IMPROVEMENTS FOR THE MORE EFFECTUAL COMBUSTION OF FUEL IN FURNACES AND OTHER FIRE-PLACES
Year: 1874

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said Alexander Melville
Clark at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his
Petition, on the 27th January 1874.-A communication from abroad
by Daniel Thomas Casement, of Painesville, in the County of Lake,
and State of Ohio, United States of America.
I, ALEXANDER Melville ClaRK, of 53, Chancery Lanc, in the County
of Middlesex, Patent Agent, do hereby declare the nature of the said
Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS FOR THE MORE EFFECTUAL COMBUSTION OF FUEL
IN FURNACES AND OTHER FIRE-PLACES," to be as follows:-
This Invention relates to improvements on a former application for
Letters Patent, No. 69, dated January 6th 1874, in which is described
the use of balls, scrap metal, or other pièces of metal in a layer or
stratum in the furnace above the fire for the gases evolved from the fuel
below to pass through immediately on or very soon after escaping from
the bed of fuel, which gases are caused to impinge on the surfaces of
said metal pieces, and are thus effectually consumed by the heat retained
in said balls or other objects, which latter also serve for intercepting
some of the heat escaping with the gases and hot air and utilizing it by
radiation upon the surrounding walls of the furnace; and the present

page_text: Invention consists in suspending the balls or other pieces of metal or
the top, or the top and sides, or other parts of the furnace by chains of
Bessemer steel, platinum, or other metal of any kind adapted to resist the
great heat to which they will be subject, said chains to be used instead
of grate bars; and the Invention also consists in the employment of a
vertically adjustable fire-grate in combination with these gas consuming
layers or strata of metal pieces in furnaces not having sufficient height
to allow of sufficient space between them and the fire-grate for putting
in the coal readily and without inconvenience or obstruction by the
stratum of balls above, for instance, the furnaces of marine boilers,
which have to be placed in limited spaces.
.The chains which I now propose to employ for supporting said balls
or other objects instead of a fire-grate are to be suspended from the
crown sheet or from the top of the boiler, passing through the crown
sheet, or part may be so suspended and part from the sides of the
furnace.
Rods may be used instead of chains, and any approved metal best
calculated to resist heat will be employed for said rods or chains. They
may be of large size, to afford large surface for serving in some measure
the purpose of the balls, and they may also be so arranged as to be
substituted altogether for the balls.
Probably it will only be necessary to suspend the lower tier of the
balls by the chains, as the others will be supported by said lower tier
but they may all be so supported if necessary.
In ordinary to afford the necessary space between these balls or chains
and the fire-grate temporarily for convenience in putting in the coal
I now propose to suspend the fire-grate so that it can be lowered away
while putting in the coal and then raised again, and for this purpose
will, as one means of carrying it out, employ vertical toothed bars, and
shafts, and pinions, on the outside of the furnace for working them,
said rods extending down under the sides of the furnace and up inside
of it to the grate.
The shafts will be connected in front of the boiler by a chain and
ohain nullevs, or any other equivalent means for working synchronously.