A History of the Growth of the Steam-EngineThurston, Robert Henry
History
A History of the Growth of the Steam-Engine
Thurston, Robert Henry
Steam-engines -- History
One of these methods is that of the use of Galloway conical tubes
(Fig. 110). These are very largely used in Great Britain, but are
seldom if ever seen in the United States. The Cornish boiler, to which
they are usually applied, consists of a large cylindrical shell, 6
feet or more in diameter, containing one tube of about one-half as
great dimensions, or sometimes two of one-third the diameter of the
shell each. Such boilers have a very small ratio of heating to grate
surface, and their large tubes are peculiarly liable to collapse. To
remove these objections, the Messrs. Galloway introduced stay-tubes
into the flues, which tubes are conical in form, and are set in either
a vertical or an inclined position, the larger end uppermost. The area
of heating-surface is thus greatly increased, and, at the same time,
the liability to collapse is reduced. The same results are obtained by
another device of Galloway, which is sometimes combined with that just
described in the same boiler. Several sheets in the flue have
"pockets" worked into them, which pockets project into the
flue-passage.
[Illustration: FIG. 110.]
Another device is that of an American engineer, Miller, who surrounds
the furnace of cylindrical and other boilers with water-tubes. The
"fuel-economizers" of Greene and others consist of similar collections
of tubes set in the flues, between the boiler and the chimney.
"_Sectional_" boilers are gradually coming into use with high
pressures, on account of their greater safety against disastrous
explosions. The earliest practicable example of a boiler of this class
was probably that of Colonel John Stevens, of Hoboken, N. J. Dr.
Alban, who, forty years later, attempted to bring this type into
general use, and constructed a number of such boilers, did not
succeed. Their introduction, like that of all radical changes in
engineering, has been but slow, and it has been only recently that
their manufacture has become an important branch of industry.
A committee of the American Institute, of which the author was
chairman, in 1871, examined several boilers of this and the ordinary
type, and tested them very carefully. They reported that they felt
"confident that the introduction of this class of steam-boilers will
do much toward the removal of the cause of that universal feeling of
distrust which renders the presence of a steam-boiler so objectionable
in every locality. The difficulties in thoroughly inspecting these
boilers, in regulating their action, and other faults of the class,
are gradually being overcome, and the committee look forward with
confidence to the time when their use will become general, to the
exclusion of older and more dangerous forms of steam-boilers."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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