Centrifugal governor

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Drawing of a centrifugal "flyball" governor

A centrifugal governor is a specific type of governor that controls the speed of an engine by regulating the amount of fuel (or working fluid admitted, so as to maintain a near!constant speed, irrespective of the load or fuel!supply conditions" #t uses the principle of proportional control" #t is most obviously seen on steam engines, where it regulates the admission of steam into the cylinder(s " #t is also found on internal combustion engines and variously fueled turbines, and in some modern striking clocks"
Contents

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o o

& 'peration &"& (on!gravitational regulation

) *istory

+ Dynamic systems

+"& As an influence on cybernetics

, -ee also

. /eferences

'peration$edit%

0he device shown is from a steam engine" 1ower is supplied to the governor from the engine2s output shaft by a belt or chain connected to the lower belt wheel" 0he governor is connected to athrottle valve that regulates the flow of working fluid (steam supplying the prime mover" As the speed of the prime mover increases, the central spindle of the governor rotates at a faster rate and the kinetic energy of the balls

increases" 0his allows the two masses on lever arms to move outwards and upwards against gravity" #f the motion goes far enough, this motion causes the lever arms to pull down on a thrust bearing, which moves a beam linkage, which reduces the aperture of a throttle valve" 0he rate of working!fluid entering the cylinder is thus reduced and the speed of the prime mover is controlled, preventing over!speeding" 3echanical stops may be used to limit the range of throttle motion, as seen near the masses in the image at right"
Non-gravitational regulation

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A limitation of the two!arm, two!ball governor is its reliance on gravity, and that the governor must stay upright relative to the surface of the 4arth for gravity to retract the balls when the governor slows down" 5overnors can be built which do not use gravitational force, by using a single straight arm with weights on both ends, a center pivot attached to a spinning a6le, and a spring which tries to force the weights towards the center of the spinning a6le" 0he two weights on opposite ends of the pivot arm counterbalance any gravitational effects, but both weights use centripetal force to work against the spring and attempt to rotate the pivot arm towards a perpendicular a6is relative to the spinning a6le" -pring!retracted non!gravitational governors are commonly used in single!phase alternating current (AC induction motors to turn off the starting field coil when the motor2s rotational speed is high enough" 0hey are also commonly used in snowmobile and all!terrain vehicle (A07 continuously variable transmissions (C70 , both to engage8disengage vehicle motion and to vary the transmission2s pulley diameter ratio in relation to the engine rotations per minute"
*istory$edit%

9oulton : Watt engine of &;<<

=ames Watt designed his first governor in &;<< following a suggestion from his business partner 3atthew 9oulton" #t was a conical pendulum governor and one of the final series of innovations Watt had employed for steam engines" =ames Watt never claimed the centrifugal governor to be an invention of his own" Centrifugal governors were used to regulate the distance and pressure between millstones in windmills since the &;th century" #t is therefore a misunderstanding that =ames Watt is the inventor of this device"$&% A giant statue of Watt2s governor stands at -methwick in the 4nglish West 3idlands" #t is known as the flyball governor" Another kind of centrifugal governor consists of a pair of masses on a spindle inside a cylinder, the masses or the cylinder being coated with pads, somewhat like a drum brake" 0his is used in a spring!loaded record player and a spring!loaded telephone dial to limit the speed"
Dynamic systems$edit%

0he centrifugal governor is often used in the cognitive sciences as an e6ample of a dynamic system, in which the representation of information cannot be clearly separated from the operations being applied to the representation" And, because the governor is a servomechanism, its analysis in a dynamic system is not trivial" #n &<><, =ames Clerk 3a6well wrote a famous paper "'n governors"$)% that is widely considered a classic in feedback control theory" 3a6well distinguishes moderators (a centrifugal brake and governors which control motive power input" *e considers devices by =ames Watt, 1rofessor =ames 0homson, Fleeming =enkin, William 0homson, ?@on Foucault and Carl Wilhelm -iemens (a liAuid governor "
As an influence on cybernetics

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#n a largely overlooked passage from his famous &<.< paper to the ?innean -ociety (which led Darwin to publish 'n the 'rigin of -pecies , Alfred /ussel Wallace says of the evolutionary principleB 0he action of this principle is e6actly like that of the centrifugal governor of the steam engine, which checks and corrects any irregularities almost before they become evidentC and in like manner no unbalanced deficiency in the animal kingdom can ever reach any conspicuous magnitude, because it would make itself felt at the very first step, by rendering e6istence difficult and e6tinction almost sure soon to follow"$+% 0he cybernetician and anthropologist 5regory 9ateson would observe in the &D;Es that though seeing it only as an illustration, Wallace had "probably said the most powerful thing thatFd been said in the &Dth century""$,% 9ateson revisited the topic in his &D;D book Mind and Nature: A Necessary Unity, and other scholars have continued to e6plore the connection between natural selection and systems theory"$.%