Machine

Machine

A machine is a tool containing one or more parts that uses energy to perform an intended action. Machines are usually powered by mechanical, chemical, thermal, or electrical means, and are often motorized. Historically, a power tool also required moving parts to classify as a machine. However, the advent of electronics technology has led to the development of power tools without moving parts that are considered machines.

A simple machine is a device that simply transforms the direction or magnitude of a force, but a large number of more complex machines exist. Examples include vehicles, electronic systems, molecular machines, computers, television, and radio.

A device that applies force, changes the direction of a force, or changes the strength of a force, in order to perform a task, generally involving work done on a load. Machines are often designed to yield a high mechanical advantage to reduce the effort needed to do that work. A “simple machine” is a wheel, a lever, or an inclined plane. All other machines can be built using combinations of these simple machines; for example, a drill uses a combination of gears wheels to drive helical inclined planes to split a material and carve a hole in it.

Machine any mechanical or electrical device that transmits or modifies energy to perform or assist in the performance of human tasks.

Machine Definition

General: Semi or fully automated device that magnifies human physical and or mental capabilities in performing one or more operations.

Mechanics: Device that makes mechanical work easier by overcoming a resistance load at one end by application of effort force at the other end.

Systems: Purposefully organized set of components whose interconnections and inner workings are known or apparent. The behavior of a properly functioning machine is entirely predictable, its present state determines its next state, and the same inputs always yield the same outputs.

Machine History:

The idea of a "simple machine" originated with the Greek philosopher Archimedes around the 3rd century BC, who studied the Archimedean simple machines: lever, pulley, and screw. He discovered the principle of mechanical advantage in the lever. Later Greek philosophers defined the classic five simple machines and were able to roughly calculate their mechanical advantage. Heron of Alexandria in his work Mechanics lists five mechanisms that can "set a load in motion"; lever, windlass, pulley, wedge, and screw, and describes their fabrication and uses. However the Greeks' understanding was limited to the statics of simple machines; the balance of forces, and did not include dynamics, the tradeoff between force and distance, or the concept of work.

During the Renaissance the dynamics of the Mechanical Powers, as the simple machines were called, began to be studied from the standpoint of how much useful work they could perform, leading eventually to the new concept of mechanical work. In 1586 Flemish engineer Simon Stevin derived the mechanical advantage of the inclined plane, and it was included with the other simple machines. The complete dynamic theory of simple machines was worked out by Italian scientist Galileo Galilei in 1600 in Le Meccaniche On Mechanics. He was the first to understand that simple machines do not create energy, only transform it.

The classic rules of sliding friction in machines were discovered by Leonardo da Vinci 1452–1519, but remained unpublished in his notebooks. They were rediscovered by Guillaume Amontons and were further developed by Charles-Augustin de Coulomb.

Types

Types of machines and related components
Classification		Machine(s)
Simple machines		Inclined plane, Wheel and axle, Lever, Pulley, Wedge, Screw
Mechanical components		Axle, Bearings, Belts, Bucket, Fastener, Gear, Key, Link chains, Rack and pinion, Roller chains, Rope, Seals, Spring, Wheel
Clock		Atomic clock, Watch, Pendulum clock, Quartz clock
Compressors and Pumps		Archimedes' screw, Eductor-jet pump, Hydraulic ram, Pump, Trompe, Vacuum pump
Heat engines	External combustion engines	Steam engine, Stirling engine
	Internal combustion engines	Reciprocating engine, Gas turbine
Heat pumps		Absorption refrigerator, Thermoelectric refrigerator, Regenerative cooling
Linkages		Pantograph, Cam, Peaucellier-Lipkin
Turbine		Gas turbine, Jet engine, Steam turbine, Water turbine, Wind generator, Windmill
Aerofoil		Sail, Wing, Rudder, Flap, Propeller
Electronic devices		Vacuum tube, Transistor, Diode, Resistor, Capacitor, Inductor, Memristor, Semiconductor, Computer
Robots		Actuator, Servo, Servomechanism, Stepper motor, Computer
Miscellaneous		Vending machine, Wind tunnel, Check weighing machines, Riveting machines

 

Mechanical

The word mechanical refers to the work that has been produced by machines or the machinery. It mostly relates to the machinery tools and the mechanical applications of science. Some of its synonyms are automatic and mechanic.

Simple machines

The idea that a machine can be broken down into simple movable elements led Archimedes to define the lever, pulley and screw as simple machines. By the time of the Renaissance this list increased to include the wheel and axle, wedge and inclined plane.

Engines

An engine or motor is a machine designed to convert energy into useful mechanical motion. Heat engines, including internal combustion engines and external combustion engines such as steam engines burn a fuel to create heat, which is then used to create motion. Electric motors convert electrical energy into mechanical motion, pneumatic motors use compressed air and others, such as wind-up toys use elastic energy. In biological systems, molecular motors like myosins in muscles use chemical energy to create motion.

