IMPROVEMENTS IN OBTAINING MOTIVE- POWER FROM STEAM OR RIFORM FLUIDS
Year: 1864

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Matthew Piers Watt Boulton
at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the
12th May 1864.
I, MATTHEW PIERS. WATT BOULTON, of Tew Park, Oxfordshire, do hereby
declare the nature of the Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN OBTAINING MOTIVE-
POWER FROM STEAM OR RIFORM FLUIDS," to be as follows:-
There are cases in which it is desirable to obtain motive power from æriform
fluids otherwise than by employing them to work a piston in a cylinder,
for instance where they are very much heated. The design of my Invention
is to provide improved means of effecting this object. For the purpose in-
question it has been proposed to employ the aeriform fluids to work a turbine,
Barker's mill, screw, fan, or similar instrument, and as æriform fluids on account
of their tenuity do not act advantageously when working such instruments
by their direct pressure or impulse, it has been proposed to employ them to
drive water or other liquid through such instruments, thereby producing a
more powerful effect. An instrument of this kind has been described and
patented by Watt. A revolving vessel is divided into two compartments.
Steam alternately entering these drives out water (or other liquid) through a
suitable orifice as in a turbine or Barker's mill. On the supply of steam being
cut off by the revolution of the vessel the water re-enters the chamber from
which it had been expelled through a valve in the bottom. In constructing
such an instrument it is better to divide it into four compartments, of which

page_text: two on opposite sides of the axis are alternately treated in the same way, 1.e.
admitting steam and discharging water, or vice versa. By such an arrangement
the instrument is better balanced. But the instrument when thus improved
is still open to the defect that if the vessel revolves rapidily due time is
scarcely afforded for the opening of the bottom valves, and the re-entrance of
the water. A more continuous mode of action is desirable. Such a continuous
action may be obtained as follows:-The æriform fluid (steam, gas, vapour,
or any admixture of these) is caused to issue at a high velocity through an
orifice into a larger channel containing water or other liquid. Issuing in this
way it acts as the blast pipe of a locomotive engine, it drives forward the liquid
in front while on account of the diminution of pressure the liquid bebind is
forced to follow. In this way a continuous stream of liquid is established, the
velocity and magnitude of which will depend on the proportions given to the
parts and their mode of adjustment, whatever momentum is subtracted from
the issuing æriform current is transferred to the current of liquid set in motion,
except only that portion destroyed by friction, and the friction is not wholly
loss since it generates heat which under the circumstances acts advantageously.
The channel in which the current of liquid is made to move may vary in
inclination, form, and size, and many channels may be employed, whose
adjustment may be varied in many ways. The continuous current of liquid
established by the method above described may be employed to give motion
to a turbine, Barker's mill, wheel, screw, or any kind of hydraulic instrument
to which it is desired to give motion. Or again the issuing aeriform fluids
may be employed to produce a rotatory motion in the liquid within a suitable
vessel, and the centrifugal force thus imparted to the liquid may be made use
of as a means of obtaining motive power. If the blast of the aeriform fluid
issues vertically in an upward direction into a cylinder or vessel open at top,
and plunged below in water or liquid, then the liquid on account of the
diminution of pressure above it will be forced to rise in the cylinder or vessel,
and in this way will be lifted to a considerable height, and by a succession of
such blasts or jets a column of liquid may be raised to any height desired, and
the fall of this column may be employed as a means of obtaining motive power.
If the æriform fluid employed-be intensely heated, and it is desired not to cool
it by its contact with the liquid, then the liquid employed should be some sub-
stance which remains liquid at the temperature of the heated gases (or æriform
matter) and should be raised to a temperature equal or nearly so to theirs.
Various metals in their fused state constitute liquids suitable for such a
purpose. Similarly the blast of æriform fluid may be employed to draw into
a tube a current of air, and thus set in motion a current of air moving at a

page_text: very high volocity and by an action similar to that employed in the hydraulic
ram a portion of this current of air may be forced into a vessel against a high
pressure. Thus such an arrangement may be employed instead of a force
pump forcing air into the vessel by means of a piston working in a cylinder.