Where does this come from, and can I check it?

Compound cylinders squeezed more work from the same coal and made ships faster. The figure is taken from Institution of Mechanical Engineers, which is linked in full on this page. Every fact on Mondo Knows names its source rather than repeating an unsourced claim.

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Yes. It sits on the History shelf, one of 2,600 sourced facts grouped into space, animals, the human body, history, science and more. Category pages collect every fact in the same field.

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The links under the fact point to a quiz, game, puzzle or calculator on the same subject, and the shelf below shows related facts. The wording here is original, and quoted phrases are marked as quotations.

Mondo Knows Facts

Steam engines grew efficient by expanding steam twice

Compound cylinders squeezed more work from the same coal and made ships faster Early steam engines used steam once and then released it, wasting much of its pressure. Compound engines passed exhaust steam into a second, larger cylinder, extracting more work from the same fuel. From the 1860s the design cut coal consumption sharply and allowed steamships to carry cargo instead of fuel over long routes. It sits in Mondo's history collection, one of 200 facts that each trace back to the reference below.

Where this comes from

Institution of Mechanical Engineers

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Tags: steam, engines, efficiency

Steam engines grew efficient by expanding steam twice: the short answers

Where does this come from, and can I check it?: Compound cylinders squeezed more work from the same coal and made ships faster. The figure is taken from Institution of Mechanical Engineers, which is linked in full on this page. Every fact on Mondo Knows names its source rather than repeating an unsourced claim.
Is this really a history fact?: Yes. It sits on the History shelf, one of 2,600 sourced facts grouped into space, animals, the human body, history, science and more. Category pages collect every fact in the same field.
What else can I read about it?: The links under the fact point to a quiz, game, puzzle or calculator on the same subject, and the shelf below shows related facts. The wording here is original, and quoted phrases are marked as quotations.