Electrical

Electrical means operating by or producing electricity, relating to or concerned with electricity. In other words it means using, providing, producing, transmitting or operated by electricity.

Electrical machine

An “electrical machine” is the generic name for a device that converts mechanical energy to electrical energy, converts electrical energy to mechanical energy, or changes alternating current from one voltage level to a different voltage level.

Electronic machine

Electronics is the branch of physics, engineering and technology dealing with electrical circuits that involve active electrical components such as vacuum tubes, transistors, diodes and integrated circuits, and associated passive interconnection technologies. The nonlinear behavior of active components and their ability to control electron flows makes amplification of weak signals possible and is usually applied to information and signal processing. Similarly, the ability of electronic devices to act as switches makes digital information processing possible. Interconnection technologies such as circuit boards, electronic packaging technology, and other varied forms of communication infrastructure complete circuit functionality and transform the mixed components into a working system.

Computing machines

Computers store and manipulate the flow of electrons, with patterns in this storage and flow being interpreted as information manipulation. See State machine and Turing machine.

Charles Babbage designed various machines to tabulate logarithms and other functions in 1837. His Difference engine is the first mechanical calculator. This machine is considered a forerunner of the modern computer, though none were built in Babbage's lifetime.

Molecular machines

Study of the molecules and proteins that are the basis of biological functions has led to the concept of a molecular machine. For example, current models of the operation of the kinesin molecule that transports vesicles inside the cell as well as the myosin molecule that operates against acting to cause muscle contraction; these molecules control movement in response to chemical stimuli.

Researchers in nano-technology are working to construct molecules that perform movement in response to a specific stimulus. In contrast to molecules such as kinesin and myosin, these nano-machines or molecular machines are constructions like traditional machines that are designed to perform in a task.

Design

Design plays an important role in all three of the major phases of a product lifecycle.

1.     Invention—identification of a need, development of requirements, concept generation, prototype development, manufacturing, and verification testing.

2.     Performance engineering—enhancing manufacturing efficiency, reducing service and maintenance demands, adding features and improving effectiveness, and validation testing.

3.     Recycle—decommissioning and disposal, recovery and reuse of materials and components.

State Machine

In general, a state machine is any device that stores the status of something at a given time and can operate on input to change the status and/or cause an action or output to take place for any given change. A computer is basically a state machine and each machine instruction is input that changes one or more states and may cause other actions to take place. Each computer's data register stores a state. The read-only memory from which a boot program is loaded stores a state the boot program itself is an initial state. The operating system is itself a state and each application that runs begins with some initial state that may change as it begins to handle input. Thus, at any moment in time, a computer system can be seen as a very complex set of states and each program in it as a state machine. In practice, however, state machines are used to develop and describe specific device or program interactions.

To summarize it, a state machine can be described as,

1. An initial state or record of something stored someplace
2. A set of possible input events
3. A set of new states that may result from the input
4. A set of possible actions or output events that result from a new state

    In their book Real-time Object-oriented Modeling, Bran Selic & Garth Gullekson views a state machine as:

1. A set of input events
2. A set of output events
3. A set of states
4. A function that maps states and input to output
5. A function that maps states and inputs to states which is called a state transition function
6. A description of the initial state

          A finite state machine is one that has a limited or finite number of possible states. An infinite state machine can be conceived but is not practical. A finite state machine can be used both as a development tool for approaching and solving problems and as a formal way of describing the solution for later developers and system maintainers. There are a number of ways to show state machines, from simple tables through graphically animated illustrations. 

Uses of Machines

A machine is a device that aids man in the performance of work. Machines use energy to multiply a force, change the direction of a force, transform or transfer energy, or multiply speed. A car jack is a machine that multiplies force exerted on its handle so that a relatively small force can lift a car off the ground. For instance, a force of about 50 N exerted on the jack handle produces a force of about 2000 N on the car. Notice that the jack handle moves through a greater distance than the automobile.

         
         A machine may also used to changed the direction of a force. A single pulley at the top of a flagpole enables one end of the rope to exert an upward force on the flag as a downward force is exerted on the other end. Another use of a machine is to transform energy. A generator transforms mechanical energy into electrical energy. A steam turbine transforms heat energy into mechanical energy. We use machines to transfer energy from one place to another. The connecting rods, crankshafts, and axles transfer energy from the cylinders in the combustions engine of a car to the tires. We also use machines to multiply speed. A bicycle is a machine that gains speed by exerting a greater force on it. No machine can be used to gain both force and speed at the same time.

What is a virtual machine image:

A virtual machine image is a single file which contains a virtual disk that has a bootable operating system installed on it. Virtual machine images come in different formats, some of which are described below. In a later chapter, we'll describe how to convert between formats.