Specification of Henry Bessemer : fuel and furnaces.

  • Bessemer, Henry.
Date:
1855
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Specification of Henry Bessemer : fuel and furnaces. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    17/28 (page 15)
    jBessemer s Improvements in the Preparation of Fuel for Furnaces. Into one end of this scries of heating pipes the waste steam of the engine is allowed to pass, and the pipes .being kept at a red heat the steam will acquire a very high temperature, and in that state is to be supplied to the interior of the retort, for the purpose of softening the coal. In this case 5 the retort, which may be made in the same manner as that represented in Sheet B, but will not require any fire-place or flue beneath it, but should be enclosed in brickwork or other bad conductor of heat; the pipe which conveys the steam should enter at the hopper t, where the soft coal falls into and finds its escape with the gases through the pipe u into the hydraulic 10 main, where condensation will take place, while the gas passes off to the gasometer. I am aware that the use of heated steam has been proposed for manufacturing coke, and for heating certain mixtures of pitch, tar, coal dust, &c.; I therefore do not claim it for those purposes ; but what I consider new and of my Invention is, the application of highly heated steam for the purpose 15 of softening coal, in order that it may be formed into a solid mass by pressure, and without requiring the admixture of any cementing material or foreign matter therewith. Lastly, with regard to my improvements in supplying fuel to furnaces by a combination of revolving circular fire bars or wheels, which conduct 20 the fuel into the furnace and progressively move it therein, and finally eject the clinkers or slag at the opposite end of the fire chamber:— Numerous plans for feeding furnace fires regularly with small coal and for consuming their smoke have been brought forward and used with more or less advantage, but there are still some particulars in which the present plans 25 are deficient. In some of them the fire-place is shut up, so as to render it difficult to light the fire or to get at it in case of accident; most of them retain the fire bars too long in contact with the hot fuel, by which they become rapidly destroyed; while in other cases the complexity of the structure renders it liable to frequent derangement, and is also a very expensive apparatus. In 30 order to avoid these disadvantages, I construct an apparatus as represented on Sheet B of the Drawings hereunto annexed; where Figure 1 is a front elevation of a steam boiler furnace to which this apparatus is applied ; Figure 2 is a longitudinal section on the line A, B, of Figure 1 ; Figure 3 is a vertical cross section on the line C, D, of Figure 2 ; Figure 4 is a sectional plan on 35 the line E, F, of Figure 2 ; and Figures 5, 6, and 7, enlarged views of one of the wheels. That part of the apparatus which answers the purpose of fire bars consists of a number of thin flat wheels, with a projecting boss cast on one side of them, the thickness of which regulates their distance apart from each other. In all cases this boss should a little exceed the thickness of the rest of the