The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1833-11-12 00:00:00

ERICSON'S CALORIC ENGINE.

Various attempts have been made to construct engines
founded on the principle of the expansion of atmos-
pheric air by heat, but these attempts have still remained
without practical success. The caloric engine invented
by Captain Ericson, a large working model of which we
have seen in vigorous operation, seems to promise re-
sults of a very different kind. Air and steam must now
engage in a desperate and probably a deadly struggle for
the mastery. If the sanguine, and we think not unrea-
sonable hopes of the inventor be realized, steam has seen
its best days.

The principle of the engine is founded on the well-
known property of fluids, that they transmit their pres-
sures equally in all directions. It consists or two cylinders
of unequal diameters, the area of the pistons of the one
being double that of the other. These cylinders are con-
nected together by means of a series of pipes, called a
regenerator. If air be condensed in these cylinders, it is
obvious that the superior pressure exerted on the piston
of the large cylinder will vanquish the pressure on the
small one, and motion will take place till the larger pis-
ton has reached the top of the cylinder, whilst the small
one has been pushed to the botorn. Here all motion
would cease, if heated condensed air were not allowed to
enter above the large piston, and below the small one, so
as to depress the large one to the bottom of the cylinder,
and raise the smaller one to the top. But this being
done by sliding valves, exactly as in the steam-engine,
the motion is constantly kept up. On this principle,
then, we could obviously have an air engine, which
would perform its operations by the sudden heating and
cooling of condensed atmospheric air. But this is not
the principle which distinguishes the caloric engine from
others of the same class. The marked difference lies in
this—that the same heat is made to circulate through the
engine and perform the same duty over and over again,
instead of being thrown into a cold condenser or into the
atmosphere as so much waste fuel.
The regenerator consists of a number of pipes, hav-
ing numerous discs of metal placed within them, to make
the air circulate in eddies, and either deposit its heat in
-the pipes or receive it from them, according to the dif-
.-ference of temperature. These pipes are enclosed in a
long cylinder of sheet iron, which has also discs of
metal so arranged that the air, passing along the outside
*of the pipes, may also travel in a circuitous route, and
deposit its heat, or receive it according to circumstances.
The heated air, after having done its duty in the
large cylinder, is made to circulate through the regener-
ator, and deposit a very large quantity of its caloric be-
fore it reaches the cold cylinder. The cold air from the
small cylinder is at the same time passing along the in-
terior of the pipes to the tubes above the furnace, and is
thus carrying back the same caloric to do the same work
over again. But though we have only mentioned atmos-
pheric air as the fluid actually employed, it is obvious
that any other fluid, whether aerifurm or liquid, may be
mad in the same manner. But a simple statement of
numerical facts, furnished us by the engineer himself,
will be of more value in turning the attention of the
public to this invention than any general observations
,which we can possibly make. The engine actually con-
structed has two cylinders of 18 inches .stroke each, the
one being 14 inches in diameter, the other 10}, inches.
The working pressure is 351 b. above that of the atmos-
phere. The fly-wheel performs 56 revolutions in a mi-
nute. The break wheel is two- feet in diameter, and
loaded with a weight of 5,2001 h. The power of the en.
gine is calculated to be equal to five horses. Tile rege-
nerator has seven tubes about seven feet long and two
inches in diameter. The engine requires only '2lb of
coal per hour for the poWer of one horse, and the whole
heat which is actually lost out of this quantity, or not
_ returned by the regenerator, is only 31b. per hour ; so
that the other parts are lost by radiation, &c.,-which may
be much diminished on a larger scale, and by surround-
ing certain parts by imperfect conductors.