IMPROVE- MENTS IN FURNACES OR HEATING APPARATUS
Year: 1868

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Clinton. Edgcumbe Brooman
at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition,
on the 11th May 1868.-A. communication from abroad by Eugene
Alexandre Frederic Goguel, of St. Etienne, France..
I, CLINTON EDGCUMBE BROOMAN, of the Firm of Robertson, Brooman,
and Company, of 166, Fleet Street, in the City of London, Patent
Agents, do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention for "IMPROVE-
MENTS IN FURNACES OR HEATING APPARATUS," to be as follows:-
The object of this Invention is- the construction of smoke-consuming
gasogeneous apparatus which will transform solid combustible matters.
into combustible gases, and thus satisfy in an industrial point of view.
all that is required of a powerful and smoke-consuming heating:
apparatus.
The essential features which characterize this apparatus or fürnace
are:-1st, complete and successive reduction of the fuel in the same
apparatus without interruption of heat in several communicating fire-
places.; 2ndly, ascent and descent of the gases arising from the first
combustion or injection of steam or water into the channels which lead
these gases from one fire-place to another, or even the draught or suction.

page_text: of a blowing apparatus as means of increasing their draught, of increasing
their pressure, of producing hydrogens by the decomposition of this steam
or water, and of facilitating the leading of the gases from one point to
another and of directing them with a certain pressure out of this
apparatus; 3rdly, the hermetic and almost continuous mode of charging
owing to the reduced volume of the chargo; 4thly, the complete
enrichment of the gases developed in all the parts of the apparatus by
causing the gases to return into the apparatus which has generated
them, in order that they may not issue. therefrom until they have been
euriched therein through a layer of incandescent fuel; 5thly, the
simple and economical mode of heating the new air for burning the
combustible gases in a special combustion chamber; and, 6thly, a com-
bustion chamber, one of the sides or walls of which is formed with
holes by which the burnt gases pass as through a sieve in order to enter
the apparatus to be heated.
I proceed to describe a furnace or apparatus constructed according to
this Invention. Boxes for charging the fuel slide on perforated plates,
and the fuel falls down tubes upon the bars of the first fire-place. These
bars are preferably arranged stepwise or as shelves. This fire-place has
hollow fire-bridges formed with small holes. The fuel is lighted on
the bars of the first place, and its distillation effected. The greater
part of the gaseous products of this distillation passes over the fire-
bridges, impinges against the under side of fresh air tubes hereafter
referred to, and passes down vertical channels leading to arched openings
or passages; these openings or passages conduct the gaseous products
into the incandescent fuel on the grate bars of a second fire-place below
the first, so that the products become enriched. The other part of the pro-
ducts passes direct to the second fire-place. Superbeated steam supplied
to the hollow fire-bridges escapes by the small holes therein, and favors
the passage of the gaseous products down the vertical channels from the
first to the second fire-place in which this dry steam is decomposed, and
in which the gases and vapors become saturated with carbon in order
to supply to the combustion chamber hereafter referred to only very
combustible gases. Fresh air for burning the gases in the combustion
chamber is forced or drawn through the fresh air pipes before mentioned.
These pipes are at the upper part of the apparatus, and the air admitted
by them passes down a vertical space in one of the walls. The air is
thus heated and afterwards mixes with the gases at the lower part of

page_text: the vertical space or passes through openings leading to the combustion
chamber. The amount of air admitted may be regulated by closing
more or less the entrances of the air tubes or by other means. It is
therefore in this combustion chamber that the gases are burnt by the
fresh air; they cannot fail to be completely burnt after having traversed
an openworked partition, which is situated between the combustion
chamber and the apparatus or boiler flue to be heated. In the interior
of the boiler flue several openworked partitions may be arranged; these
partitions may be placed at certain intervals and the openings would
bo opposed to cach other so as to impede as required the travel of the
heating gases. The furnace or gasogeneous apparatus is thus based on
the principle that instead of effecting the complete reduction of the fuel
in one fire-place or at one point, I effect it at different points without
interruption of heat in communicating fire-places, that is to say, that
in the first fire-place I cause this fuel to undergo a first combustion in
order afterwards to complete the combustion at one or several other
points, either by means of grate bars and tuyeres or by forced draught of
air or steam, superheated or not. Based on this principle of lighting
a combustible matter a first time in order to convert its volatile com-
ponents into gas, to afterwards finish the reduction of the same fuel
at one or several other points, or one or several other fire-places of the
apparatus with the view of completely extracting the gases from the solid
part, and of enriching through this ignited fuel the gases produced by
the first combustion and those developed in the second combustion.
The apparatus may be variously modified in form, dimensions,
constitutive parts, and the materials employed for its construction.
In some forms of apparatus the gases are caused to impinge upon the
surface of water in their passage from the first to the second fire-place.
The following arrangement of a gasogeneous apparatus should
however be described, by which combustible gases are produced by
suction or exhaustion of air through the grate bars, and as required
through openings formed in the walls or sides of the furnace, and by
which these gases are lighted with pressure by a jet of air drawn by
superheated steam. The fuel is fed into a first compartment; the steam
and noncombustible gases pass through the incandescent fuel and
become enriched therein before entering a second compartment. Now
between the two compartments a cast-iron block or lump is fitted formed
lengthwise with several holes, channels, or passages, some allowing

page_text: passage to steam and others allowing passage to atmospheric air; this
block serves to superheat the steam and the air separately. The mixture
of superlicated steam and superheated air passing through the tubular
block cannot take place except on issuing from the block; this mixture
in leaving the block draws the combustible gases engendered in the two
compartments before mentioned; the inflamed product then comes in
contact with or licks the boiler under conditions more favorable to the
utilization of the caloric than by ordinary fire-placcs.