IMPROVEMENTS IN ROTARY ENGINES
Year: 1874

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by William Smith at the Office
of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the 18th
September 1874.—A communication from abroad by William Smith,
the younger, of Osaka, Japan, Civil Engineer.
I, WILLIAM SMITH, of Aberdeen, North Britain, do hereby declare
the nature of the said Invention of "IMPROVEMENTS IN ROTARY ENGINES,"
a communication to me from abroad by William Smith, the younger, of
Osaka, Japan, Civil Engineer, to be as follows:-
This Invention relates to improvements in the construction of rotary
engines to be worked either by compressed air, by atmospheric pressure,
by steam, or by any other suitable fluid, and consists of a hollow
cylinder closed at both ends, through the centres or axes of which
passes the driving shaft of the engine. This driving shaft is enlarged
or formed with a cylindrical disc or block where it passes through the
interior of the cylinder, the outer cylindrical surface of which disc or
block is concentric with the internal cylindrical surface of the cylinder
and of such diameter as to leave any required annular space between
the said surfaces.

page_text: The cylindrical disc or block or enlargement of the driving shaft is
formed with slots extending the entire length, and from diametrically
opposite portions of its outer surface to any required distance towards
the centre. In these slots are guided and work the double piston of the
engine, which receives a reciprocating motion at proper times during
its revolution with the enlarged driving shaft inside the cylinder by
means of inclined or cam surfaces, forming the ends of a curved or seg-
mental block, which fills up or entirely closes a corresponding portion of
the annular space before mentioned. Opening into said annular space
through the inclined or cam surface at one end of the curved or seg-
mental block is the inlet or supply pipe to the engine, and leading from
the said annular space through the inclined or cam surface at the
opposite end of the curved or segmental block (at the opposite side of
the cylinder) is the exhaust pipe from the engine. On steam or air
entering the annular space of the cylinder through the inlet or supply
pipe, it meets with the under side of the projecting end of the double
piston in contact with the interior of the cylinder at that side, and
pressing against the said under side (in conjunction with the action of
the vacuum or exhaust on the upper side thercof) forces the piston to
rotate with the driving shaft in contact with the interior of the cylinder
until the piston is passing the entrance to the exhaust pipe at the
opposite side of the cylinder, when it mounts the inclined or cam
surface at that end of the curved or segmental block, and is thereby
depressed, and at the same time its opposite end projected against the
interior of the cylinder, and acted upon by the steam or air from the
inlet or supply pipe in a similar manner to that already described, and
so on, the steam or air alternately acting upon the under sides of the two
opposite ends of the double piston, whereby a continuous rotary motion.
of the driving shaft or engine is maintained.