Year: 1899

page_text: I, PETER BROTHERHOOD, of 15, Belvedere Road, Lambeth, in the County of
London, Engineer, do hereby declare the nature of this invention to be as
follows:-
My invention relates to a construction of direct acting air compressing engine,
in which a double acting steam cylinder has its piston rigidly attached to the
piston of an air compressing cylinder which is connected to a crank and two
other air compressing cylinders arranged radially around the crank shaft have
their pistons connected to the same crank; I shall describe this construction
referring to the accompanying drawings.
Figs. 1 and 2 are vertical sections on planes at right angles to each other, parts
being in elevation, of apparatus according to my invention.
Fig. 3 is an external elevation.
a is a double acting steam cylinder and b b b are the three air compressing
cylinders having their axes arranged radially and symmetrically around a central
shaft c.
The piston of the steam cylinder a is rigidly connected to the piston of
the adjoining air cylinder and the pistons of the three air cylinders are all
The valves for
linked by connecting rods d d d to one crank e on the shaft c.
the steam cylinder, are of known kind, operated in the usual way by an eccentric on
the crank shaft. The valves for the air cylinders are of the following description.
Between the steam cylinder a and the corresponding air cylinder 6 there is a
space in which are accommodated the stuffing boxes for the piston rod, this
space having lateral openings to give access to the stuffing boxes. From this
space there are holes through the top of the air cylinder these holes being fitted
with an annular inlet valve g supported by springs and arranged to open down-
Around the
wards when the air piston makes its stroke towards the shaft c.
passage to these valves there is an annular channel the lower part of which
forms the seating for an annular air discharge valve i mounted over openings into
the air cylinder. The valves for the other air cylinders are similar. All the
annular channels & communicate with one another by channels ; and with a com-
pressed air pipe k.
The air cylinders are kept cool by water circulating through the spaces sur-
rounding them.
m is a regulating valve on the pipe supplying steam to the cylinder a, this
valve being worked by a lever n which is urged towards the engine, so as to
open the valve, by an adjustable spring o, and which is urged away from the
engine so as to tend to close the valve either by a governor of the kind described
in my previous Specification No. 6:354 of 1899 when the shaft revolves too rapidly,
or by a regulator 7 of the kind described in Specification No. 17,832 of 1897.
This regulator is connected by a pipe with the reservoir of compressed air,
and when the pressure exceeds that to which the regulator spring is adjusted, the
lever n is urged outwards so as partly to close the valve m.

page_text: Having now particularly described and ascertained the nature of this
invention and in what manner the same is to be performed, I declare that what
I claim is:
A direct acting air compressing engine comprising a double acting steam
cylinder having its piston connected to the piston of an air compressing cylinder
in line with the steam cylinder, and two other air compressing cylinders having
their pistons connected to the same crank with the other and the air cylinders
being provided on their outer ends with apertures furnished with annular suction
and discharge valves, substantially as described.
Dated this 10th day of April 1899