IMPROVEMENTS IN APPARATUS FOR REGULATING AND MEASURING THE FLOW OF GAS OR OTHER FLUIDS
Year: 1874

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Karl Ludwig Hartwig Gercke
at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition,
on the 1st May 1874.-Partly a communication from abroad by
Carl Neuber, of Hamburg.
I, KARL LUDWIG HARTWIG GERCKE, of Berlin, in Prussia, but now
residing at Alfred Place, Bedford Square, London, Doctor of Philosophy,
do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN
APPARATUS FOR REGULATING AND MEASURING THE FLOW OF GAS OR OTHER FLUIDS,"
to be as follows:-
This Invention relates to apparatus for regulating and measuring the
flow of gas or other fluids. I employ a balance arm having a valve at
one end and a counterweight at the other, and provided with an inclined
guideway which is attached to the said arm, and on which a ball is free
to move backwards and forwards, thereby regulating the working of the
arm and its valve, that is to say, that according to changes of pressure
in the column of gas between the apparatus and the burners the ball

page_text: moves nearer to or further from the counterweight, thereby increasing
or diminishing the weight of the counterweight and regulating the
opening of the valve in the same proportion as the consumption of gas
increases or decreases. The regulation being thus made self-acting all
flaring up of gas flames when other gas burners are extinguished is
entirely prevented.
The regulator is divided into two compartments for the valve and the
counterweight, and is hermetically closed by a metal cover with a gutta
percha bottom through which the pipe which forms the channel for the
gas between the two ends of the balance arm passes.
The regulator communicates with an opening in the upper part of
a cylindrical casing. In this casing is a drum which is capable of
revolving on its axis and carries a series of blades or vanes (by preference
curved) set at equal distances apart around its periphery and with their
outer ends just touching the inside of the casing. At the upper part of
the casing is the opening before-named in communication with the
regulator, and at the lower part is another opening in communication
with the gas supply. Just below the upper opening and extending
across the inside of the casing I fit what I term a spring curtain which
is composed of a strip or piece of india-rubber or other suitable material,
and acts as a sort of stop to the blades or vanes during the intermittent
rotation of the drum. As each compartment formed by the successive
adjoining blades or vanes comes opposite the gas supply it becomes
filled with gas, and as the drum rotates the compartments come
successively opposite the outlet leading to the regulator where they
are in turn stopped by the spring curtain. But as the compartment
which for the time being is opposite the said outlet parts with its gas
to the regulator, the pressure in the compartments behind is sufficient
to gradually overcome the power of the spring curtain, which therefore
gradually yields and allows the compartment to pass at the instant it
becomes quite empty, the next compartment coming then opposite the
outlet and the spring curtain returning to its normal position.
For registering the quantity of the gas which passes through the
casing to the regulator the axle of the drum is put in connection with
any suitable counting apparatus in the manner well understood, and as
a check upon the registration the spring curtain may likewise be put

page_text: in connection with any suitable mechanism for counting the number of
its movements.
Although specially applicable to regulating and measuring the flow of
ordinary lighting gas, the apparatus is also applicable to regulating and
measuring the flow of other fluids.