Patent GB-542046-A (GB)
Title: Improvements in railway vehicle power plants
IPC: F01K9/00
Filed: 1940-08-29
Abstract: 542,046. Controlling railway vehicle power plants. BRITISH THOMSON-HOUSTON CO., Ltd. Aug. 29, 1940, No. 13620. Convention date, Aug. 29, 1939. [Class 135] [Also in Groups XIII and XXXI] The admission and discharge of cooling fluid to condenser and oil cooler of a turbine-driven locomotive is controlled by adjustable inlet and outlet louvres along the sides and roof of the vehicle controlled by means sensitive to the vehicle speed and to at least one variable condition such as pressure or temperature of the heat exchanger. The inlet louvres are shown in Fig. 4 and are vertically arranged along the sides of the vehicle. They are made of lightweight metal and arcuate in transverse section to offer minimum resistance to air flow. They are mounted on pivots 8 so as to overlap slightly in the closed position and are controlled by power operated cables 11 adjustably secured to bi-furcated arms secured to each blade so that, in the open position, the rear blades project farther from the side of the vehicle than the front ones. The outlet louvres are shown in Fig. 5 and arc arranged in a frame 14 in the roof of the vehicle. These also are operated by cables 15 passing over guide pulleys and secured by clamps 16 to arms 17 on the blades. The control system is shown in Fig. 6 in which the power actuators for the inlet louvres are indicated at 57 and 58 and the power actuator for the outlet louvres at 18. A Pitot tube air speed indicator 19 is connected by pipes 22, 24 to liquid-sealed bells 23, 26 on a seesaw lever 20 clamped by a displacer 27 dipping into a mercury bath and provided with an indicating pointer co-operating with a scale 29. The lever 20 also actuates a control valve 31 to transmit through a pipe 32 to the power actuator 18 and to the chamber 33 of a relay 34 a pressure proportionate to the displacement of the lever. Similar control valves 36, 41 are actuated by Bourdon tubes connected to thermal feelers sensitive to the temperatures of the condensate and lubricating oil respectively. The tube 35 may be sensitive to the condensate pressure. Both tubes are coupled to the valve through adjustable lost-motion devices and the tube 41 is made more sensitive than the tube 35. The pressures forwarded through the pipes 37, 42 act on opposite sides of a spring-loaded diaphragm 44 coupled to another diaphragm 45<SP>1</SP> adapted to act on a lever 45 controlling valves 45A to forward through a pipe 49 pressure variations corresponding to pressure variations in the conduits 37, 42. The pressure in the chamber 33 acting on a spring-loaded diaphragm 331 and the pressure forwarded through the conduit 49 acting on a diaphragm 51 actuate a control valve to forward to the power actuators 57, 58 through the pipes 59, 60 a pressure proportionate to the sum of the pressures in the conduits 32, 49. Variations of pressure in the pipe 49 are also transmitted by a selector valve 62 to a diaphragm motor 63 to actuate a valve controlling an auxiliary supply of steam to a turbine driving a fan adjacent the outlet louvre. The selector valve permits the steam valve to be either automatically or manually controlled. The air coolers may be supplemented by water coolers opposite louvres positioned by hand. The air condensers may be divided into equal or unequal parts, the vapours passing first to rear sections which are under the control of temperature-sensitive elements sensitive to the temperature in the transfer conduit, while the forward sections are under the control of the temperature of the fluid leaving these sections. Specifications 527,102 and 527,194, [both in Group XIII], are referred to.