not enter here ...”

When Peter I died, Nartov had serious problems in relations with Alexander Menshikov, who was vindictive and remembered well how once ... However, the word to Nartov himself:
“Once upon a time, Prince Menshikov, having come to the door of His Majesty’s turning room, demanded that they let him in, but, seeing this as an obstacle, he began to make noise. At this noise, Nartov came out to him and, having forcibly restrained Prince Menshikov, who wanted to enter there, announced to him that he was not ordered to let anyone in without a special order from the sovereign, and then he immediately locked the doors. Such an unpleasant refusal of this ambitious, vain and proud nobleman was very angry that he, turning around in a temper, said with a great heart: “Good, Nartov, remember this.” The sovereign drew the words and said: “Here is your defense; nail this to the door and don’t look at Menshikov’s threats.” - “To whom it is not ordered, or who is not called, let not only a stranger enter here, but below the servant of this house, so that at least the owner of the deceased has this place.”

In 1726, Nartov was thrown out of the palace workshop and sent to Moscow "to the mints to redistribute the coin of two million." The state of affairs there was deplorable. The director of the Mint, Volkov, reported: “The disorder and ruin of the mints cannot be depicted in any way ... There are no forms to melt into, no furs to the forges.”
Nartov restored production almost from scratch, designed and introduced a new type of machine for notching on the edge of a coin; under his leadership, new press equipment for minting coins is being made. A year later, a report was delivered from Moscow to St. Petersburg: “The desolated yards were brought to a state,” and Nartov ... was sent even further - “as a mechanical art to the Sestroretsk factories for redistribution into a coin of twenty thousand pounds of red copper.” Nartov is going to publish a description of the designs of equipment created during this period as an engineering manual. “A book for the monetary business, in which there is a description of all the colossus and tools, with the inscription of each rank of the colossus and tool, and these measures, and what they can stand for” was written by him, but the manuscript was lost after his death.

Measures and weights

Even during his work at the mints, Nartov discovered glaring discrepancies in the weights of weights used to weigh non-ferrous metals, including gold. For the first time, he raises the issue of creating a state system of measuring instruments, moreover, "in agreement with other European states." In the coin production, he introduces a system for checking mechanical scales, improves the technology of silver casting, which excludes metal losses, establishes a system for end-to-end registration of technological operations and normalization of metal consumption and losses. He reports all this to St. Petersburg, the head of the monetary department, M. G. Golovkin - and immediately receives a strong reprimand for the fact that he “represents not according to his vocation”: they say, why does a mechanic get into the business of weights and measures.

Nevertheless, today we can admit that Nartov was the founder of domestic metrology. It was he who proposed the creation of state standards of weights and measures. Soon he was instructed to make exemplary measures of length "from copper and strong wood", as well as to develop the design of exemplary scales. Nartov brilliantly copes with this task in the company of the luminaries of academic science. In the report on behalf of the Academy of Sciences, concerning the work on exemplary weights and measures, the signatures of the authors go in the following order: “Assessor Andrey Nartov. Leonard Euler. Georg Wolfgang Kraft. And it was reported in it that “assessor Nartov made from green copper quadrangular cubic pounds and a pound”; decision: "They take a pood and a pound to the commission and give the money to the designated assessor Nartov."

The Tsar Bell

In 1734, master caster M. I. Motorin, who was responsible for the manufacture of the unprecedented 200-ton Tsar Bell, turned to Nartov with a request to help in extracting a giant casting from an earthen foundry pit. Nartov criticized the lifting “colossus” previously designed by Motorin: “Before, the former bell master Motorin made preparations to raise the casing, to which I advised him that this colossus made by him would not be able to raise the casing.” And so it happened. Motorin's hoist could not stand it and brought down the lid of the casting mold on the bell, which miraculously did not suffer.

Then Nartov designed his “lifting colossus”, with the help of which “that casing was safely lifted” (“And the gravity in it was, for example, more than seven thousand pounds”). The project of a more advanced lifting mechanism for extracting the cast Tsar Bell was entrusted to Nartov, who in a short time made it on the basis of "rules of mathematics, mechanical and physical". Unfortunately, they were unable to use it. On May 29, 1737, there was a big fire in the Kremlin. The water used to extinguish the fire fell on the hot surface of the casting, which cracked, and subsequently “a piece weighing about 700 pounds” fell out of the body of the bell.

"Secret Chambers"

In 1738, in the Peter and Paul Fortress, the Narts set up "secret chambers" - in fact, the first engineering center in the history of Russia for the creation of artillery weapons, which (looking ahead) through the efforts of Andrei Konstantinovich will soon become the best in the world. It was here, in the "secret chambers", that he created his first military invention - a machine for drilling cannon barrels.

