An Improved Mode of and Apparatus for Obtaining Motive Force for Use in Fluid Pressure Engines.
Year: 1888

page_text: Date of Application, 24th Mar.. 1888
Complete Specification Left, 20th Dec., 1888
Complete Specification Accepted, 23rd Mar., 1889
An Improved Mode of and Apparatus for Obtaining Motive Force
for Use in Fluid Pressure Engines.
1, JOHN BOURNE of 25 Warbeck Road, Shepherd's Bush in the County of
Middlesex, Civil Engineer, do hereby declare the nature of this invention to be as
follows:-
This invention relates to the obtaining, in a more economical manner than heretofore,
motive force applicable to the production of power in motor engines. To this end I
generate heat by the combustion of hydrocarbon liquid in a closed chamber, connected
by a pipe with the engine to be driven, and this chamber 1 supply with air for main-
taining combustion, by means of a force pump.
In the combustion chamber I fit lamps or burners (one or more), and supply to the
same either petroleum or other equivalent fluid under pressure.
The lamps or burners will be fitted with pumice stone, asbestos, or equivalent porous
material, for creating capillary attraction for the liquid fuel, and I so direct the trans-
mitted air to the lamps, that the gases of combustion shall be prevented from returning
to the flame, and arresting the proper working of the lamps.
By the heat of the chamber I propose to raise the temperature of a stream of
water supplied, under pressure, to a coil boiler, or other receptacle, so that when
discharged, it will flash into steam. The jet of steam I direct into a pipe, which
leads from the combustion chamber to the engine to be driven, in order that it may
mingle with the gases of combustion, on their passage to the engine, and thereby
reduce them to a temperature suitable for admission, as an elastic force, into the motor
engine.
The combustion chamber may be lined with refractory material, or jacketted to
receive the water for the production of the steam required for mingling with the
heated air.
For starting the motor engine, the burners, when lighted, may be supplied with air
by working the force pump for a short time by hand. Or the air may be freely
adwitied to the chamber, and allowed to escape, by a sheet-iron chimney, into the

page_text: atmosphere, until sufficient heat is obtained for generating steam in the coil boiler,
to provide the motive force for the engine, which will then maintain the force pump
in action.
The pipe leading to the motor engine will be provided with a cut-off valve, and the
combustion chamber, which in this case does the duty of power generator, will also
be provided with a safety valve for guarding against excess of pressure in the
chamber.
The temperature may be regulated by modifying the proportion of steam discharged
into the supply pipe.
The mixture of air and steam thus produced will absorb all the heat generated in
the chamber, and carry it, for use, into the motor engine. Thus, a great economy of
fuel will be effected, no portion of the heat generated being dissipated until it has
passed through, and done effective work in the motor-engine."
Dated this 24th day of March 1888.

page_text: COMPLETE SPECIFICATION.
An Improved Mode of and Apparatus for Obtaining Motive Force
for Use in Fluid Pressure Engines.
I, JOHN BOURNE of 25 Warbeck Road, Shepherd's Bush, in the County of
Middlesex, Civil 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:-
The object of this invention is to obtain motive force with the use of less fuel
than has been practicable heretofore, and with less bulk, weight, and first cost of
apparatus.
The fuel used is one of the cheap liquid hydrocarbons, which is burnt under pressure
in a close vessel, into which the fuel and air are forced by suitable pumps or equivalent
means. Within the combustion chamber in which the fuel is burnt, steam may be
generated for the purpose of mingling with the products of combustion.
The water to be vapourized may have a pressure of about 1000 lbs. on the square
inch, and it may be conveniently contained in an ordinary Perkins coil suitable for
the accommodation of such a pressure.
The hydrocarbon introduced into the combustion chamber may be burnt in much
the same way in which oil is burnt in an ordinary Argand lamp, though it may also
be burnt under many other arrangements, already in extensive use.
The products of combustion, on their way to the engine, receive a regulated
quantity of highly heated, or, as I term it, super-heated water, or its equivalent,
steam, from the coil or heater. When water is so used, it is injected into a pipe or
vessel connecting the combustion chamber with the engine to be driven, and preferably
in the form of fine spray, which immediately flashes into steam, partly from its own
internal heat, and partly from contact with the hot gases of combustion.
This steam both enlarges the volume of the motive fluid, and reduces its temperature
to a point suitable for use in a motor engine. It is by the mixed steam and hot
products of combustion that the engine is driven.-The engine itself may be of any
of the usual forms now worked by steam.
It will be obvious that the apparatus for generating the motive power, admits of
modification to a considerable extent; I will, however, describe one form of apparatus
which has produced good results, and which may serve as a typical illustration of the
means by which the object of my invention (namely, the economical production of
motive force) may be secured.
In the accompanying drawings.
Fig. 1 shews, in side elevation, a cylindrical combustion chamber or power generator
connected with a horizontal engine of ordinary construction.
Fig. 2 is a vertical section, on an enlarged scale, of the combustion chamber,
shewing the mode of fitting it with a petroleum oil burner and a steam supply
pipe; and
Figs. 3 and 4 represent, in plan and sectional views, the burner, detached, and on a
larger scale than in Fig. 2.

