CERTAIN IMPROVEMENTS IN STEAM ENGINES
Year: 1835

page_text: MORGAN, or the
Ioan,
ne Count Surrey, Esquire,
greeting.
WHEREAS His present most Excellent Majesty King William the Fourth,
by His Letters Patent under the Great Seal of Great Britain, bearing date at
Westminster, the Twenty-seventh day of January, in the fifth year of His reign,
did, for Himself, His heirs and successors, give and grant unto me, the said
William Morgan, His especial licence, full power, sole privilege and authority,
that I, the said William Morgan, my exors, adññors, and assigns, or such others
as I, the said William Morgan, my exors, adññors, or assigns, should at any
time agree with, and no others, from time to time and at all times during the
term of years therein expressed, should and lawfully might make, use, exercise,
and vend, within England, Wales, and the Town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, my
Invention of "CERTAIN IMPROVEMENTS IN STEAM ENGINES;" in which said
Letters Patent is contained a proviso that I, the said William Morgan, shall
cause a particular description of the nature of my said Invention, and in what
manner the same is to be performed, to be inrolled in His said Majesty's
High Court of Chancery within six calendar months next and immediately
after the date of the said in part recited Letters Patent, as in and by the
same, reference being thereunto had, will more fully and at large appear.
NOW KNOW YE, that in compliance with the said proviso, I, the said
William Morgan, do hereby declare that the nature of my Invention, and
the manner in which the same is to be performed, are fully described and

page_text: ascertained in and by the following description thereof, reference being had to
the Drawings hereunto annexed, and to the figures and letters marked
thereon, that is to say :-
My Invention consists in applying valves to the cylinder of ordinary recipro-
cating steam engine, in such manner as that the pressure of the steam acting
on the closed induction or eduction valve at one end of the cylinder shall be
resisted and balanced, or nearly so, by the pressure of the steam acting
on the
closed eduction or induction valve at the other end of the cylinder, as will be
herein-after fully described. It. is. well known to engineers that in using
circular lifting valves, according to the means of working them hitherto known
and used, considerable power is required to open or close the valves in conse-
quence of the simultaneous pressure of steam on both the induction and
eduction valves, which pressure tends either to keep such valves closed on or
up to their seats, or to force them open. Whereas, according to my improve-
ments, the induction and eduction valves are so arranged that the pressure of
the steam is acting in such manner that the steam has a tendency simul-
taneously, or at the same time, to press one of them into its seat and the other
out of its seat. My improvements may be effected in various ways; either by
means of valves of equal areas or by means of valves of unequal areas.
Valves of equal areas would be in a state of balance and require no more
power to work them than that which would be necessary to overcome the
friction of the parts, but the use of such valves would entail the necessity of
having recourse to complicated external machinery for the purpose of keeping
them closed on or up to their seats; and as any description of such machinery
might have the effect of misleading, I shall content myself with describing the
machinery necessary for carrying my Invention into effect by means of valves
of unequal area, which are by far the most simple and effectual means for
applying my Invention. Now by making one of the valves of a rather larger
area than the other in order to insure their being closed, the only amount of
power required to move or open the valves will be just so much as shall be
sufficient to overcome the difference between the pressure on the one valve
and the pressure on the other valve and the friction of the parts, instead of the
greater amount of power which is required to move the two valves in direct
opposition to the pressure of the steam on the joint areas of both of them, as
is usually the case in the same description of engines now in use wherein cir-
cular lifting valves are employed. But it should be remarked, that in setting
forth the construction and manner of action of the valves, I do not in the
present instance intend to claim the principle of their action, that is to say,
the manner in which a much smaller amount of power than has hitherto been