In a relatively short period of time, more than 40 designs and technologies for the manufacture of guns for various purposes come out of his "design bureau". The military especially liked the methods developed by Nartov for sealing internal shells and large casting defects in the channels of copper and especially cast-iron guns using a “secret filling”. Prior to this, guns that formed cavities, ruts and “punctures” during casting were defined as defects and sent for remelting. The introduction of the Nartov method made it possible to bring such guns to a fully conditioned state, which was repeatedly tested by practical firing. The economic effect was simply amazing: the repair of a completely defective gun costing 4 rubles 18 kopecks cost 27 kopecks. And the quality of the cannon turned out to be such that "in new places in the metal, shells were made from extreme shooting, but the filling survived."

Nartov developed an optical sighting device "for the best way to shoot from cannons, mortars and howitzers, and for the fastest aiming at a target without levers," thanks to which the accuracy of firing Russian batteries significantly exceeded those of artillery in European countries.

Particularly impressive is the Nart's rapid-fire artillery mount, consisting of 44 three-pound mortars mounted on a turntable. During firing, mortars were cleaned, loaded and equipped with fuses, turning on a movable base.

On May 2, 1746, in recognition of Nartov's merits, he was granted an award of 5 thousand rubles by the highest decree, several villages in the Novgorod district were unsubscribed, and the inventor himself was promoted to the general rank of state councilor. And he began, as we remember, as an ensign ...

In the middle of the 18th century, human civilization came close to one of the most significant stages of its development - the period that historians would later call the Industrial Revolution, or the Great Industrial Revolution. By this time, in the most developed countries of the world, the list of which was then headed by England fueled by numerous colonies, an active process of transition from a predominantly agrarian economy to an industrial one began. The emerging industrial capitalism necessitated an increase in labor productivity, as well as an improvement in the quality and reduction in the cost of production products.

Many factors contributed to these transformations: the development of trade and the formation of a wage labor market, the formation of banks and a credit system, the evolution of law and the flourishing of exact sciences, an increase in the number of inventions and technical innovations. Primitive manual labor and wooden tools could no longer meet the needs of society. Factories and manufactories were in dire need of mechanisms and machines made of metal. It is the rapidly progressingmetalworkingplayed a special role in the success of the industrial revolution XVIII - XIX centuries.

Metalworking as the basis of a factory about the production of machines and mechanisms

Prior to the industrial revolution, the technology of metal processing by cutting, drilling and grinding improved extremely slowly, and this work was of a fragmented nature. During the manufacturing period, the need for new tools prompted the owners of factories to create auxiliary workshops equipped with elementary drilling, grinding and grinding machines. Some of them were driven by muscle power, others - by the energy of water. But common to all these devices was the minimum degree of mechanization of the processing process, which led to the low quality of products.

At the beginning of the 18th century parts manufacturing on the machine was carried out by a worker who was forced to hold the processing tool in his hand. Unfortunately, the world technical community at that time did not learn about the invention of the talented Russian mechanic A.K. In Russia of those years, this development, like many other inventions of this talented "chief" of the court turner and pupil of the reformer Tsar Peter I, was not in demand, and was forgotten for a while.

Only towards the end of the century, the Nartov design was studied and became the starting point for the creation of a controlled mechanical caliper by the English mechanic and inventor Henry Maudsley. After this event, the device of almost all the main types of machine tools used in manufactories and factories underwent a thorough modernization. Prior to this, turning work was carried out using primitive cutter holders, which did not allow for the necessary accuracy of processing. With the advent of a controlled caliper, this problem was finally eliminated.

The "social" order and the need of factories for new means of production embodied in metal stimulated the development of metalworking methods in every possible way. This demand has become a real catalyst for industrialization processes, and led to the creation of a new branch of industrial production - mechanical engineering. However, in order to fully meet the technical requirements of a rapidly developing society, mechanical engineering had to make a qualitative technological breakthrough.

The most important developments and inventions of the era of the industrial revolution

1. Lathe

In England, the revolutionary transformation of the economy began with rapid progress in the textile industry. It was possible to provide this industry with new, more productive machines thanks to equally rapidly developing technologies and the improvement of metalworking methods. Demand ensured the rapid evolution of the means of production, and, first of all, one of the main technical means of metal cutting at that time - a lathe. During the XVIII - XIX centuries, the design of the lathe has undergone numerous improvements, among which the following should be especially noted:

● 1712 Invention by Russian mechanic Andrey Konstantinovich Nartov of a self-propelled caliper, which made it possible to fix the cutter and its precise linear movement along the workpiece.

●1718 - 1729 Improvement by A.K. Nartov of the device of a lathe - a copier, in which the trajectory of the caliper drive and the movement of the copy finger were controlled by different sections of the lead screw with different cutting parameters.

● 1751 The world's first universal type all-metal lathe from the Frenchman Jacques de Vaucanson. It was distinguished by a heavy bed, powerful centers made of metal, and V-shaped guides.

