Specification of Richard Leake and Joseph Beevers : preventing smoke in furnaces.

  • Leake, Richard.
Date:
1868
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Specification of Richard Leake and Joseph Beevers : preventing smoke in furnaces. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Provisional Leake 8f Leavers’ Improvements in Preventing Smoke in Furnaces. employment of a fire-door, perforated or otherwise, and hung upon centres at the top side so as to act as a flap and close by its own gravity. In this door there is attached a lever arm by depressing which the door will turn partly on its top centres or hinges inwards towards the furnace. This lever is connected to the lower end of a piston rod, the 5 piston of which works fluid-tight or nearly so in an inverted cylinder suspended on trunnions in brackets, attached either to the front of the boiler itself or to the edge of the setting. On the top of this cylinder there is fitted a receiver or receptacle for water or other liquid of any convenient form, such receiver communicating with the cylinder below 10 by a small perforation made in the bottom of the receiver or in the partition which separates the cylinder from the receiver. The water¬ way of this small perforation is capable of being regulated by a conical plug inserted therein passing down through the receiver and adjusted by a regulating nut or screw for the purpose herein-before explained. 15 In addition to this small perforation there is a larger aperture made in the bottom of the receiver, and to this opening there is fitted a spring valve opening downwards into the cylinder. Sufficient water or other liquid is poured into the receiver to fill the cylinder, and when the furnace door is opened for the purpose of stoking, the piston is simul- 20 taneously drawn down to the bottom of its cylinder, the liquid from the receiver or vessel above then entering by the valvular opening and filling that part of the cylinder which is above the piston. The furnace door by its own gravity now tends to descend or close, hut it is controlled in its descent by the resistance of the liquid in the cylinder. As this 25 liquid is however caused by the upward movement of the piston to flow through the small adjustable perforation hack into the receiver again, it follows that the door will slowly close, and that the time occupied in its closing may he varied to suit different lands of fuel by increasing or diminishing the size of the perforation through which 30 the liquid is urged by the ascending piston. If desired, a ram or plunger may be substituted for the piston in the cylinder. According to another modification the top vessel or liquid receiver above the cylinder may be dispensed with, the liquid being always con¬ tained within the cylinder itself either above or below the piston as 35 the case may be. The piston should either be fitted with a valve opening upwards or with a cup leather packing that will expand when