In 1712, who became the first engineer to introduce steam to an engine with a piston?
History of the steam engine Thomas Newcomen was a merchant who dealt in cast iron goods. Newcomen’s engine was based on the piston and cylinder design proposed by Papin. In Newcomen's engine steam was condensed by water sprayed inside the cylinder, causing atmospheric pressure to move the piston. Newcomen’s first engine installed for pumping in a mine in 1712 at Dudley Castle in Staffordshire. Denis Papin (22 August 1647 – c. 1712) was a French physicist, mathematician and inventor, best known for his pioneering invention of the steam digester, the forerunner of the pressure cooker. In the mid-1670s Papin collaborated with the Dutch physicist Christiaan
Steam engine called the Rankine cycle. In general usage, the term "steam engine" can refer to either complete steam plants (including boilers etc.) such as railway steam locomotives and portable engines, or may refer to the piston or turbine machinery alone, as in the beam engine and stationary steam engine. Steam-driven devices were known as early as the aeliopile in the first century AD, with a few other uses recorded in the 16th and 17th century. Thomas Savery's dewatering pump used steam pressure operating directly on water. The first commercial engine producing continuous rotary motion was only developed in 1712 by Newcomen.