IMPROVEMENTS IN LIQUID METERS
Year: 1876

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Alfred Vincent Newton at the Office
of the Commissioners of Patents on the 18th January 1876. A communication
from abroad by David Waring Huntington and William Austin Hempstead, both
of South Coventry, in the State of Connecticut, United States of America.
ALFRED VINCENT NEWTON, of the Office for Patents, 66, Chancery Lane, in
the County of Middlesex, Mechanical Draughtsman. "IMPROVEMENTS IN LIQUID
METERS."
This Invention relates to that description of liquid meters in which the flow of
the liquid is measured by pistons working in cylinders and operated by a head or
pressure which forces or causes the liquid to be delivered through pipes or other-
wise as required.
The Invention consists in a double cylinder meter of novel construction, and in
which each cylinder is furnished with a reciprocating and elongated or double
headed piston, and an intermediate cylindrical valve operated by the piston to
control passages arranged substantially, as herein-after described for the purpose
of effecting the reversal of the pistons, which latter and their valves move
successively in like directions. The valves are what may be termed floating
balanced ones, and the meter is constructed so that there is a free continuous outlet
through the valves from the two cylinders, and a constant pressure of the liquid
between the two heads of each piston, and furthermore so that the liquid under
pressure is admitted alternately to the four ends of the cylinders outside of the
piston heads by means of the intermediate valves which move back and forth with
the pistons, causing the contained liquid to be forced out of the opposite ends of the
cylinders. The inlet pipe is situate a little to one side of the longitudinal centre of
the one cylinder, and the outlet pipe to the opposite side of the longitudinal centre
of the other cylinder; and in a line with each of these pipes is a passage
connecting the two cylinders together. These passages are for admitting liquid
from one cylinder to the other, and they are alternately covered by the cylindrical
floating valves which have an annular recess in their outer peripheries, forming
passages for the flow of the liquid, and are driven alternately to the right or left by
the pressure of their respective piston heads against pins which project from their
opposite edges. On the top of the two cylinders are two cross water courses or
passages, which extend from the middle of one cylinder to the end of the other,
and the like arrangement, but the inverse of this is provided at the bottom of the
cylinders. These cross water courses or passages open at one end into their

page_text: respective cylinders at points within the control of the floating valves, and at their
other end their ports are near the heads of the cylinders. By this arrangement the
liquid supplied under pressure to the meter will fill the space between the cylinder
heads, impart a to-and-fro motion to the pistons, and operate the valves so as to
allow of a continuous discharge of the liquid.
By providing an indicator which may be operated by the pressure of one of the
piston heads against a lever the amount of liquid passed through the meter will be
ascertained.