IMPROVE- MENTS IN FURNACES
Year: 1864

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Edward Brown Wilson at the Office
of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the 1st January
1864.
I, EDWARD BROWN WILSON, of 10, Strand, in the County of Middlesex,
Engineer, do hereby declare the nature of my said Invention for "IMPROVE-
MENTS IN FURNACES," to be as follows:-
This Invention relates to the construction of furnaces and to the intro-
duction of air and fuel thereto, and to the removal and utilization of the
products of combustion.
I form a chamber closed at the bottom with openings at the top or upper
part of the sides for the introduction of fuel and admission of air. In the
side or sides of this chamber near its bottom I make numerous holes, which
communicate by suitable channels and chambers, hereafter described, with a
chimney, the draught of which causes air to enter the chamber by the upper
openings and to pass through the fuel, and the gaseous products of combustion
to issue from the fuel chamber.by the lateral holes. In order to prevent these
holes from being interrupted by pieces of fuel, cinders, or other matter, I
prefer to make the part of the side which is perforated not vertical but
inclined inwards, and the holes themselves not horizontal but sloping upwards
from the interior of the chamber, so that pieces of fuel, cinders, or other
matter tend to fall away from the side and out of the holes into the chamber.

page_text: Sometimes I find it advantageous to inject steam or water into the chamber
along with the entering air. I form a channel with which the holes above
describe communicate, and by which the heated gases are conducted into
a heating chamber, such as that of a reverberatory furnace, and into this
channel or into the heating chamber near the point where the gases enter it
I admit by numerous holes an additonal supply of air to mix with the hot
gases before they pass through the heating chamber. I control this supply
of air by suitable valves so as to render the gases with which it is mixed more
or less capable of oxydating or deoxydating the materials on which they act in
the heating chamber; and when desirable I heat this air before it is admitted
to mix with the gases. The heating chamber may be of any convenient form,
such as that used for smelting, melting, refining, puddling, heating, calcining,
drying, baking, and other furnace operations; but I prefer generally to make
it with a concavely-curved bottom, and to admit the heated gases at the one
side by a channel sloping downwards towards the bottom, and to let them
escape at the other side by a channel sloping upwards from the bottom, so
that they may be made to sweep along the curved bottom in their course
through the chamber. The gases on leaving the heated chamber are con-
ducted to a chimney by a channel provided with a suitable damper for
regulating the draught, and I prefer to make this channel of considerable size,
and to fit in it pipes or flues which communicate at one end with the atmo-
sphere and at the other with the air holes already described, so that the air
passing through these pipes or flues on its way to mingle with the gases
entering the heating chamber receives heat from the products of combustion
before they escape by the chimney. Or I sometimes subdivide the channel
itself into several, and make them pass through a chamber through which the
air passes, the subdivision being for the purpose of exposing greater surface
to heat the air. When it is desirable to melt in the same chamber with the
fuel I construct the furnace with the fuel chamber so situated that its bottom
is at a higher level than the heating chamber, and I form a sloping passage
from the bottom of the fuel chamber to the heating chamber, so that metal,
ore or other fusible substances placed into the fuel chamber along with the
fuel when melted therein flow by this channel into the heating chamber. I
sometimes arrange furnaces constructed in the manner above described, but
with several fuel chambers communicating with one heating chamber, or with
several heating chambers connected with one fuel chamber. I also alter the
fuel chambers of existing furnaces, so as to act in the manner above described.
For supporting the roofs of chambers, which are exposed to great heat, I
employ refractory materials formed into tubular pieces, through which I pass

page_text: iron bars supported loosely at the ends, or resting on rollers at their extre-
mities to allow for the movements caused by expansion and contraction. These
tubular pieces may be used also for heating the air by causing it to pass
through them while their outer surfaces are exposed to heat.