Records of Steam Boiler ExplosionsMarten, Edward Bindon
History
Records of Steam Boiler Explosions
Marten, Edward Bindon
Steam-boiler explosions
The desire to economise fuel led to placing the fire inside the boiler,
in a tube running from end to end, as shown in Fig. 38, and the great
number of boilers of this form used in Cornwall gave it the name of the
Cornish boiler. The exceedingly good duty performed by these boilers
led many to believe them the most perfect for economy and durability;
but the great number of explosions, or more properly of collapsed
flues, that have happened, have altered this opinion, and led to the
double-flue boiler shown in Fig. 39, in which not only is the heating
surface increased but the strength also, by having two tubes of smaller
diameter in the same shell. There are a great many varieties of the
two-tube boiler, which have been made for the purpose of obtaining
various particular results. In some cases the two tubes have been made
to unite into a single tube immediately behind the fires, forming what
is known as the Breeches-tube boiler, as shown in Fig. 40, and in other
instances the outside shell of the boiler has been made oval, as shown
in Fig. 41, with the two tubes continued through from end to end. The
heating surface has also been increased, and the strength of the main
tubes, by placing smaller transverse tubes across them at right angles;
but these advantages are gained by increased complication, leading of
course to greater difficulty in examination and repair.
* * * * *
The frequent failure of tubes by collapse when used for high pressures,
and also the results of careful experiments, led to the simple addition
of strengthening rings of different makes around the exterior of these
tubes, by which the shell and the tubes are rendered of equal strength.
It has taken considerable time for the belief in the weakness of large
tubes when exposed to external pressure to become general, and a great
many boilers are still made and used having even large tubes without
the strengthening rings; and in some districts such boilers are used
in great numbers and at far higher pressures than can be considered
judicious. In more than one bed of boilers, one boiler after another
has exploded by the collapse of the tube from the want of strengthening
rings, and yet these have still been believed unnecessary; and the
cases of isolated boilers of this construction where the large tubes
have collapsed are extremely numerous, yet any other reason than the
weakness of the tube has been considered more probable as the cause of
explosion. A sketch of a boiler with collapsed flue is given in Fig.
42, which exploded at Burton-on-Trent in 1865; and it is selected from
many others because it was a new boiler, well made and mounted, and was
a good example of the weakness of a large tube to resist high external
pressure when made of great length without the support of strengthening
rings.
[Illustration: _Fig. 42._]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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