IMPROVEMENTS IN AND APPARATUS FOR OBTAINING AND APPLYING MOTIVE POWER
Year: 1877

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by William Lloyd Wise at the Office
of the Commissioners of Patents on the 6th March 1877. A communication
from abroad by Emile Simon Bouchotte, Engineer, of Paris, France.
WILLIAM LLOYD WISE, of Chandos Chambers, Adelphi, in the County of Mid-
dlesex. "IMPROVEMENTS IN AND APPARATUS FOR OBTAINING AND APPLYING
MOTIVE POWER." A communication from abroad by Emile Simon Bouchotte,
Engineer, of Paris, France.
This Invention has for its object improvements in and apparatus for obtaining
and applying motive power.
Mr. Emile Simon Bouchotte, by whom the Invention has been communicated to
ine, calls his improved apparatus the "areomotor."
In the arcomotor my foreign correspondent utilizes the effects of density of two
bodies of different specific gravities, and the motor is by preference in the form of a
water wheel with horizontal axis, and curved buckets, arranged within a suitable
chamber, with means for supplying the lighter fluid as required, though the form
and details may be varied, it being understood that a series of noveable receptacles
is used, and that the dynamic effect is obtained by the action of density. The
apparatus may be successfully employed whenever it is desired to obtain small
motive powers of from 2 to 20 kilogram metres (say 14 to 144/, foot pounds),
or even more in certain cases.
Fig. 1 of the accompanying Sheet of Sketches shews in vertical section a hollow
cylinder. If it be supposed that by the aid of special arrangements the portion
A, B, C, remains full of a liquid of known density, while the other portion A, D, C,
contains a gas or liquid of less density, then there will be cause for dynamic
effort.
The working of the areomotors may be ensured by adopting the following
arrangements. The wheel with buckets is immersed in a bath of liquid of great
density or high specific gravity; a gas or liquid of minimum density or low specific
gravity is forced under or into the floats or buckets when they pass the lowest point
of the wheel. This injection is effected either by means of a tube fixed under the
wheel, which tube supplies the gas or light liquid; it may be by causing the sub-
stance to enter by a hollow iron shaft in the drum of the wheel which is closed.
From the drum the gas or light liquid passes successively into the buckets regu-
lated by suitable valves whose gear may be operated by a cam or projection.

page_text: The work of the gas or light liquid is ensured, either by the use of a belt-valve,
which covers all the buckets charged with said gas or light liquid, or by means of a
cylindrical wheel race which has the like effect of closing these buckets so as to
make them nearly air-tight.
A reservoir of gas or light liquid may be provided so that it shall be ready when
required. Thus for instance it will be understood that in manufacturing towns a
supply of compressed air may be stored up and placed in communication with all
the areomotors.
A water supply exists already in nearly all the populous centres of any im-
portance; now, the simultaneous use of water or mercury would put in motion an
areomotor of relatively great power. But, in most cases, attention must chiefly be
directed to a motor depending on the generation of gas..
(1.) Amnonical gas, on account of its properties, satisfies the requisite con-
ditions, in fact, when the immersing liquid water kept at a temperature of 90°
to 100°, if a solution of sal ammoniac be caused to enter the buckets by one of the
two methods above named, the motive gas will be generated. By covering the
bath with a lid of sheet iron the gas will be caused to rise into the tank C (Fig. 2),
to be re-absorbed in a reservoir of cold water, and to recommence its work.
(2.) Mineral oils will also yield a suitable gas when used in apparatus such as
above referred to; water will not in this case be required in the tank 0; the vapour
may be raised to a sufficiently high temperature so that after being condensed it
will resume its work. In some cases the latent heat of the volatilized oil may bo
utilized.
(3.) If the bath consisting of some common oil or grease be kept at a tempe-
rature of from 105 to 110 degrees centigrade steam may be the agent in the
arcomotor.
In one arrangement of the arcomotor a closed cistern containing water, heated by
any convenient meaus, has arranged within it a wheel, the curved buckets of which
are fixed on the periphery of a drum forming the main body of the wheel, and
enclosed between the two circular plates which form the sides of the wheel. The
wheel is mounted between two fixed and nearly frictionless centres.
A tubo supplies to the lower portion of the apparatus the gas or volatilized spirit
which, on becoming heated by its passage through the water, displaces the water
from the buckets to one side of the axis of the wheel in succession, thus motion
is given to the wheel by the weight of the water in the buckets on the opposite
side.
The belt, which is almost as wide as the distance between the sides of the wheel,
covers the buckets containing the lighter fluid, travels over three drums or pullics
which transmit the motion, and in its course again passes over and covers the buckets.
Two of the drums or pullics are, like the wheel, mounted on centres, and one of
them serves as an intermediate pulley for regulating the tension of the belt by
means of an adjusting screw and thumb nut. On the shaft of the last drum or
pulley is keyed a driving pulley. The gas escapes by a tube fixed to the upper
portion of the closed cistern after having caused motion to be imparted to the
wheel.
In another arrangement in which the distribution of the gas or the volatilized
spirit to the buckets is regulated by the wheel itself, the closed cistern, as well as
the pullies and belt for transmitting the motion, are the same as in the arrangement
above described. In the wheel itself the following alterations obtain :-The gas or
volatilized spirit makes its way into the interior of the drum of the wheel by a
series of holes drilled in the hollow shaft of the wheel. In the interior of the
wheel is a star-shaped plate keyed on to the hollow shaft, and having in suitable
recesses at its circumference a series of small grooved sheaves; each sheave carries
in its groove two cross pins or axes carrying respectively the ends of two rods;
the one rod is connected by its other end with a small india-rubber ball valve con-
tained in a case in the drum of the wheel, the valve being kept pressed against its
seat by a spiral spring; the other rod terminates in a rounded head which comes in

page_text: contact with a projection or incline fixed on the cistern, and communicates to the
rod to the sheave, and thence to the first-named rod which carries the valve the
requisite motion to open the valve. It follows that each time a rod passes the fixed
incline the corresponding valve is opened.
The number of sheaves and ball valves is only half that of the buckets. In
order that each of the apertures in the drum of the wheel, closed by the ball valves,
may distribute the gas or volatilized spirit to two buckets at the same time, cach
alternate bucket, and also the angle iron connecting it to the drum of the wheel
has a hole which causes it to communicate with the interior of the bucket following
it in the rotation of the wheel.
In another arrangement in which the distribution of the gas or volatilized spirit
to the buckets is governed by the wheel itself, the closed cistern as well as the
drums and belt for transmitting the motion being as in the arrangements previously
described, the rods actuated by the fixed incline transmit motion to the rods
carrying the valves by bell cranks, the axes of which are carried by the buckets
themselves, as the wheel rotates each time a rod passes the incline a valve is
opened.
For the buckets the same contrivance as before is used, and, as regards the general
arrangement of this last method of distribution, it may be remarked that as the
mechanism for actuating the ball valves is placed outside the drum of the wheel
instead of inside (as in the preceding arrangement) the result in the example
I have just described is a certain simplicity of construction as well as great facility
for the inspection and maintenance of the mechanism.
According to another arrangeinent, the belt is done away with, the shaft of the
wheel constituting the driving shaft. The drum of the wheel is close, and the gas
is simply brought by a tube exactly as in the arrangement thus described. To
prevent the gas from leaving the buckets before all its work is done one of the
sides of the closed cistern is made of a curved form, which serves as a cylindrical
race for the wheel.