IMPROVEMENTS IN STEAM GENERATORS
Year: 1883

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Horatio Frederick Phillips at the
Office of the Commissioners of Patents on the 23rd April 1883.
HORATIO FREDERICK PHILLIPS of Lancashire Court, New Bond Street, in the
County of Middlesex, Engineer, "IMPROVEMENTS IN STEAM GENERATORS."
"
My invention is designed to produce a compact, light and safe tubulous steam
generator of simple construction that will present a large area of efficient heating
surface in proportion to the space occupied, the arrangement being such, moreover,
as to promote circulation of the water and steam,-to afford ready access to the
interior for inspection and repair, to enable deposit such as soot to be readily
removed from the exteriors of the tubes, and to render the apparatus less liable than
others of its class to leakage arising from expansion and contraction of the parts.
For this purpose I provide a box or case of suitable material such as cast steel.
It is furnished with a removable cover or covers forming the furnace front and by
removal of which the open ends of all the tubes are exposed. The back of this box
constitutes a tube plate of a forin having two downward extensions one at each
side. From this tube plate there extend a number of tubes of small diameter
(say from " to 1" internal diameter according to the length) each open at one
end to the box or case and closed at the other or back end. The longitudinal axes
of the tubes are slightly inclined to the horizontal. Those of the tubes that open
into the legs or downward extensions of the box or case form the sides of the fire
box, and in each of them there is a longitudinal division or plate vertical (or
approximately so) as seen in end view, and which extends nearly but not quite
to the closed end of the tube. The object of these plates is to give direction to
the steam and water circulating within the tube, which will travel towards the box
or case at that side of the division next the fire, and towards the closed end of the
tube at the other side of the division. The tubes opening to the main body of the
box or case are arranged in horizontal rows, those of one row opposite the spaces
between those of the next rows, above and below, so as to ensure efficient action of
the products of combustion. These tubes are also provided with divisions to promote
circulation within them, but their divisions are placed horizontally as seen in end
view. Other equivalent means may be used to give direction to the currents within
CD 071

page_text: the apparatus. In connection with the above described box or case I provide a
steam and water chamber or drum that communicates with the box or case by
suitable pipes or passages. By some of these water is delivered to the lower
portions of the legs or extensions of the box or case. There are also independent
pipes or passages from the upper part of the box or case to the drum to convey
steam and hot water into it, suitable means being provided when needful to guide
the upward currents and prevent their interference with the descending currents.
In some cases, especially where the tubes are of considerable length, I use in con-
nection therewith a support with means for moving the same lengthwise of the
tubes so as to serve also for removing deposit from their exteriors: