IMPROVEMENTS IN STEAM BOILER FURNACES, AND APPARATUS EMPLOYED FOR SUPPLYING WATER TO STEAM BOILERS
Year: 1856

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by William Henry Aston and Samuel
Hopkinson at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with their
Petition, on the 21st May 1856.
We, WILLIAM HENRY ASTON and SAMUEL HOPKINSON, of Zetland Mill,
Huddersfield, do hereby declare the nature of the Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS
IN STEAM BOILER FURNACES, AND APPARATUS EMPLOYED FOR SUPPLYING WATER TO
STEAM BOILERS," to be as follows:-
This Invention has for its object improvements in steam boiler furnaces, and
apparatus employed for supplying water to steam boilers, and the improve-
ments are applicable where hollow fire bars are employed. For these purposes,
the apparatus constituting the furnace, and for supplying the boiler, are
arranged as follows:-The furnace is arranged with two sets of hollow fire-
bars; the upper set has the addition in front of a set of ordinary fire bars, so
arranged that the fuel thereon is supplied with air up through the ordinary
front set of fire bars, and the products pass from the fuel on such ordinary
set of fire bars over and down through the fuel on the upper set of hollow fire
bars. There is a water bridge or box at the back end of the upper set of
hollow fire bars, through which there is an opening below the upper set of
hollow fire bars. At a point below the opening through the water bridge and
below the upper set of hollow fire bars is a second or lower set of hollow fire

page_text: bars, on which there is a second fire, over which the products from the upper
fire pass. Air may be admitted above and below such second fire. Beyond the
water bridge above mentioned is a second water bridge, at the lower part of
the flue, over which the products from the fires pass. The two sets of hollow
fire bars are composed, by preference, of one continuous zig-zag bent tube, and
the water flows from the hinder water bridge through the zig-zag tube,
forming the upper set of hollow fire. bars down to and through the lower zig-
zag bent tube, forming the lower set of hollow fire bars. The water is supplied
to the boiler through a stand pipe, which descends to near the bottom of the
boiler. The water is pumped or supplied to the upper part of the stand pipe,
but cannot descend into the boiler, there being a partition between the upper
and lower parts of the stand pipe; a tube passes from the stand pipe above
the partition, descends down to a valve box, from which a tube descends, and
is connected with the lower part of the boiler, but the passage into such tube
is closed by a valve opening into the valve box. There is also a second tube
connected to the valve box, which passes into and along the lower part of the
flue till it comes to the hinder water bridge, to which its end is fixed, and by
which the water is supplied to that water bridge. From the upper part of the
hinder bridge a tube passes through a passage or opening in the front water
bridge, and conveys the water to the upper set of hollow fire bars. The water
having circulated to and fro in the upper fire bars, descends to and circulates
to and fro through the lower hollow fire bars, and thence out at the end into
the front water bridge; the water passes out of the upper part of the front
water bridge through a tube which is placed along the upper part of the flue,
and thence into the stand pipe below the partition, and thence down the lower
part of the stand pipe into the boiler, having become highly heated in its
passage. When water is not being supplied to the upper part of the stand
pipe, the water can circulate from the bottom of the boiler past the valve into
the valve box, and thence through the tubes, as above explained.