IMPROVE- MENTS IN STEAM ENGINES
Year: 1857

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by William Riddle at the Office of
the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the 9th December
1857.
I, WILLIAM RIDDLE, of 4, Stonefield Terrace, Liverpool Road, in the County
of Middlesex, do hereby declare the nature of the Invention for "IMPROVE-
MENTS IN STEAM ENGINES," to be as follows:-
These improvements have for their object the obtaining and applying steam
more advantageously for steam engines, and regulating the same.
One part of my Invention consists in a certain arrangement of apparatus
for using gas mixed with atmospheric air passed through wire gauze for
heating steam boilers. I use rows of burners consisting of short upright metal
tubes or chambers, each tube covered at the top with wire gauze, and some-
times in addition with asbestos, the rows of tubes applied under the boiler; the
boiler to consist of tubular chambers in rows. I use "louvre" or other
ventilators for regulating the supply of air to the gauze covered tubes. Up
the side of each gauze covered tube is a lever, which is pushed back by a rod
having a light at the end, as the gas and air in each tube or set of tubes is
turned on and lighted separately. The whole are extinguished simultaneously
by a straight rod or rods passing from one burner to another, and made to act
on the short levers when turning off the gas. In applying this arrangement

page_text: to some engines, and specially to some horizontal engines, I place it under the
engine so as to form a part of a foundation on which the engine rests, and to
obtain economy of space and heat.
Another part of my Invention consists in applying gas through suitablo
burners or orifices to the steam cylinder, to increase the heat of it and of the
steam entering the cylinder.
Another part of my Invention consists in driving rotatory valves with an
intermittent in place of an uniform motion, that is, in the course of its revolution
the valve shall be made to rest or stop entirely, and after an interval be
made to go on again. This stoppage may take place more than once in a
revolution.
Another part of my Invention consists in the use of springs, wound up,
tightened, or compressed by the action of the fly wheel, or some other part of
the engine, which being released at the necessary interval shall open and
shut the induction and eduction or other valves of the engine.
Another part of my Invention consists in a reciprocating rotativo valve
constructed after the following, and intended for an expansion valve. On a
shaft driving the valve I have a cog mitre wheel geared into two other similar
wheels on which are projecting cams, thus caused to revolvo in contrary
directions. The cam may be shifted according to the required cut off of tho
steam. In course of rotation they strike alternately contrariwise two pro-
jecting levers or handles or cams, one on each end of an axle, passing through
n disc or ventilator disc valve working in a valve box, and thus cause apertures
in the disc or valve to be opened quickly by the opening cam, propelling it
over a suitable valve seat, and to be left open for a decided interval for
admitting steam prior to being closed by the contrary or closing cam; or
there may be but one wheel to move the disc cams, and this said wheel on
the shaft, and made by one or more projections to strike first the cam above
and then the cam below, or on the contrary side of the valve box.
Another part of my Invention consists in regulating the speed of the engine
by the governor being caused to vary the expansion, this not by contracting or
enlarging the area of steam way of the expansion valve, so that the steam
shall be cut off. carlier or later in the stroke, but by increasing or diminishing
the speed of the valvo itself (as contradistinguished from the area), and
thereby cutting off the steam carlier or later in the stroke, the area of the
steam way remaining undiminished. I use a throttle valve consisting of the
ordinary disc and axis through its periphery, but the disc does not fill up tho
pipe in my plan of using it, as the pipe is enlarged at that part, but works
within a ring or frame inserted in the enlarged part of the pipe, so that when

page_text: the disc is a little way open there will be larger area of steam passage through
than there would be if the disc filled the pipe itself.
Another part of my Invention consists in using two or more fly wheels
connected by a spring or springs, and being on separate axes, or one or more
of the wheels loose on the shaft; this arrangement to steady the motion of the
engine.