section_path: Uses/Vacuum-driven machines
section_name: Vacuum-driven machines
paragraph_text: Vacuum-driven machines
  
  Vacuums are commonly used to produce suction, which has an even wider variety of applications. The Newcomen steam engine used vacuum instead of pressure to drive a piston. In the 19th century, vacuum was used for traction on Isambard Kingdom Brunel 's experimental atmospheric railway. Vacuum brakes were once widely used on trains in the UK but, except on heritage railways, they have been replaced by air brakes.
  
  Manifold vacuum can be used to drive accessories on automobiles. The best known application is the vacuum servo, used to provide power assistance for the brakes. Obsolete applications include vacuum-driven windscreen wipers and Autovac fuel pumps. Some aircraft instruments (Attitude Indicator (AI) and the Heading Indicator (HI)) are typically vacuum-powered, as protection against loss of all (electrically powered) instruments, since early aircraft often did not have electrical systems, and since there are two readily available sources of vacuum on a moving aircraft, the engine and an external venturi. Vacuum induction melting uses electromagnetic induction within a vacuum.
  
  Maintaining a vacuum in the condenser is an important aspect of the efficient operation of steam turbines. A steam jet ejector or liquid ring vacuum pump is used for this purpose. The typical vacuum maintained in the condenser steam space at the exhaust of the turbine (also called condenser backpressure) is in the range 5 to 15 kPa (absolute), depending on the type of condenser and the ambient conditions.