Improvements in Apparatus for Evaporating Water Containing Salts and Calcarious Matter, and in Heating Furnaces for Removing the Incrustations from the Coils of such Evaporating Apparatus.
Year: 1896

page_text: Date of Application, 11th Dec., 1896-Accepted, 30th Jan., 1897
COMPLETE SPECIFICATION.
Improvements in Apparatus for Evaporating Water Containing
Salts and Calcarious Matter, and in Heating Furnaces for
Removing the Incrustations from the Coils of such Evaporating
Apparatus.
I, SIDNEY STRAKER of 139 Cannon Street in the City of London, Consulting
Engineer, do hereby declare the nature of this invention and in what manner the
same is to be performed to be particularly described and ascertained in and by the
following statement :-
This invention relates more particularly to evaporating apparatus such as is
described in the Specification to Rayner's Patent No. 597288 and Caird and
Rayner's Patent No. 107003 for evaporating waters containing a large quantity of
salt and calcarious matter, such as the lake waters found in Western Australia.
In evaporating these waters, the incrustation on the steam heated surfaces of such
apparatus is so rapidly formed, that the employment of the apparatus as ordinarily
constructed becomes impracticable.
The present invention has for its object to enable the said incrustations to be
readily removed from the evaporator coils and it consists on the one hand in so
constructing the apparatus that the evaporator coils can be readily detached
from the other parts thereof, and on the other hand, of a special oil furnace
into which the detached coils are run in order there to be subjected to, heat
whereby the incrustations become detached in the course of a short time, after
which the evaporator coils are drawn out and fitted to the other part of the
evaporating apparatus again.
For these purposes the brass box shaped fronts that form the evaporator
doors, and that carry evaporator coils, are mounted on wheels that run on rails,
so that they can be readily removed from the casing of the apparatus, after
which they are run into the said furnace, which consists of a rectangular sheet
metal casing with a smoke funnel at top and with a vertically sliding door and
provided internally at bottom with a disc shaped noncombustible wick of asbestos
fibre, on to which petroleum is made to flow from a perforated tubular star
place above it, which is connected by a pipe with an external supply of petroleum.
I will describe the said apparatus with reference to the accompanying drawing,
in which
Figure 1 shews a front elevation of an installation of three evaporators in
connection with a boiler, and with the oil furnace;
Figure 2 shews a plan of the installation,
Figure 3 is a front view of the furnace, Figure 4 is a longitudinal section of the
same, Figure 5 a cross section, and Figure 6 a part sectional plan.
The evaporating apparatus consists of the casing A within which are evaporator
coils B fixed to the box shaped plate C which is fixed by bolts or screw cramps
and suitable packing in a watertight manner against the opening in the casing A
so that by releasing the fastenings the box with the coils can be withdrawn.
Steam is supplied to the plates C of the several apparatus from a boiler D, through
pipes E with regulating and shut off valves at E¹ the said pipes being so arranged
as to be readily disconnected from the boxes.
So far the apparatus is similar in construction to that described in the before-
mentioned patents and its action need not be farther described.

page_text: According to the present invention, the box shaped plate C, together with the
coils, is mounted on brackets F carried by wheeis G, running on rails which wheels
and brackets are situated outside the casing A when the coils are fixed in
position as shewn at Figures 1 and 2. When it is desired to remove the incrusta-
tions from the coils, the plate C is unfastened and withdrawn together with the
coils from the casing A and is run on the wheels G into the oil furnace H.
This consists of a rectangular casing of sheet metal or other material, having
a smoke funnel I one side of the casing being open and provided with a
vertically sliding door J which when the plate C and coils B have been run in as
shewn at Figure 5 so that the plate C remains outside, is closed down, the door
being formed with the necessary slots as shewn at Figure 3 for fitting over the
connections of the coils B to the plate and over the brackets F.
In the bottom of the casing H is a sheet metal tray K of somewhat larger
diameter than the coils B, which is filled with an asbestos wick or other suitable
absorbant refractory material and above this is a finely perforated tubular star L
which is connected by a pipe M with a petroleum cask N, Figures 1 and 2 so
that a spray of petroleum is delivered therefrom on to the wick; which being
ignited and supplied with air through the opening O at the bottom of the
casing produces a sufficiently intense heat to remove the incrustation from the
coils B.
In order to cause the flames and combustion gases from the wick to be
effectually distributed over the coils the direct central draught to the smoke flue
is prevented by the provision of a baffle plate at P..
.
When the coils have been freed from their incrustations by this means the
supply of oil is stopped the door J is opened and the plate C and coils B are
withdrawn and wheeled back to the evaporator casing and after the plate C
have been connected to the evaporator the apparatus is again put in operation.
It will be seen that by having two or more preferably three such evaporating
apparatus at work the process of evaporation will always be carried on by two
of these while the third one is undergoing the process of having its incrustations
removed.
Having now particularly described and ascertained the nature of my said
invention and in what manner the same is to be performed I declare that what I
claim is :-
1. In apparatus for evaporating water containing a large quantity of salt
and calcarious matter, such as is herein referred to arranging the box shaped
plate carrying the evaporating coils on wheels, so that when an incrustation has
has been formed on the coils they can be readily removed from the evaporating
apparatus and run to another locality where the incrustations are removed
therefrom by heating substantially as herein described.
2. The combination with evaporating apparatus such as is referred to in the
preceding claim, of a furnace into which the detached plate with coils are run,
and which is suitably heated for the removal of the incrustations from the coils
substantially as herein described.
3. The use for the removal of incrustations from the coils of evaporating
apparatus, of a heating furnace adapted to receive the said coils and having
below these an absorbent wick supplied with oil for producing the necessary heat
for removing the incrustations, substantially as herein described with reference
to the accompanying drawings.
Dated this 11th dow of December 1906
ABEL & IMRAY,
Agents for the Applicant.