IMPROVEMENTS IN MEANS AND MACHINERY FOR TESTING CEMENTS AND OTHER SUBSTANCES."
Year: 1880

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LETTERS PATENT to Patrick Adie, of No. 15, Pall Mall, in the County of
Middlesex, for an Invention of "IMPROVEMENTS IN MEANS AND MACHINERY
FOR TESTING CEMENTS AND OTHER SUBSTANCES."
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said Patrick Adie at the Office of
the Commissioners of Patents on the 17th June 1880.
PATRICK ADIE, of No. 15, Pall Mall, in the County of Middlesex. "IMPROVEMENTS
IN MEANS AND MACHINERY FOR TESTING CEMENTS AND OTHER SUBSTANCES."
My improvements more particularly relate to the machine I invented some years
ago for the Metropolitan Board of Works, and consists, mainly, of the addition to
that said machine or others made for the same purpose of an escapement and
pendulum or other system, whereby the element of time is introduced into these
testings, such regulator being a portion of said machine. This subject is assuming
greater importance every day, and I have discovered the exact timeing of the test
to be of the utmost consequence; instead therefore of pulling the rolling or testing
weight by hand with wheel work, I attach a spring or falling weight, and regulate
the rate of movement of such spring or weight by the intervention of a pendulum
and escapement, or spring balance escapement, or other such time regulator, so that
cach test is made to occupy the same or proportionate time in all testings.
These tests are generally made on the tensile strain, but I would propose also
to apply the time element to the fracturing of cements and other imperfectly elastic
substances in all the different ways they are tested.

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SPECIFICATION in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters Patent and of an
Order of the Lord Chancellor filed by the said Patrick Adie in the Great
Son Patent Office on the 31st December 1880.
PATRICK ADIE, of No. 15, Pall Mall, in the County of Middlesex. "IMPROVEMENTS
IN MEANS AND MACHINERY FOR TESTING CEMENTS AND OTHER SUBSTANCES."
I employ for this purpose a falling weight regulated by means of a pendulum or
other time keeper, so that the falling weight, whereby the tests are made, shall
pass through a given space in a given time, so that one testing may be more
exactly comparable with another than when the weight is moved by a winch and
the hand as formerly done.
But that the nature of my Invention and the incans I adopt in carrying the
samo into effect may be better understood I will proceed to describe the Drawings
annexed, in the various Figures of which the same letters are used to indicate like
parts wherein they occur.
Figs. I. & 11. represent my ordinary cement testing machine in plan; Fig. J. also
represents the first method of carrying out my improvements. The briquette to bo
tested being placed as usual in the clips B & C, the rolling or testing weight D
being moved along the beam F by the pulling of the weight P passing over and
attached to a pulley between the forks of the crutch Q, which also keeps the end of
the beam Fin its position.
To the side of Q I attach an escapement wheel H with or without a train of
wheels to alter speed; at NI mount a pair of pallets working into H and having a
pendulum T attached. When the pendulum is started P pulls D along the beam,
the rate being regulated by the pendulum.
I also obtain this regulation by a horizontal escapement placed over Q, the
regulation being obtained in that case by a balance wheel and spring, or horizontal
lever escapement.
The
Fig. 11. represents another mode in which I carry out my improvements. In
this case I employ what may be described generally as a water clock.
falling weight P attached as before to D or E pulls tho weight along till the
briquette is broken, its rate being regulated by pouring water through a sinall
aperture at S; S is a cylinder filled with water having a small tube L connecting
top and bottom of cylinder S; a plunger at M forces the water through a small
aperture in L at S, and so regulates the rate of the travel of D, and the time
occupied in inaking the test; M is raised by the weight P, and its range of travel
may be varied by the number of sheaths in the pulleys at K and O.
Having described the nature of my Invention and the manners in which I carry
the same into effect, I would have it understood that I do not confine myself to the
precise details shown and described, as theso may be varied, but what I do claim is
the introduction of the automatic time elements into the testing by these
machines as drawn and described, and their general combination.
In witness whereof, 1, the said Patrick Adie, have hereunto set my hand
and seal, this 31st day of December, in the year of our Lord Eighteen
hundred and eighty.