page_text: A is the combustion chamber consisting of a flanged vertical cylinder of iron lined
with fireclay, and closed at top by a flat cover.
Within this chamber is a cylinder B of fireclay, extending from the bottom of the
cylinder to the cover, and pierced near the cover with a ring of holes.
Within the annular space formed by the two cylinders is a double coil of pipe (for
receiving water to be heated to a high temperature, of, say, 500° Fahrenheit.
The water enters the inner coil by a pipe C, leading from a force pump, and, after
circulating through the double coils, it passes out of the chamber by a pipe C², and
enters a central pipe C³, pendent from the cover of the combustion chamber, and open
at bottom.
Surrounding this pipe C³ is a pipe C, also pendent from the cover, but closed at
bottom. This pipe C communicates by a pipe C with an elbow pipe C₁, which
connects the lower part of the combustion chamber A with the valve chest E of the
engine. To quicken the discharge of the gases of combustion from the furnace, the
pipe C, where it connects with the elbow pipe C, may be fitted with a nozzle, as
shewn at Fig. 2, to create an exhaust at the elbow, and increase the impelling force of
the current.
F is the burner, situate within the cylinder B, and immediately under the pendent.
pipe C. To this burner is supplied the liquid fuel used for the generation of heat.
The burner which I have found efficient, but which may be of any approved construc-
tion, is shewn in detail at Figs. 3 and 4. It consists of a circular box made fast to
the bottom of the combustion chamber, and covered with a pan which is fitted with
concentric rings of nipples.
The space below this pan communicates with a pipe fleading to an air pump, which
supplies air to the burner for supporting combustion. The nipple pan is packed with
a layer of pumice-stone, or equivalent porous material, reaching up to about the top
of the nipples, which form passages for the compressed air admitted to the air space
.below.
Leading up through the bottom of the combustion chamber, is also a pipe fin
communication with a hydrocarbon force pump. This pipe serves to supply petroleum
or other hydrocarbon oil to the porous bed covering the nipple pan, and above this
pan is fitted a metallic cover pierced with holes, which correspond in position with
the nipples on the pan below, and are of sufficient diameter to permit the passage
through each of them of an annulus of vapour surrounding a central jet of air.
Thus, it will be understood that when air is admitted under pressure to the air space,
it will pass up in jets through the nipples, and through the pierced cover, carrying
with it the vapour of the oil with which the porous bed is saturated.-- is an over-
flow pipe for returning the surplus oil to the oil reservoir.-G is a screw plug or door
closing an opening through the wall of the combustion chamber, and continued through
the wall of the cylinder B, a little above the level of the pierced metal cover.-By.
the removal of this screwed plug or door G, access is obtained to the interior of the
cylinder B, for the purpose of lighting the burner F.-To facilitate the commence-
ment of operations, provision is made to admit air from the atmosphere to the air
space in the burner. This is indicated by the pipe H.
Similarly, for turning the products of combustion into the atmosphere during the
heating up of the apparatus, a two-way cock may be applied to the pipe Co, as indicated
at H', one outlet of which delivers into a small chimney.
It will now be understood that when the furnace is lighted, jets of flame will be
maintained on the top of the burner, so long as the supply of oil and air is kept up.
So soon as sufficient heat is obtained in the combustion chamber to ensure the flashing
of the water into steam on its discharge from the coils, the pipe H and cock H' are
closed, and the operation of the apparatus will proceed, the liquid fuel and the air
for maintaining its combustion being supplied by the pumps connected respectively
by the pipes £
Under this arrangement it is clear that none of the heat generated by the combus-
tion of the fuel is lost. No part of it escapes by a chimney, but the whole is utilized
in the production of power, except that small part that escapes by the exhaust pipe

