clearance space

English

Noun

clearance space (countable and uncountable, plural clearance spaces)

1. In a steam engine, the space enclosed in one end of the cylinder, between the valve(s) and the piston, at the beginning of a stroke; waste room. It includes the space caused by the piston's clearance and the space in ports, passageways, etc. Its volume is often expressed as a certain proportion of the volume swept by the piston in a single stroke.

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for “clearance space”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.)