IMPROVEMENTS IN SMELTING IRON AND OTHER ORES AND IN THE APPARATUS EMPLOYED THEREFOR
Year: 1870

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Andrew Barclay at the Office
of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the 23rd June
1870.
I, ANDREW BARCLAY, of Kilmarnock, in the County of Ayr, North
Britain, Engineer, do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention of
"IMPROVEMENTS IN SMELTING IRON AND OTHER ORES AND IN THE APPARATUS
EMPLOYED THEREFOR," to be as follows, that is to say :-
The
The first part of this Invention relates to the stoves for heating the
blast supplied to furnaces for smelting iron and other ores, and it consists
in the construction of the surfaces and joints of the pipes through which
the air passes, and in which it is heated. The interior and exterior
surfaces or either one of them are or may be corrugated or fluted.
joint of each pipe by which it is connected to the portion of the blast
mains within the heating stoves consists of two projections which enter
into correspondingly shaped recesses or sockets formed in the upper side
of the main so that a complete connection may be made around the entire
end by rust or other cement.
The second part of this Invention relates to the blast furnace, and
consists in constructing one or more smaller furnaces or cupolas situated

page_text: at the exterior of the blast furnace. The interior of each smaller furnace
or cupola is connected to the interior of the blast furnace by an opening
which may be sufficiently large to allow conjunction or contact of the
materials contained both in the outer furnaces and the blast furnace
proper. The outer furnaces or cupolas are charged with coke or other
material, and through each a blast is passed, which becoming charged
with carbon or other material contained in the outer furnaces is forced
thence through the openings above referred to into the blast furnace,
wherein it facilitates the reduction of the iron or other ores and assists in
purifying them. The blast furnace itself has twyers of the usual con-
struction and of any required number. The metallic iron reduced from
the ores may be collected in the hearth of the blast furnace, or the hearth
may be raised to the level of the openings connecting the furnaces and
slightly inclined from the centre of the blast furnace towards the outer
furnaces, in which case the reduced metal flows into the hearth of the
outer furnaces from which it is tapped as required.
The third part of this Invention relates to the construction of the blast
heating ovens, and it consists in place of using one large fire at one or
both ends, as at present, of employing a series of smaller fires at one or
both ends of the said oven, so that a more equal temperature may be
maintained by the alternate firing of the said smaller fires. The heating
chamber is subdivided by transverse divisions into smaller chambers, each
one of which is less than the one which precedes it, so that the heat is
confined into a gradually narrowing channel and caused to expend itself
more evenly over the surfaces of the pipes. In passing through these
chambers it escapes over the upper and under side of the divisions
alternately, and to obtain additional surface for heating the blast a
central row of heating pipes is employed in addition to the side rows at
present used.