History Mesh

The crankshaft (12th Century)

The crankshaft, sometimes casually abbreviated to crank, is the part of an engine which translates reciprocating linear piston motion into rotation.

The first known use of a crankshaft in a chain pump was in one of al-Jazari’s saqiya machines. The concept of minimizing intermittent working is also first implied in one of al-Jazari’s saqiya chain pumps, which was for the purpose of maximising the efficiency of the saqiya chain pump.

Read more about the crankshaft on Wikipedia.

Footnotes