Year: 1898

page_text: We, WILLIAM WORBY BEAUMONT, of Outer Temple, 222, Strand, London,
Consulting Engineer, and HENRY PERCY HOLT, of 22, Chancery Lane, London,
Engineer, do hereby declare the nature of this invention to be as follows:-
Our invention relates to high pressure high speed multiple cylinder compound
steam engines, and consists in combination and grouping of two three or four steam
cylinders of simple acting engines on two crossheads and cranks and in a novel
arrangement of rotative valve serving all the cylinders for inlet and outlet of steam
and for reversing, the port spaces being formed in the valve and its casing and the
space ordinarily required for connecting the port passages being formed by part of the
cylinder space swept through by the piston. The valve inay be parallel taper or stepped
and may be provided with circumferential packing or with packing rings, and it
may be kept in place by the end-on steam pressure and adjusted by devices acting
at the other end. The valve may run partly in ball bearing and may be provided
with an adjustable thrust bearing. It may also be given in some cases a
longitudinal motion of small range to avoid scoring, and it is placed transversely to
and at the back end of the cylinders and parallel with the crank-shaft. The steam
is admitted so that the valve may tend to press most in one radial direction or may
tend to centralise itself, and it passes from cylinder to cylinder continuously. The
pistons in any two of the following cylinders will thus move in opposite directions
but the cylinders and ports and the valve are so arranged that two out of three or
of four cylinders are on one crosshead and crank and one or two on the other and
the connecting rods are separated at their small ends so that they point angularly
towards the crankshaft and avoid dead centres, the crank being so placed as to be
in the centre of effort from the three or the four cylinders.
Our invention also relates to apparatus for reversing the engine by means of a
friction grip hand lever for the partial rotation of the valve driving wheel or disc.
It also relates to the arrangement of steam admission for giving full pressure steam
to the second cylinder separately, but under control of the valve. Our invention
also relates to the construction of triple or quadruple cylinder engines with the
cylinders arranged side by side or end to end and working on one or two cranks
with direct or return connecting rods and with one rotary valve acting for three or
four cylinders or two valves one acting for two cylinders and the other for one or
two cylinders as the case may be.
Dated this 10th day of June 1900

page_text: Fig. 7 is a sectional plan or the valve driving & reversing gear a modinсаtion
of which is shewn in Figs. 8 & 9.
Fig. 10 is a sectional plan of one method of imparting a slight reciprocating
movement to the valve while it is also rotating, and
Fig. 11 shews a similar section of an arrangement for the same purpose when
the valve reciprocation is effected in one direction by difference of pressure of
steam acting at one end of the valve and a spring acting at the other.
The relative position of the cylinders is clearly shewn by the dotted lines in
Fig. 4 and marked A, B, C, D, the cylinders are also seen behind the crossheads E
&F in Fig. 3 the positions of the piston rods are seen in the centre of the cylinders
in Fig. 3, and in plan in Fig. 2. The crank shaft is placed centrally on the line a―x
and centrally with regard to the group of cylinders so that only one pair of
cylinders can at any time have its crank on the dead centre as seen in Fig. 1, the
two connecting rods being divergent at the crossheads when the pair of pistons of A
and C and the pair of B and D are at the opposite ends of their strokes. The
valve K in the case K¹ is driven by the chain M¹ on the toothed wheel M on the
crank shaft and the wheel N on the end of the valve as seen in Figs. 1, 2, 3, and 7.
The wheel N is fixed on the valve but the wheel M is loose upon the boss P
which is keyed to the crank shaft J Fig. 7.
On the boss P at the proper distance apart are two stops one of which is seen
at p against which the stud Q bears so that one or the other stop p drives the
wheel M according to the direction of rotation of the engine; at N, of the wheel
on the valve spindle is seen a separate set of teeth by means of which by the aid of
the handle T and rack R Figs. 1 & 2 & 7, the valve may be moved through about
120 degrees in advance of the direction of rotation of the crank so that the
distribution of steam by the valve K is such as to reverse the engine. When the
engine is used for propelling a motor carriage the rack R would be arranged as to
position so that it would be that shewn in Fig. 1, when the engine is
driving the carriage forward suitable support holder & guide for the
rack and bar by which it is carried being provided. A modification of this
reversing gear is shewn at Figs. 8 & 9 in which the boss P projects beyond
the boss of the wheel M which in this case is loose on the crank shaft with a
range of notion limited to about 120 degrees by means of the stud Q which is fixed
in it and is free to move throughout the length of the slot S Fig. 8. On the
outside of the boss P is a collar V which is loose within or may be grasped by the
Hexible belt W attached to the ends of the levers X, X¹, which are guided by an
ordinary quadrant indicated at U; to reverse the engine with this gear it is necessary
to make the collar V over-run the engine so as to push the pin Q the outer end of
which passes into the projection Q1 on the collar V, through a range limited by the
slot S.
This is done by grasping the two upper handle ends of the rods X and X', coupled
by the links U₁, by which the rod X¹ is forced upwards as the levers approach
each other and the belt W grips the collar V by moving the levers while thus
grasped the collar V may be rotated as required and by alternately gripping and
releasing the handles and moving them angularly in the one or the other direction
the wheel M may be moved from one position to the other for reversing the engine
in either direction.
With the valve in the position shewn in Figs. 1, 5, & 6, the engine will rotate in
the direction shewn by the arrow on Fig. 1, and the steam will pass into the cylinder A
the valve and port thereto being relatively in the positions shewn in the section a-Ɑ
Figs. 6, steam being admitted into the valve at 81, Fig. 5, through the pipe L;
following the position of the valve and ports with the cranks in the position shewn
it will be seen that as the valve rotates in the same direction as the crank shaft the
port g which allows the steam to pass from cylinder A to cylinder B via port his
closed, but the port i which allows steam to pass from cylinder B into cylinder C
by the port J is open with, as in the case shewn in section a a, a sufficient amount
of lead, on the other hand the port K which permits steam to pass from cylinder (