CERTAIN IMPROVEMENTS IN MACHINERY OR APPARATUS FOR REFRIGERATING FLUIDS
Year: 1834

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, LEMUEL
WELLMAN WRIGHT, of Sloane Terrace, in the Parish of Saint Luke Chelsea,
in the County of Middlesex, Engineer, send greeting.
WHEREAS His present most Excellent Majesty King William the
Fourth, by His Royal Letters Patent under the Great Seal of Great Britain,
bearing date at Westminster, the Ninth day of August, in the fifth year of
His reign, did, for Himself, His beirs and successors, give and grant unto me,
the said Lemuel Wellman Wright, His especial licence, full power and
authority, that I, the said Lemuel Wellman Wright, my executors, admi-
nistrators, and assigns, or such others as I, the said Lemuel Wellman
Wright, my executors, administrators, 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 mentioned, should and lawfully might make, use, exercise,
and vend, within England, Wales, and the Town of Berwick-upon-Tweed,
and also all His Plantations and Colonies abroad, my Invention of "CERTAIN
IMPROVEMENTS IN MACHINERY OR APPARATUS FOR REFRIGERATING FLUIDS;" in
which said Letters Patent is contained a proviso that I, the said Lemuel
Wellman Wright, 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 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, referenco being thereunto had, will more fully and at
large appear.

page_text: NOW KNOW YE, that in compliance with the said proviso, I, the said
Lemuel Wellman Wright, do hereby declare that the nature of my said
Invention, and in what manner the same is to be performed, is particularly
described and ascertained in and by the following description thereof, reference
being had to the Drawings hereunto annexed, and to the letters and figures
marked thereon (that is to say):
My Invention of Improvements in Machinery or Apparatus for Refrige-
rating Fluids consists in the adaptation of certain well-known principles,
through the agency of machinery, whereby I am enabled to reduce the tem-
perature of fluids even to the congelation of water into ice. It is well known
that atmospheric air, if compressed in a close vessel, will give out a con-
siderable portion of its caloric, which will be taken up by the surrounding
conducting bodies; and that if this volume of compressed air be then liberated
and allowed to expand, it will take up, by abstracting from any material with
which it may come in contact, a quantity of caloric equal to that which it
had parted with in its previous compression. Now my Invention is the
means or mode of bringing these principles into operation, through the agency
of volumes of atmospheric air acted upon by machinery, for the purpose of
abstracting the caloric or heat from fluids in order to reduce their temperature,
and in the case of water causing it to be congealed into ice.
The accompanying Drawing represents a section, taken vertically, through
a machine or apparatus constructed for the purpose of refrigerating water, and
converting it into ice. a, a, is a hollow cylinder accurately bored as the
cylinder of a steam engine; b is a piston formed by two discs pressed
together by a nut and screw, with a leather cup between them; the lower
disc is accurately fitted to the interior of the cylinder; the upper disc, which
is a trifle smaller, is made tight by the edges of the leather cup. The rod by
which the piston is raised and depressed in the cylinder is shewn at c, c. The
lower part of this rod has a screw thread formed round it which works in the
boss of the bevel wheel d. This rod slides through the stuffing box e at the
lower end of the cylinder, and also through the cross rails fand, 9, between
which the boss of the wheel & works. A bevel wheel h, of half the diameter
of d, turns upon a pin fixed in the side frame, and is driven by a winch i.
By the two bevel wheels d and h gearing into each other the rotation of the
winch gives rotary motion to the wheel d, and by so doing causes the rod c,
and with it the piston b, to be raised or depressed within the cylinder. A lateral
passage k forms a communication (when the piston is situate in the lowest
position, as shewn in the Drawing) between that part of the cylinder which is
below the piston and that part which is above it. This passage is furnished

page_text: with a stop cock 1; a cap plate m, accurately fitted to the top of the cylinder
with an air-tight joint, is placed in the position shewn, and pressed down by
a screw n. The tube of a funnel o containing water is inserted into this cap
plate m of the cylinder a; this tube has a stopcock p. A rod q, connected at
one end to the crank arm of the stopcock p of the funnel, and at the other end
to the crank arm of the stopcock 2 of the passage k, causes these two cocks to
open and shut simultaneously. A conical valve r, in the bottom of the
cylinder, is to admit air during the rising of the piston. A dish s is mounted
on the top of the rod c for the purpose of receiving the water let fall from the
funnel. A sieve or fine strainer t is attached to the under part of the cap
plate in order to distribute the water let out from the funnel, and cause it to
descend through the cylinder in the form of a shower. The cylinder may be
enclosed with a jacket u, u, containing water or any other cooling material,
for the purpose of taking up and conducting away the heat which it has given
out by the condensation of the air within the cylinder, and taken up by the
surrounding metal.
In order to make ice in this apparatus the piston must be first raised to the
top of the cylinder by the operations of the winch i and bevel wheels d and h
acting on the screw of the piston rod c. The cap plate m must then be
securely fixed air-tight, and the required quantity of water placed in the
funnel. The winch i being now turned so as to bring the piston to the bottom
of the cylinder, as in the Drawing, a vacuum will have been produced within
the cylinder above the piston, and the volume of air below the piston will have
become compressed into say about a twentieth part of its original bulk, thereby
causing a considerable portion of the caloric or heat which it contained to be
given out and taken up by the material of which the cylinder and piston is
constituted, and so be conducted away. The cocks and p are now to be
opened by the hand of the operator applied to the rod q, by which means the
compressed air will be allowed to pass through the passage k, and expand
itself in the upper part of the cylinder, being at a much lower degree of
temperature, or with a smaller quantity of caloric in the volume than it beforo
possessed in its uncompressed state. At the same time the water, having
been also allowed to pass from the funnel into the sieve, and to fall in a
shower within the cylinder, the caloric of the descending water will be taken
up by the expanded air in consequence of its diminished temperature or
deficient state, and congelation of water into ice will be the immediate result.
Instead of the vessel of water surrounding the cylinder, a blowing machine
may be employed to drive a current of air between the jacket u and the
cylinder a for the purpose of driving off the heat; and in that case it would

page_text: be desirable to coat the outer part of the cylinder with some fibrous mate-
rial, as linen cloth, and to moisten it with a small quantity of water in order
to promote evaporation. The same principle is available to the operations of
refrigerating in general, for various useful purposes, and may be applied in
several ways, and in different forms and constructions of machinery, in which
the atmospheric air may be compressed, as in reservoirs or receivers, by any
of the known means, and allowed to pass off through passages into exhausted
vessels, there to expand, and to take up from any substance with which it
may be in contact the caloric that it requires to restore it to its former tempe-
rature. I, therefore, desire it to be understood that I claim the adaptation
of any machinery or apparatus in which the above-described mode of
refrigerating or cooling fluids of whatever kind is employed.
In witness whereof, I, the said Lemuel Wellman Wright, have hereunto
set my hand and seal, this Ninth day of February, One thousand eight
hundred and thirty-five.