IMPROVEMENTS IN PORTABLE GAS APPARATUS
Year: 1881

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Philip Middleton Justice at the
Office of the Commissioners of Patents on the 14th September 1881.
A communication from abroad by Achille Joseph Clavel, of Molenbeck,
St. Jean, Brussels, in the Kingdom of Belgium.
1
PHILIP MIDDLETON JUSTICE, of 14, Southampton Buildings, in the County of
Middlesex, Patent Agent. "IMPROVEMENTS IN PORTABLE GAS APPARATUS."
A communication from abroad by Achille Joseph Clavel, of Molenbeck, St. Jean,
Brussels, in the Kingdom of Belgium.
The object of this Invention is to provide a small portable and compact gas
apparatus, more especially suitable for the manufacture of gas to be used as the
source of heat, power, or light for small industries, for supplying gas to public
conveyances, vessels, and for other purposes, said apparatus being of remarkable
compactness and lightness, and from its being placed on wheels or rollers easily
removeable, the manufacture of gas therein is practically instantaneous and in-
odourless, the gas being burnt at the same rate that it is manufactured; it also does
away with the long conducting pipes in which such serious condensation and often
leakage now takes place. The carburettor by the present Invention being of a
new construction, the carburetting of the air proceeds steadily while the charge of
carburetting matter lasts. As the air contained in the chamber is not in contact
with a liquid mass, but with a bydrocarbon or other carburetting agent in a state
of suspension, it does not carry off with it any heavy liquid particles..
The apparatus may be constructed in such form or forms as will be suitable for
street lighting, where one would by preference be placed at the foot of each lamp
post, and by means of an outside regulator it could be set so as to cease to
manufacture the gas, and thereby automatically extinguish the light at any given
time. The apparatus is contained in a case, the form of which may be varied at
will; it consists of three principal parts (viz.), the motive power mechanism, the
air apparatus, and the carburettor. The motive power is a clockwork movement,
of which the wheels are regulated to a fixed rate of rotation. The clockwork may
have motion given to it by an ordinary spring or by a set of counterweights where
the form of the apparatus admits of their use, which is the form hereinafter
described. Two counterweights are usually employed, running upon an endless

page_text: cord, and being wound up by means of a key or other device The counterweights
move in a groove or grooves formed by the outer wall of the case or shell, and a
light partition in the interior. A fly wheel serves to regulate or stop the clock-
work mechanism, and is in its turn governed by a button fixed at the extremity of
a spring slide which may be pressed against said fly wheel to cause its instan-
taneous stoppage. An exterior wheel arrangement with fixed needle moveable
disc and locking button permits of the duration of the running of the apparatus
to be fixed; and this is an important point. The counterweights being wound up
and the wheel arrangement regulated, the apparatus will extinguish the burners
and cease to manufacture the gas at the hour fixed.
The counterweights are constructed so that they can be regulated according to
the number of burners to be used. The air apparatus consists of two pumping
cylinders with the necessary valves, and having pistons and piston rods acted upon
by the clockwork mechanism. The air drawn in by these cylinders is forced through
a tube into an air tank, said air tank being provided with a pressure regulator.
The air passes from the air tank into the carburettor.
Said carburettor is an air tight metallic vessel provided with an opening and a
screw top by which fresh hydrocarbon can be introduced, any excess which may
occasionally be found of liquid may be drawn off by a tap fixed in the lower
portion of the carburettor, said carburettor being divided into several compartments
by means of inclined metallic partitions filled with substances, such as oakum,
vegetable or animal fibre, hay, asbestos, or equally suitable substances which
absorb the liquid hydrocarbon and allow the air which circulates slowly through
the compartments to take up the combustible portion of the liquid. The air thus
charged is delivered through a pipe direct to the burners without any intermediate
gas holder. The carburettor can be readily withdrawn from the apparatus for the
purpose of replenishing. The arrangement above described permits an empty
compartment to be left, which is convenient for the holding of tools or other
articles.