page_text: of the engine. In this closed combustion chamber, the consumption of the fuel is
more perfect than it is in common furnaces, there being no smoke generated, if no
excess of liquid fuel is supplied to the burner.-Instead of delivering the fuel in a
liquid state to the chamber, it may be heated therein, so as to he discharged in the
form of gas or vapour into any approved construction of gas burner.
It is well known that steam worked expansively in an engine will generate more
power relatively to the amount of fuel consumed, than if worked with its full
pressure throughout the stroko, and this economy will be greater, the greater the
range of the expansion.
The most concentrated state in which steam can exist, and at which expansion can
begin, is the state of superheated water, and in any steam engine, the maximum
performance will be obtained if the motive fluid can be expanded in the cylinder from
this condition of maximum density, to that of the terminal density or pressure-
generating power, throughout the whole range of the expansion. In existing engines,
however, such a result is quite unattainable. In them only the lower portions of the
expansion range can be utilized in the production of power, while the higher
portions are never called into activity, and much potential energy is consequently
wasted.
By the present invention, this evil is to a great extent corrected, seeing that the
energy pertaining to nearly the whole expansion range is generated and is transferred
to the stream of fluid working the engine, and reappearing in the form of increased
engine power. It is in the higher ranges of pressure that the benefits of expansion
are most conspicuous. Steam expanded into twice its volume nearly doubles its power,
whereas it requires to expand into nearly eight times its volume to treble its power,
and the large volume implies large cylinders, a heavy engine, and other evils.-On
the whole, it appears to be expedient that there should be two expansions, the first,
with the highest pressures, before the cylinder is reached, and the second within the
cylinder itself. By this arrangement, the engine is not subjected to the strain of the
bighest pressures, and a very moderate amount of expansion within the cylinder
suffices. The first part of the expansion may be effected by wire-drawing the
motive fluid, and the second by the application of lap to the slide valve, or other
mechanical equivalent.
It
Water heated under pressure to 500° F. possesses within itself nearly half the heat
necessary for its transformation into steam. According to this invention, the other
half is supplied by the hot products of combustion, and as this heat is imparted not
through the intervention of heating surfaces, but by the direct contact of the confluent
fluids, a boiler is not required, but only a heater having about one-tenth or one-
twelfth of the heating surface necessary for a boiler generating the same power.
is well-known that the efficacy of the heating surface of a boiler is not the same in all
parts of it, but that in the hottest places it is about six times greater than the
average
efficacy of the whole. Seeing, then, that in this case the heater is subjected to the
bighest temperatures only, while the lower temperatures, which, in common boilers,
use up most of the surface, do not here require any surface at all, (the motive fluids
proceeding with their existing temperatures direct to the engine), then, as the heat
imparted to the heater has only to be half the total amount expended, the other half
being appropriated by the products of combustion, it follows that the surface of the
heater, being five or six times more effective than the average boiler surface, and
having to impart only half the total heat, need have only one-tenth or one-twelfth
of the heating area that is necessary in ordinary boilers generating the same
power.
With these explanations, the rationale of the action of the engine, under the new
circumstances above set forth, will be readily comprehended.
The system of working above described, admits of many modifications; but all are
dependent on the same general principle, which is, that of introducing air and liquid
fuel, or its vapour, into a combustion chamber, where they are continuously burnt,
and the engine is worked by the products of their combustion mingled with water or
steam sufficient in quantity to reduce the temperature to a convenient working point

page_text: with any desired amount of super-heating, while the volume or pressure, or both, are
correspondingly augmented.
In the structure and conformation of the engine employed to develop the motive
force, there is nothing peculiar, and any kind, of engine may be adopted whether of
the cylinder and piston type, or any other by which elastic fluids under pressure are
made to generate power. The force pumps employed may be of the plunger, or of
the bucket type, or bucket and plunger combined, or they may be jet pumps for
sucking or forcing by means of a jet of steam or other, elastic fluid, or any other
species of pump may be employed.
The heating power of coal gas and of petroleum, or other variety of, liquid fuel,
being about the same, and small gas engines having now come into. extended use,
it has been supposed by some persons that the gas-engine type of motor,. which
operates upon the principle of exploding a mixture of air and gas, or hydrocarbon
vapour, within the cylinder, constitutes an eligible species of engine, even for large
powers. But to the use of such engines of any considerable size there are two
weighty objections. The first is, that, owing to the high speed at which modern
engines have to run, the piston frequently outruns the explosion, and the time necessary
to accomplish, between the strokes, the intimate intermixture of the air and gas or
vapour not having been afforded, a portion of the gaseous fuel is never burnt at all.
The second objection is, that the products of the explosion are dismissed through the
eduction pipe at so high a temperature that a large part of the heat, amounting to
nearly one half of that generated, is necessarily wasted.
In working according to the present invention, both of these sources of loss are
removed for as the motive force is obtained, not by explosion, but by steady and
continuous combustion, the time necessary for mixing the ingredients, and perfecting
the combustion, can be afforded without any diminution in the speed of the engine,
while the introduction of water reconciles the existence of a high pressure within the
engine, with a very moderate temperature of the exhaust, so that the loss accruing
from this source is almost wholly prevented.
Having now particularly described and ascertained the nature of my said Inven-
tion, and in what manner the same is to be performed, I declare that what
I claim is
1. The obtaining of motive force for use in motive power engines, by burning
hydrocarbon liquid or vapour and air under pressure, and mixing with the products
of combustion, steam or highly heated water, on their passage to the engine, as above
described.
2. The use of a combustion chamber fitted to burn hydrocarbon liquid or vapour
and air under pressure, and at the same time to generale steam, or to heat water,
for the supply of steam to the gases of combustion, as and for the purpose above set
forth.
Dotad this 90th day of December 1888