The Steam Engine Familiarly Explained and Illustrated: With an historical sketch of its invention and progressive improvement; its applications to navigation and railways; with plain axioms for railway speculatorsLardner, Dionysius
History
The Steam Engine Familiarly Explained and Illustrated: With an historical sketch of its invention and progressive improvement; its applications to navigation and railways; with plain axioms for railway speculators
Lardner, Dionysius
Steam-engines -- Early works to 1850
This method, however, of blowing out furnishes but a partial remedy
for the evils we have alluded to: a loose deposite will perhaps be
removed by such means, but an incrustation, more or less according to
the circumstances and quality of the water, will be formed; besides
which, the temptation to work the vessel with efficiency for the
moment influences the engine men to neglect blowing out; and it is
found that this class of persons can rarely be relied upon to resort
to this remedy with that constancy and regularity which are essential
for the due preservation of the boilers. The class of steam vessels
which, at present, are exposed to the greatest injury from these
causes are the sea-going steamers employed by the Admiralty; and we
find, by a report made by Messrs. Lloyd and Kingston to the Admiralty,
in August, 1834, that it is admitted that the method of blowing out
is, even when daily attended to, ineffectual. "The water in the
boiler," these gentlemen observe, "is kept from exceeding a certain
degree of saltness, by periodically blowing a portion of it into the
sea; but whatever care is taken, in long voyages especially, salt will
accumulate, and sometimes in great quantities and of great hardness,
so that it is with difficulty it can be removed. Boilers are thus
often injured as much in a few months as they would otherwise be in as
many years. The other evil necessarily resulting from this state of
things is, besides the rapid destruction of the boilers, a great waste
of fuel, occasioned by the difficulty with which the heat passes
through the incrustation on the inside, by the leaks which are thereby
caused, and by the practice of blowing out periodically, as before
mentioned, a considerable portion of the boiling water."
It would be impracticable to carry on board the vessel a sufficient
quantity of pure fresh water to work the engine exclusively by its
means. To accomplish this, it would be necessary to have a sufficient
supply of cold water to keep the condensing cistern cold, to supply
the jet in the condenser, and to have a reservoir in which the warm
water coming from the waste pipe of the cold cistern might be allowed
to cool. Engineers have therefore directed their attention to some
method by which the steam may be condensed without a jet, and after
condensation be preserved for the purpose of feeding the boiler. If
this could be accomplished, it would not be necessary to provide a
greater quantity of pure water than would be sufficient to make up the
small portion of waste which might proceed from leakage and from other
causes; and it is evident that this portion might always be readily
obtained by the distillation of sea water, which might be effected by
a small vessel exposed to the same fire which acts upon the boiler.
(115.) Mr. _Samuel Hall_ of _Basford_, near Nottingham, has taken out
patents for a new form of condenser, contrived for the attainment of
these ends, besides some other improvements in the engine.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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