page_text: employed is made to move or open the valves of steam engines, owing to the
pressure on the induction valves being opposed to the pressure on the eduction
valves, a similar effect having been produced and described in my Specification
to a Patent granted to me by His present most Excellent Majesty, bearing
date the
day of
One thousand eight hundred and
thirty
But the principle of combining the induction and eduction
valves having been in that instance applied to a very different class or descrip-
tion of steam engine, videlicet, a steam engine having a steam chamber so
constructed as to receive a piston which oscillates in the manner of a pen-
dulum, as is fully set forth and described in such Specification, my
Invention secured by the present Patent is therefore confined to the appli-
cation of valves, combined and arranged according to the principle above
mentioned, to the cylinder of the steam engine, as invented by Watt, in which
the piston is alternately pressed from one end to the other of the cylinder by
the steam, and the power thereby produced is transmitted by means of
the piston rod, which passes through a stuffing box formed in the cover at
one end of the steam cylinder, as is well understood by engineers. But in
order to the more clearly understanding my present improvement in steam
engines will describe the Drawings hereunto annexed, which represent
three arrangements of valves and the requisite gearing for working the same,
which, according to the best of my present knowledge or information, are the
modes and arrangements best adapted for carrying my Invention into effect,
though I would have it understood that I do not confine myself to the use of
the precise construction or arrangement of parts shown and described.
DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS,
In which the same letters indicate similar parts. Drawing marked A repre-
sents various elevations and plans of one arrangement of valves, a being the
induction valve to the upper end of the cylinder or that part which is above the
piston; and b, the eduction valve to the lower end of the cylinder, to permit of
the flow of steam from below the piston; c is the induction valve to the lower
end of the cylinder; and d is the eduction valve at the upper end of the
cylinder; e, e, are the spindles of the valves passing through suitable
stufling boxes, as shewn in this Drawing; f, f, are two levers turning or
moving on the axis g; and h is a similar lever, also turning or moving on the
axis the object of these levers is to transmit the pressure on one valve,
as will be herein-after explained, to the other; i is a connecting rod attached by
a pin joint to the spindle of the induction valve a, and by pin joints to the
levers ff, the connecting rod i being forked, as shown in the Drawing; j is a

page_text: connecting rod attached to the spindle of the eduction valve 6 by a pin joint
the connecting rod ; is also attached to the levers f, f, by pin joints, as shown
in the Drawing. I would remark that the connecting rods i and jare capable
of being (from time to time as occasion may require) adjusted by means of
screws and coupling nuts, as is shown in the Drawing. The induction valve c
and the eduction valve d are connected together by means of the connecting
rods and 7, and the lever h, as is most clearly shown in the various Figures
of this Drawing. On the upper end of the spindle e of the induction valve a,
and on the upper end of the spindle e of the eduction valve d, are fixed links
v, v, which are open at top to receive the short forkel rods m, m. 21, 22,
are pins passing through the upper parts of the links v, v, and through the
rods m, m, by which means the rods m, m, are capable of swinging on the
pins n, n, within the links v, ; the rods m, m, are attached to the arms,
cranks, or levers o, o, affixed on the weigh shaft, thus producing rectilinear
motion for the spindles e, e. The weigh shaft consists of two parts p and q
the part being hollow to allow of the passage of the part q, as is indicated
by dotted lines. The levers for working the valves are to be affixed, one of
them to the part of the weigh shaft marked p, and the other lever to the part
of the weigh shaft marked q, the two parts p, p, being thus at liberty to be
moved independently of each other by the working of the engine; is the
steamway or passage communicating at s with the steam pipe from the boiler;
t is the eduction or exhaustion passage, the arrangement and construction of
which are most clearly shown by the various Figures in this Drawing.
Having described one arrangement of valves suitable to be applied to the
cylinder of an ordinary steam engine, I will now describe the action of the
various parts. In doing so, attention must be directed to Figures 1 and 2 of
the Drawing A, which arrangement I will suppose is applied to the cylinder of
a steam engine. By these Figures it will be seen that the induction valve a
is closed up to its seat, and the eduction valve is closed on its seat. The
steam is therefore flowing through the steam passage 1, and is pressing on
both the valves a and b, but with opposite effect, as is indicated by the arrows.
The eduction valve is of a larger area than the induction valve a, consequently
the two valves a and b are kept to their seats by the difference of the pressure,
and that difference is equivalent to the amount of the power required to be
exerted in opening these valves, allowing for friction and supposing the weight
of the valves and their working gear to be balanced, which would be very
nearly the case in the arrangement here shown. In Figures 1 and 2, the
induction valve c is open, the steam is therefore passing through that valve into
the lower end of the cylinder and under the piston; in the meanwhile the