● 1778 New types of screw-cutting machines by the English mechanic D. Ramedon. For the manufacture of threads with a particular pitch, in one of them, interchangeable gears were used, in the other, a special string was responsible for the movement of the cutter, which was wound on a shaft of a certain diameter.

● 1795 Functionality of a screw-cutting machine improved by the French mechanic Senot. In addition to the interchangeable gears and a large lead screw already used in Ramedon machines, the original design of the mechanized caliper became an obvious difference between this development.

● 1798 - 1800. The perfect model of a universal lathe, built by the English engineer Henry Maudsley and his students. This design became the prototype of the screw-cutting lathes of the future, and largely determined the direction of development of this type.
metalworking equipment for a hundred or more years to come. In addition, G. Maudsley was the first to start the process of standardizing threaded connections.

● 1815 - 1826. Works of students and followers of Henry Maudsley - R. Roberts and D. Clement. The first of them managed to improve the machines due to the optimal location of the lead screw, create an elementary variator in the form of gear enumeration and make control more convenient by moving all the switching bodies closer to the turner's workplace. Machine tool historians attribute to D. Roberts the creation of a frontal lathe, which made it possible to process parts of large diameters.

● 1835 The most important revision of the lathe feed mechanism by the British mechanical engineer and inventor Joseph Whitworth - another student of G. Maudsley. He developed a transverse transmission mechanism and linked it to a longitudinal drive mechanism.

● 1845 Automated turret by American engineer S. Fitch, who proposed a prototype of a turret with eight interchangeable cutters fixed in it. The quick change of cutting tools has reduced to a minimum the loss of time for their reinstallation, and has dramatically increased productivity in the processing of serial products.

● 1873 Creation of a prototype metal-cutting automatic lathe by the American engineer and entrepreneur H. Spencer, who improved the design of the turrets developed by his predecessors. An important innovation of the authorship of H. Spencer was a modernized control system using a cam mechanism and a camshaft.

● 1880 - 1895. Start of small-scale production of Cleveland turning systems and metal-cutting equipment of other manufacturers, built on the principle of a multi-spindle automatic machine. The expansion of functionality achieved in this way made it possible to realize the long-held dream of the developers of industrial metal-cutting equipment - by combining various operations, to multiply the productivity and economic efficiency of the machine park.

2. Milling machine

Turning a rotating part, it is impossible to perform the processing of longitudinal and inclined flat surfaces, as well as the installation of all kinds of grooves, grooves, undercuts, solid "pockets" and windows. Having fixed the part motionlessly, and making the rotating cutting tool movable, humanity has discovered milling work back in the 17th century, when Chinese craftsmen made a rather primitive machine tool, which nevertheless made it possible to process a large flat part for an astronomical instrument.

However, it turned out to be much more difficult to ensure the precise operation of the feed mechanism of a rotating cutter, sufficient for performing small metal work, than to control a caliper with a fixed cutter in a lathe. Various designs for milling flat surfaces, developed in the 17th century, were suitable only for processing products made of wood or bone. Numerous attempts to create a machine for milling metal parts were unsuccessful at that time.

The American industrialist and engineer Eli Whitney was able to fully solve this problem, who in 1818 built a full-fledged milling machine with a mechanized caliper, which was used for a long time at his arms factory. Despite the presence of a wooden bed, a wooden two-stage pulley and a makeshift appearance, the Eli Whitney-designed milling machine successfully coped with all the functions assigned to it, and worked with virtually no breakdowns.

The designs of specialized milling machines developed by Russian mechanics for the arms factory in Tula deserve our attention. Already by 1826, two machines for trimming the breech ends of gun barrels were put into operation there. Fixed in a special movable device, the barrel was fed into the working area of the end mill. Structurally and in appearance, the machines made by Tula craftsmen were more perfect than the products of Eli Whitney, and provided a higher quality of surface treatment of parts.

In the first half of the 18th century, technological progress in the field of improving the design and functionality of milling machines was associated with the needs of gunsmiths. Another and more advanced than the development of its predecessors, the prototype of the milling machine in 1835 was made by the mechanics of the American arms company Guy, Sylvester and Co. A distinctive feature of this design was a unique system for moving the cutter in a vertical plane, which was subsequently converted into a more reliable table lifting mechanism.

In the middle of the 18th century, the capabilities of milling machines were finally in demand by "peaceful" enterprises, which were already working with might and main for the needs of the industrial revolution, and were forced to process flat surfaces by grinding. The first development for civilian use was the machine of the English company Nasmyth and Geiskell, which performed milling of the flat faces of nuts. Despite the narrow specialization, this device, in fact, was a universal horizontal milling machine, and could well be used in many other operations.

