Patent GB-190405125-A (GB)
Title: Improvements in Apparatus for Compressing Air, or Gases.
Inventor: GOBBE EMILE
Filed: 1904-03-01
Granted: 1905-01-26
Abstract: 5125. Gobbe, E. March 1. Compressing.-An apparatus in which the heat of hot air or gases effects their compression consists of one or more cylinders with moving wiregauze or like pistons, or with fixed heat-absorbers or radiators, which, by cooling or heating the gases passing through them, lower or raise their pressure alternately. Fig. 1 shows an apparatus with two wire gauze pistons 9, 10 connected by the crank shatt 19. The valves 3, 5, 7 are raised for a moment to admit hot air or gas to heat the lower parts of the cylinders 1, and the pistons, the circulation being promoted by suction in the passage 8. The valves are then shut, and; the shaft 19 rotated by hand so as to move down the piston 9, which absorbs the heat of the air below it, reducing the pressure, so that a quantity of hot gas is drawn through the valve 3, and cold gas is drawn through the valve 4. Similarly, the hot piston 10, moving upwards, heats the cold air in the cylinder 2, increases the pressure of the gas, which passes into the passage 8, where it is utilized. On the reverse strokes of the pistons, they increase in a similar manner the pressure in the cylinder 1 and decrease that in the cylinder 2, so that the air passes from the cylinder 1 to the cylinder 2 through the valves 5, 6. After a few strokes, the apparatus will drive itself, by reason of the fluctuations of pressure acting on the solid piston-heads of the hollow piston-rods 11,12. The pistons may, however, be reciprocated by a small motor. Fig. 2 shows an apparatus having a similar action ; the piston 25 is reciprocated by a crank and connecting-rod, and the top 31 is heated by an atmospheric burner 26, or by superheated air. Fig. 4 shows a modification in which the equivalents of the moving pistons consist of coils 47 of thin plate fixed in passages connecting the ends of cylinders 36, a row of which, having decreasing diameters, are connected by valved passages near the tops and bottoms. The apparatus is first heated by passing hot air through it, and compressed air is blown into it by injectors 48, 49, Fig. 5, which are caused to act alternately by slide valves 55, 56 operated by an eccentric or cam 54. The air is thus moved up and down in the coils 47, which alternately heat and cool it, and are alternately cooled and heated by it. A series of compressions and rarefactions are thus produced, which cause the air to pass from one cylinder to the next in succession. In a modification; the injectors are placed at the tops and bottoms of the cylinders 36, and inject gas which ignites and increases the pressure. The injectors may be replaced by a double-acting compressing- pump, which is connected to the lower part of the apparatus by cooling-coils. Fig. 8 shows an apparatus with three solid pistons m, b, hand a heat interchanger c. It is heated by turning by hand the flywheel q, and thus pumping into the cylinder fitted with the piston b and into the interchanger c, an inflammable mixture of gas and air. The pistons b, h are then set in motion by rotating the crank shaft x, so that the cold air below the piston b and above the piston h is heated by passing through the interchanger, and, on the return stroke, the hot air in the cylinder a is cooled in a similar manner, thus producing fluctuations of pressure. The motor l, or an apparatus for superheating air, supplies the energy necessary to drive the apparatus.