Machine

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Wind turbines

A machine is a "combination of rigid or resistant bodies having definite motions and capable of performing useful work". The "simple machines" are a group of elementary machines, at least one of which is found in nearly every machine. Historically, the simple machines included the lever, the wheel and axle, the pulley (or block and tackle), the inclined plane, the wedge and the screw. However, the gear drive and hydraulic press may also be included.^[1] The word "machine" is derived from the Latin machina.^[2]

Usage

Machines are ubiquitous in a wide variety of industrial, commercial, residential and transportation applications. Those employing hydraulics are especially useful in manufacturing, construction and earthmoving.

"Engines" are machines that convert heat or other forms of energy into mechanical energy. Internal combustion engines for example rely on the heat from an exothermic chemical reaction - the combustion of a mixture of fuel and oxygen - to increase the pressure of a gas in a combustion chamber, thus applying a force to the moving component of the chamber, such as the piston of a reciprocating-piston gasoline engine, or the rotor assembly of a jet engine.^[1]

Historically, a device required moving parts to be classified as a machine, however the advent of electronics technology has led to the development of devices without moving parts that some consider machines, the computer or "computing machine" being the most obvious example.^[2]

Types of machines and other devices

Machines in Education and Art

• Gunderson Do-All Machine - an interconnected network of dozens of machines that have been cross-sectioned to reveal their internal operating mechanisms. This artistically presented engineering marvel was designed by to serve as a mechanical tutorial for young and old alike.

Notes

References

1. Oberg, Erik; Franklin D. Jones, Holbrook L. Horton, and Henry H. Ryffel (2000). in ed. Christopher J. McCauley, Riccardo Heald, and Muhammed Iqbal Hussain: Machinery's Handbook, 26th edition, New York: Industrial Press Inc.. ISBN 0-8311-2635-3.