An even more perfect design of the milling machine was developed in 1855 and embodied in metal by the American company Lincoln.(Phoenix Iron Works by George Lincoln). The desktop of this product, like its predecessors, was driven by a belt drive and a worm gear, but a lead screw with a flywheel was used to move the table longitudinally. The installation of the cutter in a vertical plane was carried out in this design by moving the bearings of the mandrel, which also became a certain technical innovation that provided convenience and increased the accuracy of work.The scheme of the machine has become a classic and has been borrowed by many manufacturers of milling equipment.

The history of the creation of this popular machine and its wide distribution is closely connected with the names of people who later founded the world-famous company today. Francis Pratt, the creator of the Lincoln, worked as production manager at the Phoenix Iron Works with Amos Whitney (a relative of the founder of milling equipment, Eli Whitney). Both were talented mechanics and inventors, and in 1860 founded Pratt & Whitney Company specializing in the production of metalworking equipment. During the years of the American Civil War, the company grew significantly and machines under this brand began to be sold all over the world. Currently Pratt & Whitney - the largest supplier of gas turbine engines and generator sets.

3. Watt's steam engine - a demanded drive for machine tools

Turning, drilling and milling machines driven by the force of wind or falling water could not fully provide the necessary parameters for the rotation of workpieces or tools, which significantly affected the quality of metal processing. To organize the factory production of new machines and other means of production, a powerful mover was required, which could, with the necessary speed and force, put the mechanisms of machine equipment into action. Such an engine was the universal steam engine created by the Scottish engineer, mechanic and inventor James Watt.

The original design of the "steam pump" in 1698 was developed and manufactured by Thomas Savery, who in the same year patented his invention and applied it to pumping mine water. Due to low productivity and high fuel consumption, it was impossible to use this engine as a drive for machine tool units. This design, starting in 1705, was tried to improve by another Englishman - Thomas Newcomen. He brought the water-lifting pump built on its basis to small-scale production, however, due to insufficient power for industrial use, this engine was also not suitable.

James Watt, a scientific consultant at the University of Glasgow, developed his version of the steam engine in 1764. But only 12 years later, when the wealthy industrialist Matthew Bolton became his partner, the inventor managed to organize the production and commercial sale of manufactured steam engines. It was Watt who managed to convert the translational motion of the pistons of his machines into the rotation of the load output shaft. The initial design was then repeatedly refined and became more powerful and economical. But the main thing was done - at the end of the 18th century, metal-cutting machines received such a necessary, and independent of natural phenomena, autonomous drive.

Further development of machine tools

The industrial revolution necessitated the development and production of machines for almost all branches of industrial production. The state of the economy depended on the level of development of metalworking tools, so the technical base of the machine tool industry was continuously improved. The design of a mechanical support, originally developed for mounting and controlled movement of lathe cutters, has been successfully applied in other types of machine tools.

To create new metalworking devices, not only a mechanical support was used, but also other structural components of a lathe - a gear system, a feed mechanism, clamping devices and kinematic elements. Numerous American machine-building plants, which by the middle of the 19th century in technical development overtook the founders of machine tool building - the British, mass-produced grinding, boring, turret-turning, universal-milling and carousel machines, which eventually became the basis of the industrial flourishing and power of the United States.

In the 60s of the XIX century, mechanical engineering began to develop rapidly in Germany and Russia. In our country, one of the pioneers of machine tool building was the Tula Arms Plant, which for its own needs began to produce lathes, milling, drilling, threading, grinding, broaching and grinding machines. Machine-building enterprises successfully started their work,
built in Moscow, Izhevsk, Sestroretsk, Voronezh and St. Petersburg. The first specialized machine tool enterprise was the Bromley brothers' Moscow plant, later renamed the Red Proletary.

Russian factories quickly mastered the production of all the necessary range of machine tools, including original in-house developments of planers and wheel lathes. Despite these obvious successes, the general level of Russian machine tool building in those years lagged significantly behind the quantitative and qualitative indicators of the machine-building industries in England, the USA and Germany, so the bulk of the machine tool equipment for Russian plants and factories was purchased by their owners abroad. The typical equipment of metalworking enterprises of that time were six types of machines:

● Turning, on which the outer and inner surfaces of the bodies of revolution were turned, the processing of smooth and stepped shafts, products in the form of a ball or cone was performed, cylindrical parts were bored and threads were cut.

● Milling machines, which made it possible to process the outer and inner surfaces of workpieces of complex shapes, which were subject to increased requirements for accuracy and quality.

● Planers horizontal and vertical type, designed for processing workpieces and products with flat surfaces.

● Drilling machine tools, with the help of which holes were drilled, bored and machined, and threads could also be cut.

● Grinding machines on which the finishing of products was carried out with a special abrasive tool and materials.

● Special purpose machines, designed and manufactured to perform a limited number or one specific process step.

At the end of the 19th century, metalworking equipment of all major groups was differentiated and produced in the form of universal machines or special-purpose machines. Indeed, why spend money on a complex and expensive machine if it will be used to perform just a few of the same type of operations. For example, this is how special boring equipment appeared, which was used for the manufacture of gun barrels and the processing of any other products of cylindrical shape and great length.

In an attempt to adapt the lathe to work with workpieces of short length and large diameters, the design of a frontal lathe was developed. Similarly, for a specific task, turning-and-boring machines appeared for processing workpieces of large weight and size, which standard equipment could not work with. For the processing of large-sized products, the designs of radial drilling and longitudinal planing machines with long movable tables were developed.

The highest achievement of the machine tool industry at the end of the 19th century was turret-turning machines equipped with heads for simultaneous installation of up to 16 tools, as well as rotary-milling equipment, which made it possible to process several products of large weight and size at once. No less popular are all specialized machines designed for cutting teeth and processing gears - machines of gear hobbing, gear shaping and gear cutting.

At the turn of the 20th century, mechanical designers and engineers believed that the further development of machine tools for metalworking should be associated with automation, a further increase in the accuracy and speed of operations. Of great importance for the future of the industry was the invention by American engineers White and Taylor of high-alloy "high-speed" steel for the manufacture of cutters and other metal-cutting tools. However, machine tool builders were able to take full advantage of the possibilities of metal processing at increased speeds in connection with this invention already in the 20th century.

Selected Persons of the Industrial Revolution

The basis of any progressive changes in the life of society, be it social, economic or technological transformations, are concrete individuals. In addition to the needs of society to improve the technical basis of production, a necessary condition for the industrial revolution was the creative activity of many talented people - machine operators, mechanics, inventors and design engineers.

It was they who, complementing and improving each other's developments, eventually created a machine park, which made it possible to establish the production of the required number of new and more advanced means of production. For example, let's list at least a few "actors" of the industrial revolution, not forgetting our great compatriots, who also made a significant contribution to the practice and theory of metalworking:

● A.K. Nartov- a native of the people, who began his career as a turner in the palace workshop of Peter I, and ended his earthly path in the rank of state councilor general. After studying abroad, the young head of the court "turner" Andrey Nartov, back in 1717, proposed the design of a mechanized support for a lathe. Subsequently, A.K. Nartov developed the mechanisms of another 34 machine tools in detail, but after his death, the manuscripts ended up in the court library, and were found by descendants only 200 years later.

● Henry Maudsley- An English mechanic who immortalized his name with the creation in 1794 of a perfect design of a cross mechanical self-propelled caliper. In 1798, when developing a screw-cutting lathe, he used a replaceable lead screw, and for the first time proposed to standardize all threaded parts and connections. In addition, Henry Maudsley is known for having trained and educated a whole galaxy of students at his own factory, each of whom continued the work of a teacher and made his own contribution to the further development of metalworking tools.

● Joseph Whitworth. This British engineer and entrepreneur went down in history not only by improving the design of the lathe's transverse gear. Subsequently, D. Whitworth became an industrialist, built his own mechanical plant, and most importantly, back in 1841, he proposed the principles of unification of machine parts and screw thread standards, which bear his name and are still used today. He is also the author of the caliber system, which he developed and, together with especially precise measuring instruments, introduced into the practice of his factory, thus setting an example for machine operators all over the world.

● I.A.Time- Russian scientist and mechanical engineer, who for the first time studied and illuminated in his writings the processes that occur during metal machining. By studying the parameters of chip formation at various feed and cutting speeds, he was able to establish important patterns that allowed him in 1870 to publish recommendations for setting the optimal operating modes for machine tools.

● K.A. Zworykin- A graduate of the St. Petersburg Mechanical Technological Institute, later a professor. Konstantin Alekseevich Zworykin continued the research of I.A. Time and published works on the problems of optimal cutting of metals, in which he gave an updated diagram of the forces acting on the cutter. In 1883, K.A. Zworykin created a device that made it possible to determine the cutting force, and derived a formula by which it was possible to calculate the most efficient operating modes of the machine.

● Frederick Taylor- An American engineer who for 26 years studied the processes of cutting metals with cutters of various shapes, at various angles and at all possible speeds. He revealed patterns that affect the quality of processing, time spent, chip thickness, cooling parameters and tool life. As a result, he practically established the most profitable metalworking modes, and in 1884, based on his research, he created a special counting ruler for a worker - a machine operator, by which it was possible to determine the optimal cutting mode. The works of F.Taylor were of invaluable importance for the improvement of metalworking methods, and were accepted with gratitude by specialized specialists from all over the world.

Russian machine tool industry on the threshold of XXcentury

The industrial revolution in Russia, with its predominantly agrarian economy, was almost a century late. However, starting in the middle of the 19th century, in a fairly short historical period of 50 years, the industrial revolution subjected the entire production and socio-economic sphere of the Russian state to an irreversible reformation. After the abolition of serfdom, capitalism and its inherent market relations were finally established in the country, the processes of capital accumulation and the creation of industrial enterprises were rapidly going on. As a hundred years ago in England, the introduction of high-performance machines began in the factories of the cotton industry.