page_text: This Drawing represents an arrangement of valves similar in effect to that
already described, but differing mainly in the gearing for working the valves,
and in the relative sizes of the valves themselves, as will be apparent from the
Drawings; for in this instance the spindle e of the induction valve a is con-
nected directly to the spindle e of the eduction valve b, and the spindle e of the
induction valve e is connected directly to the spindle e of the eduction valve d.
The spindles of the induction valve a and eduction valve are connected to
each other, as are likewise the spindles of the induction valve c and eduction
valve d to each other by screw coupling nuts, by means of which the length of
the spindles may be adjusted according to the distance between the respective
induction and eduction valve seats. In order to accomplish this direct connec-
tion of the spindles, it is necessary to cause the steamway or passage to cross
the exhaustion passage t, as will be clearly understood by an examination of
the various Figures in Drawing B; and as similar letters of reference are used
to indicate the same parts as were used in the former Drawing, no further
description of this arrangement of valves will be necessary, as the change here
shown will be readily apparent from what has been already said and by ex-
amining the Drawing marked B. It will only be necessary to observe that in
this arrangement it will be desirable to have the weight of the gear and valves
counterbalanced in order that the power required to work them may be the
same, whether it be to raise or lower them. I have thought it advisable not
to show the counterbalance, in order to prevent complexity of drawing, but
the same will be readily applied by an engineer capable of constructing the
other parts.
DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWING MARKED C.
In the arrangement shown in this Drawing the valves are worked by a dif-
ferent combination of gearing from that described in either of the preceding
Drawings, though the principle of action of the valves themselves remains the
same. According to this arrangement the spindles of the eduction valves work
or slide within the spindles of the induction valves, but, as the same letters of

page_text: reference are again used to denote the several parts in this Drawing as have
been used in the two previous Drawings, the nature of the combination will
readily be traced on inspecting this Drawing, and as valves, with spindles work-
ing one within the other, are well known, the manner of their construction will
not require to be here described. I will therefore confine myself to describing
the arrangement of the gearing for working the valves, and for transmitting the
pressure of steam on each eduction valve to its corresponding induction valve, so
as to resist and overbalance the pressure of steam on each induction valve, as
already described. In this arrangement the spindles e are connected to links
v, v, as described in Drawing A; but in the present instance the spindle e of
such valve is connected to a separate arm, crank, or lever o, keyed or otherwise
affixed to the weigh shafts p, q, and to the shafts marked w, w, which all turn
in brasses or bearings y, y, the weigh shafts p, q, and the shafts w, w, having
other arms, cranks, or levers a affixed thereon (as shewn in the Drawing), to
which are attached, by pin joints, the connecting rods i, j, k, l. By this means
the pressure on the induction valve a will be counteracting the pressure on the
eduction valve b, when they are closed, and a similar effect will be produced on
the valves c and d when these are closed.
DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWING MARKED D.
Having described the three arrangements in which, though different in
respect to the gearing or machinery which works the valves, the principle of
action with regard to the valves themselves is identical, it now only remains
to show more clearly the particular description or kind of steam cylinder to
which this, my Invention, is confined. The Drawing marked D shows a front
and side elevation of the cylinder, having a combination or arrangement of
valves applied thereto, similar to those shown and described in Drawing
marked B, but as all the arrangements are drawn to the same scale, each of
them is suitable to be applied to the cylinder shewn in Drawing marked D,
and in this Drawing E is an ordinary cylinder of a reciprocating or double-
acting steam engine, having the usual steam passages at either end; F is the
piston rod by which the force of the steam acting on the piston is transmitted.
The piston is shewn by dotted lines in Figure 2.
In conclusion, I would remark that I do not confine myself to the use of
the precise forms or modes of arrangement herein represented and described
of valves and gearing, provided the before described action of the valves be
effectively preserved; and I wish it to be understood that I lay no claim to any
separate or individual part of the machinery herein represented and described;

page_text: but what I claim as my Invention is, the application of valves arranged or
combined and acted upon, as herein-before explained, to the cylinder E of the
particular description of steam cylinder shewn in the Drawing marked D.
In witness whereof, I, the said William Morgan, have hereunto set my
hand and seal, this Twenty-fifth day of July, in the year of our Lord
One thousand eight hundred and thirty-five.