IMPROVEMENTS IN ENGINES WORKED BY STEAM, WATER, AND OTHER FLUIDS AND GASES UNDER PRESSURE
Year: 1867

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by William Bryer Nation at the Office
of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the 28th March
1867.
I, WILLIAM BRYER NATION, of No. 394, Old Kent Road, in the County of
Surrey, do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS
IN ENGINES WORKED BY STEAM, WATER, AND OTHER FLUIDS AND GASES UNDER
PRESSURE," to be as follows:-
My Invention consists in constructing engines, to be worked by steam,
water, and other fluids or gases, of a flexible and compressible tube or
tubular passage rendered fluid or steam tight, and communicating at one end
with the steam boiler or other reservoir of fluid or gas under pressure, and at
the other end either with the atmosphere or with a condenser or other
receptacle or space into which the said fluid or gas may be made to pass after
having done its work. This tube is fixed upon a bed, by preference formed
as part of a circle, and two or more arms fixed radially to a shaft, the centre
of which corresponds with the centre of the curvature of the circular bed, are
made to compress the said tube at certain points in such a manner that the
steam or water on entering the tube behind one of the said arms will force
the latter forward, and thus cause the shaft to which it is attached to revolve.
When the one arm has arrived near the exhaust end of the tube the other
commences to compress the tube at the inlet end, and is in like manner forced
round by the pressure of the steam or water; if it be desired to work the
steam expansively this may be effected by providing the inlet pipe with a
valve, actuated by an excentric or cam upon the engine shaft in such a

page_text: manner as to cut off the supply of steam when the arm has passed over any
fractional portion of the length of the tube, so that the steam acts expansively
in forcing the arm over the remaining portion thereof. The arms are by
preference provided with rollers at their ends in order to avoid the friction
thereof against the tube. Two or more such tubes may be arranged side by
side acting upon arms fixed to one and the same shaft, but at different
angles.
Although I prefer to arrange the tube upon a curved bed as described, yet
it may also be placed upon a straight bed, so as to impart a rectilinear motion
to a sliding block running between guides, and made to compress the tube in
a similar manner to the before mentioned rotating arms, and the sliding block
would in that case impart its motion by means of a connecting rod to a crank
shaft, the return motion of the block in a raised position being effected by the
action of a second block driven forward at the same time along the tube by
the steam or water; or the steam or water may be made to impart a backward
and forward motion to one sliding block only along the tube by connecting
both ends of the tube by means of a four-way valve or cock, or other suitable
contrivance, both to the steam or water pipe and to the exhaust passage, and
by so actuating such valve that when the one end of the tube communicates
with the supply pipe the other end communicates with the exhaust.