According to statistics, by the beginning of 1900 in Russia there were 1805 mechanical engineering and metalworking enterprises equipped with 2966 mechanical engines. Unfortunately, history has not preserved the total number and species diversity of metal-cutting machines. At the same time, more than 150 thousand mechanical looms were used at 185 weaving factories, many of which were manufactured at domestic machine-building enterprises. The Russian machine tool industry, although lagging far behind the level of the leading countries of the world, developed truly by leaps and bounds. By the end of the 19th century, in terms of the level of equipment of industrial enterprises with metalworking machines, Russia reached the world average.

Brief information:

The T-34-85 tank was put into production in the winter of 1943-1944. It was armed with an 85 mm cannon mounted in a cast turret originally developed for the KV-85 heavy tank. The base of the tank has not changed much compared to the T-34-76. The enlarged tower accommodated three crew members, so that the commander was finally freed from extraneous functions and could fully concentrate on his main duties of directing the actions of the crew.

Date of invention: 1904

Brief information:

At the turn of the XIX - XX centuries. throughout the world, the sailing fleet was pushed into second place by the steam fleet. At the same time, shipbuilders needed new knowledge to solve many of the problems associated with building ever more powerful ships. There is a need to create a scientific theory of ships. One of its authors was the Russian scientist A.N. Krylov.

Date of invention: 2011

Brief information:

A turbogenerator is an implicit pole synchronous generator, the main function of which is to convert mechanical energy in operation from a steam or gas turbine into electrical energy at high rotor speeds (3000, 1500 rpm). The mechanical energy from the turbine is converted into electrical energy by a rotating magnetic field, which is created by a DC voltage current flowing in the copper winding of the rotor, which in turn leads to a three-phase AC current and voltage in the stator windings.

Date of invention: 1712

Description:

According to historians, the first lathe was invented in the 7th century. BC. It was an adjustable vise: the master clamped the workpiece in them, and then processed it manually. Such machines were intended mainly for turning wood parts. Semi-mechanical processing of workpieces came into practice in the 15th century, when the lower drive was invented: the turner pressed the pedal, after which the workpiece began to rotate, making it easier to turn. However, such drives were low-power. Therefore, in metalworking, they began to use a water drive, which worked on the principle of a water mill. With it, it was possible to create quite complex metal shapes, such as a ball or a cylinder.

In the 7th century lathes appeared, in which the workpiece was driven by a water wheel, but the cutter was still held in the turner's hand. And in the XVIII century. lathes began to be used primarily for metal processing. In this regard, a very hard and reinforced (with a rigid mount) cutter was required, capable of not becoming dull for a long time.

From 1712 to 1725 A. K. Nartov created a number of models of lathes. Some of them were equipped with calipers (movable devices for fixing the cutter) and a set of interchangeable gears, which made it possible to manufacture parts of a strictly defined geometric shape. However, operations requiring special precision remained difficult to perform on a copy machine: threading for guns, complex patterns on luxury items (engraving), processing gear washers and gears. Over time, A.K. Nartov improved his models, which made it possible to automatically move the caliper along the axis of the workpiece being processed. True, there was no cross feed yet. Therefore, work on improving the caliper continued.

Tula mechanic Alexei Surnin and Pavel Zakhava created their own caliper. A more advanced design of the caliper, close to modern, managed to come up with the English machine tool builder Henry Maudsley, but A.K. Nartov was the first to find a way to solve this problem. It can be assumed that Nartov's machine tools were of strategic importance: with their help, for example, the muzzles of cannons were drilled, because victories, Russian weapons largely depended on artillery. In the work of A.K. Nartov's "Clear spectacle of colossus" describes more than 20 lathes, lathes, copy lathes and screw-cutting lathes of various designs.

The drawings and technical descriptions made by Nartov testify to his great engineering knowledge. The activities of this workshop were of decisive importance for the development of the instrument-making industry in Russia: the machines created by Nartov made it possible to significantly increase the accuracy of manufacturing parts for all tools used at that time, which was later appreciated by M.V. Lomonosov and I.P. Kulibin, who conducted their experiments (each in his own time) on Nartov's machines.

100 Great Russian Inventions, Veche 2008

Amazingly, the invention took place many centuries before the advent of electricity, in the 7th century BC, in the territory of Ancient Egypt. The frescoes of that period depict primitive devices for processing wood or horn with a chisel. The fixed part was rotated by a slave apprentice, and the master removed chips from it. The next breakthrough in turning took place at the turn of our era. An unknown inventor guessed to use a bowstring as a driving element drive. Now the master could work alone, without helpers.

