Centrifugal governors: The story of a mistake

Abstract

In this paper we study the centrifugal governors from the BMSTU collection in Moscow. The brief description of the governors, their distinctive features and working principles are given. The article deals with the main problems of the governors and their solutions suggested in Maxwell’s, Vyshnegradsky’s and Chebyshev’s fundamental works. Some wrong directions in the development of governor design were identified. Inoperative mechanisms, some of which can be found in the BMSTU collection, were the result of the described dead-end directions. The article also provides information about the mathematical simulation of the operation of the governors.