IMPROVEMENTS IN STEAM ENGINES AND THE MACHINERY AND APPARATUS CONNECTED THEREWITH
Year: 1861

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by John Frederick Spencer at the
Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the 15th
January 1861.
I, JOHN FREDERICK SPENCER, of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Consulting Engineer,
do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN
STEAM ENGINES AND THE MACHINERY AND APPARATUS CONNECTED THEREWITH," to be
as follows:-
This Invention relates to certain improvements connected with steam-
engines combined with surface condensers and working with surface condensation
instead of by the ordinary system of injection condensation, and whether
such engines, machinery, and apparatus be employed on board of ships or on
lanıl.
The first part of my Invention consists of a mode of supplying surface
condensers with condensing water when it is convenient or preferred to work
the air pumps, or condensing water pumps, or both (with or without the
feed and bilge pumps), by the main engines. In such cases I work the
pump or pumps for supplying the condensing water required for condensing
the steam in surface condensers, by a steam-engine or engines worked distinct
from the main engines; the steam to work such auxiliary engines may come
direct from the main or auxiliary boiler or boilers, as preferred. I do not
claim the occasional use of a distinct steam pump or pumps as described
for obtaining a vacuum and starting the main engines or other temporary
purpose, but only the use and adoption of such pump or pumps as a regular

page_text: system, and always working at the same time as the main engines, my object
being to have an inexpensive plan for fitting surface condensers to engines,
fitted with the ordinary injection condenser and air pumps. If desired, the
feed and bilge pumps can also be worked by the condensing pump steam
engines.
The second part of my present Invention consists in a novel arrangement
of apparatus and mode of working the combined air and cold water pump
previously patented by me, or cold water pumps only in connection with my
arrangement of surface condensing engines, (as patented by me on the 29th
day of March 1858, and numbered 661, and on the 17th day of January
1860, and numbered 120. It is usual in direct-acting inverted screw or
stationary engines to work the air pumps by levers placed across the line of
the keel and attached at one end by means of links to the piston rod or its
crosshead, and at the outer end by links to the air pump crosshead. The
fulcrum or centre of vibration of the lever being placed at some convenient
distance from either end, and a short shaft or axis carrying the lever is
supported in bearings in some portion of the engine framing, or in standards
provided for the purpose. By this arrangement, the work of the pump and
the load on its bucket help to balance the descending weight of the steam
piston and its connections or the moving parts of the engine. Now in the
pumps which I commonly use for such descriptions of engines fitted with
surface condensers, the work or load of the pump is in or during its downward
stroke, or the reverse of the ordinary condition of working engines as before
described. For the purpose of meeting this alteration in the conditions or
requirements of such pumps and engines, I work the plunger of the combined
pump constructed according to my previous Patent, or other force pumps, by
means of a lever or levers, one end of which being attached to the piston
rod crosshead, the other end is made the fulcrum or centre of vibration, and
is attached to brackets connected with or attached to the framing of the
pump or the engine, motion being communicated to the plunger at any
convenient point between the two extreme ends. By this arrangement the
load of the pump on its downward stroke helps to counterbalance the weight
of the steam piston and the moving parts connected therewith. By this
arrangement of pump levers in inverted direct-acting steam engines having
surface condensers attached thereto, the combined air and cold water pump
patented by me, as herein-before mentioned, or any other construction of
pump in which the downward stroke forces or projects the condensing water
through a surface condenser, is worked or has motion communicated thereto
by means of a lever or levers, having the fulcrum at one end as described,

page_text: and at the same time space is economized in the engine-room or the space
occupied by the engine.
The third part of my Invention has reference to steam engines worked
with surface condensers, either of the kind previously patented by me or of any
other description, the two previous parts of this Invention having reference
to certain arrangements for working the pumps of engines fitted with surface
condensers. I now adopt as my improvement an improved method for
making up the waste of fresh water in such engines, and at the same time
further economizing fuel by raising the temperature of the feed water.
Now, for the purpose of pumping and feeding steam-engine boilers to be fed
or supplied with fresh water, and with a view also to enable them to be
supplied with water of a higher temperature than when it has left the surface
condenser in which it has been collected, I apply a heater in connection
with a vapourizer as hereafter described; and this forms the third portion
of my present Invention. In cases where it is not convenient or desirable to
employ the auxiliary boiler described in one of my aforesaid Patents, for
making up the loss or waste of fresh water, I substitute the following
arrangement:-I connect with the main boiler or boilers a vapourizer or
vessel, into which salt or foul water is admitted, on one side of the metallic
divisions or surfaces, whilst the hot contents (water and steam or both) of
the main boiler or boilers are brought by pipes, &c., in contact with the
other surfaces, and made to circulate between them, and impart the heat
thereto, and so ensure its transmission to the salt or foul water on the opposite
side of such metallic surfaces, by which vapour or steam is driven off'; and
in its passage therefrom through a surface heater is made to part with its
heat to the feed water, which in its course from the pump or pumps to the
boiler or boilers is likewise caused to pass through the said surface heater,
and thus a large proportion of the heat drawn from the main boiler for the
purpose of vapourizing the salt water is returned to it through the increased
temperature of the feed water supplied thereto. When the amount of feed
water is insufficient to abstract all the useful heat from the steam or vapour
driven off from the salt water contained in the vapourizer, the portion
condensed, together with that which is uncondensed, is passed into the main
surface condenser, and thus utilized.