Work on the machine in ancient Egypt

In the Middle Ages, the best turning equipment was considered. They had a foot drive, from the 16th century they were equipped with a crank mechanism and a steel clamping center. It was quite perfect equipment for its era; various bodies of rotation were machined on it. The increase in power was limited by human muscle strength.

In the 17th century, partially mechanized machines appeared. The workpiece rotated from the drive of the water wheel, the cutter was driven manually. In the next century, the Russian inventor A.K. Nartov assembled a prototype of a revolutionary new machine. In its development, a mechanized support was used for the longitudinal movement of the cutter along the part, replaceable gears and a threading function. The rapid development of metalworking in Europe was largely determined by the invention of Nartov.

At the beginning of the 19th century, the Englishman Henry Maudsley patented a universal lathe, and the design of the caliper turned out to be surprisingly perfect.

Maudsley lathe

The United States has become the birthplace of automation of turning metalworking. Turret machines were invented here, the standardization of machine-building equipment and the first security systems were introduced. Already at the end of the 19th century, American turning equipment had automatic functions - stopping the cutting blade when a given size was reached, auto-adjusting the speed of front boring, etc. Any modern CNC lathe is equipped with such functionality without fail.

In the twentieth century, turning-and-boring, automated and robotic mechanisms, multi-spindle models and equipment for longitudinal turning were added to the family of screw-cutting lathes. Programmable machines and turning-milling machining centers appeared. The record holder among lathes is the piece product of the Waldrich Siegen company. With a swivel base with a diameter of five meters, it is capable of processing workpieces weighing up to five tons. Further improvement of turning equipment is developing taking into account the high requirements for the accuracy of given dimensions, cleanliness of the machined surface, ergonomics and safety.

Late 18th - early 19th century was a turning point in the process of improving various types of metalworking equipment. The spread of metal as the main structural material required a significant modernization of material processing machines. The drive of the then existing machine tools turned out to be too low-power for metal processing, and the efforts of the hand holding the cutter were insufficient to remove large chips from the workpiece. As a result, metal processing turned out to be ineffective. It was necessary to replace the hand of the worker with a special mechanism, and the muscular strength of a person with a more powerful engine.

The first was solved by creating a movable tool holder or caliper. Speaking about the caliper as one of the fundamentally important inventions associated with the industrial revolution of the late 18th century, K. Marx noted that “this mechanical device does not replace any special tool, but the very human hand, which creates a certain form by directing , bringing the chisel, etc., to the material of labor, for example, to iron "( Marx K., Engels F. Soch., v. 23, p. 396). In this way it became possible to give geometric forms to the individual parts of machines with a degree of ease, precision and speed that even the most experienced hand of the most skillful worker could not provide.

Lathe (fuze) machine 1741 according to Thieu

The creation of a mechanical caliper marked the beginning of the widespread use of machine tools. To work on a non-mechanized lathe, despite its simplicity, it was necessary, in addition to purely professional skills, to have remarkable strength in order to hold the cutter in the hands during metal processing. Any unexpected deviation from the required shape as a result of an accident, some kind of push, etc. often led to the need to regrind the part along its entire length.

It took a long time for machine builders to come to the idea of mechanized movement of the cutter. For the first time, this idea arose when solving such technical problems as applying threads, complex patterns to luxury goods, making gears, etc. To obtain a thread on a shaft, for example, it was necessary to first make markings; this was usually achieved by winding a paper tape of the required width around the shaft, along the edges of which a contour of the future thread was applied to the shaft. After marking, the shaft was filed along the contour manually with a file. This is a long, complex and laborious process; in addition, the quality obtained was far from always satisfactory, since absolute correspondence between the sizes and shapes of the thread teeth is difficult to achieve.

In the middle of the XVIII century. the idea of mechanized movement of the cutter was embodied in various designs of machine tools by watchmakers. However, all these machines had the disadvantage that they were specialized and their use in the leading branches of the then emerging industry was difficult. This technical problem could be solved by creating a universal machine with a caliper.

A. Tiu's book (1741) contains several diagrams of watchmakers' lathes. The most difficult parts for processing in watch mechanisms were fusees (navoki). Fuzei had a complex cochlear shape, determined empirically. They were intended to compensate for uneven spring tension. It was difficult to obtain this part manually, which is why special machines were created. The machines given in the book have tool holders. The first machine, in addition to the step screw, is also equipped with interchangeable gears. Cross feed is provided by lever movement of the cutter. The quality of the fuzei production depended on the experience of the worker.

Lathe of French watchmakers 1741 by Thieu

In addition, a description is given of a screw-cutting machine equipped with a mechanical support driven by a lead screw located on the same axis as the spindle. The machine was made of metal. The lever system replaced the drive scheme with interchangeable gears (the thread pitch was changed by changing the lever arms).

In 1763, a book by F. Berthoud, also dedicated to watchmaking, was printed in Paris. It shows two diagrams of watchmakers' machines. Both machines are made at a very high technical level, made of metal, they are distinguished by high precision and ease of operation.

