It wasn’t until the beginning of the industrial revolution when a British mechanic named Joseph Bramah applied the principle of Pascal’s law in the development of the first hydraulic press. In 1795, he patented his hydraulic press, known as the Bramah press. Bramah figured that if a small force on a small area would create a proportionally larger force on a larger area, the only limit to the force that a machine can exert is the area to which the pressure is applied.
Hydraulic systems can be found today in a wide variety of applications, from small assembly processes to integrated steel and paper mill applications. Hydraulics enable the operator to accomplish significant work (lifting heavy loads, turning a shaft, drilling precision holes, etc.) with a minimum investment in mechanical linkage through the application of Pascal’s law
