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
"First, I put the coal upon the grate by small quantities, and at very
short intervals, say every two or three seconds. 2dly, I so dispose of
the coals upon the grate, that the smoke evolved must pass over that
part of the grate upon which the coal is in full combustion, and is
thereby consumed. 3dly, As the introduction of coal is uniform in
short spaces of time, the introduction of air is also uniform, and
requires no attention from the fireman.
[Illustration: Pl. VIII.]
"As it respects economy: 1st, The coal is put upon the fire by an
apparatus driven by the engine, and so contrived that the quantity of
coal is proportioned to the quantity of work which the engine is
performing, and the quantity of air admitted to consume the smoke is
regulated in the same manner. 2dly, The fire-door is never opened,
excepting to clean the fire; the boiler of course is not exposed to
that continual irregularity of temperature which is unavoidable in the
common furnace, and which is found exceedingly injurious to boilers.
3dly, The only attention required is to fill the coal receiver, every
two or three hours, and clean the fire when necessary. 4thly, The coal
is more completely consumed than by the common furnace, as all the
effect of what is termed stirring up the fire (by which no
inconsiderable quantity of coal is passed into the ash-pit) is
attained without moving the coal upon the grate."
The fire-place is a circular grate placed on a vertical shaft in a
horizontal position. It is capable of revolving, and is made to do so
by the vertical shaft, which is turned by wheelwork, which is worked
by the engine itself; or this shaft or spindle may be turned by a
water-wheel, on which a stream of water is allowed to flow from a
reservoir into which it is pumped by the power of the engine; and by
regulating the quantity of water in the stream, the grate may be made
to revolve with a greater or less speed. In that part of the boiler
which is over the grate, there is an aperture, in which is placed a
hopper, through which fuel is let down upon the grate at the rate of
any quantity per minute that may be required. The apparatus which
admits the coals through this hopper is worked by the engine also, and
by the same means as the grate is turned so that the grate revolves
with a speed proportional to the rapidity with which the fuel is
admitted through the hopper, and by this ingenious arrangement the
fuel falls equally thick upon the grate.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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