When working on the fusee machine described by F. Berthou, the qualification of the worker is not of great importance, since his function is only to set the machine in motion and press the cutter against the copier (one fusee is cut in several passes from an unprocessed blank). The shape of the fusee corresponds to the shape of the interchangeable copier, the cutting step is determined by the angle of inclination of the feed bar. The movement of the caliper with the tool holder in the longitudinal direction is mechanical. These machines are interesting in that they were intended mainly for metal processing and were distinguished by significant accuracy. In addition, serial parts have already been processed on them.

In 1771, in the illustrations for the Encyclopedia by Diderot and D "Alembert, a fully functional design of the incisor carriage used on ornamental machines was shown. True, these machines did not use the principle of mechanical movement of the caliper along the product, used on the machines of A. K. Nartov ( see chapter X) and on the machines of French watchmakers. The "Encyclopedia" gives a view of a turning workshop in which only lathes were used without mounting a cutting tool. Apparently, tool holders were used on ornamental and precision machines, and most of the work was done on manual machines.^

Second half of the 18th century was marked by a sharp increase in the scope of metal-cutting machines and the search for a satisfactory scheme for a universal lathe, which could be used for various purposes and made it possible to solve a whole range of technical problems. Just as J. Watt created his universal engine on the basis of earlier steam-atmospheric machines, the universal lathe was built on the experience of operating the first machine tools with a mechanized movable caliper.

In 1751, J. Vaucanson built a very interesting machine in France, which, according to its technical data, already looked like a universal one. It was made of metal, had a powerful frame, two metal centers, two F-shaped guides, mechanized movement of the copper caliper in the longitudinal and transverse directions. At the same time, this machine did not have a workpiece clamping system in the chuck, despite the fact that this device already existed in earlier designs of French watchmakers' machine tools. The workpiece on the Vaukanson machine was fastened in the centers, access to which was difficult due to the racks located on both sides. The rotation drive system and its connection with the cutter movement system are unclear. The machine has survived to this day (exhibited in the Louvre), but it is not known what parts it was intended for. It can be assumed that this was a specialized machine that processed parts of one specific type, since the fastening system did not provide for the possibility of clamping workpieces of different sizes (the distance between the centers in which the workpiece was fastened was about 1 m, and the rear center could only be moved about 0.1 m).

Lathe (fuse) machine 1763 according to Bert (France)

The machine tool of another French mechanic, Hay, made in 1795, also deserves attention. The designer provided for interchangeable gears, a large screw (more than 1 m long and more than 50 mm in diameter), and a simple mechanized caliper. The machine is specialized - for cutting and finishing screws. All parts of the Senot and Vaucanson machines were of high quality, they did not have decorations, as was customary to do before.

In 1778, the Englishman D. Ramsden proposed two types of threading machines. In the first machine, a diamond cutting tool moved along a rotating part along parallel guides, the movement of which was set by rotating the reference screw. The machine made it possible, with one standard, to obtain a range of threads by changing gears. The second machine made it possible to produce threads with different pitches on parts longer than the length of the standard itself. The cutter moved along the workpiece with the help of a string wound around the central key. These machines already included elements of a universal lathe, but still they could not be used as universal.

Boring machine D. Smeaton 1769 (England)

The process of creating such machines was influenced by the experience of manufacturing and operating other types of metalworking equipment. These include drilling and boring machines. Until the middle of the XVIII century. quite simple types of these machines were used, which were used mainly in weapons workshops.

Traditional reaming methods satisfied the industry as long as holes were relatively small (up to 180mm), but larger diameters required other machines. The need for such work was associated primarily with the creation of steam engines. Already the first Newcomen machines had a cylinder diameter of about 500 mm with a considerable length (about 3 m). Later models of steam engines were even larger. The imperfection of the then boring machines forced J. Watt to make a forged cylinder for his first steam engine. In 1769, the English engineer D. Smeaton created a machine tool for processing parts such as cylinders of steam engines, in which the boring bar was fixed on both sides. However, the support cart supporting the boring bar did not provide sufficient accuracy (maximum accuracy - 3/8 inch, i.e. 10 mm) and parallelism along the entire length, as it moved inside the machined cylinder.

Ornamental machine support (from the encyclopedia of Diderot and D "Alembert) (1771)

Only the English mechanic D. Wilkinson managed to completely solve the problem of boring cylinders of almost any size in 1775, when he built a machine at the Bersham plant, in which the boring bar was fixed on both sides in rigidly fixed plain bearings and moved along the cylinder using a screw gear. Wilkinson's machine completely satisfied Watt, since parts with a diameter of more than 1 m were bored on it, and the gap between the cylinder and the piston "did not exceed the thickness of a sixpence coin" (about 1.5 mm). This was considered a good result at the time.

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