CERTAIN IMPROVEMENTS IN ENGINES FOR EXERTING POWER FOR DRIVING MACHINERY, AND FOR RAISING AND LOWERING HEAVY BODIES
Year: 1836

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, ANDREW
SMITH, of Princes Street, in the Parish of Saint Martin in the Fields, and
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 Twelfth day of February, in the sixth year of His
reign, and in the year of our Lord One thousand eight hundred and thirty-six,
did, for Himself, His heirs and successors, give and grant unto me, the said
Andrew Smith, Elis especial license, full power, sole privilege and authority,
that I, the said Andrew Smith, my executors, administrators, and assigns,
or such others as I, the said Andrew Smith, 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, my Invention of "CERTAIN IMPROVEMENTS IN
ENGINES FOR EXERTING POWER FOR DRIVING MACHINERY, AND FOR RAISING AND
LOWERING HEAVY BODIES;" in which said Letters Patent is contained a proviso
obliging me, the said Andrew Smith, by an instrument in writing under my
band and seal, particularly to describe and ascertain the nature of my said
Invention, and in what manner the same is to be performed, and to cause the
same 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, reference 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
Andrew Smith, do hereby declare that the nature of my said Invention, and
the manner in which the same is to be performed, is particularly described
and ascertained in and by the following description thereof, (reference being
had to the Drawing hereunto annexed, and to the letters and figures marked
thereon), that is to say :-
My Improvements in Engines for exerting Power for Driving Machinery, and
for Raising and Lowering Heavy Bodies, consist in the first instance in a mode
of converting the power exerted by a reciprocating piston working in a steam
cylinder into a rotary power through the agency of rods, chains, cords, or
bands connected to the piston rod, and to pullies carrying driving clicks or
pawles, which take into clutches fixed upon the shaft intended to revolve.
Secondly, in the adaptation of a peculiarly formed rotary cam to the said
revolving shaft, for the purpose of working the slide valve of the steam cylinder;
and thirdly, in a mode of reversing the rotary action of the shaft by shifting
the positions of the driving clicks or pawles.
In the accompanying Drawings, Figure 1 is a longitudinal section of a
locomotive engine running upon a railway, the boiler being omitted as
forming no part of the Invention. Fig. 2 is a horizontal view of the same, to
which locomotive engine the proposed improvements are attached.
a, a, is
the framework of the carriage; b, the working cylinder of the engine
attached to the carriage in a horizontal position by brackets; c, c, is the pipe for
conducting steam from a boiler to the cylinder; d, d, is the piston rod passed
through both ends of the cylinder, which rod is connected by an endless chain
or chains e, e, to the pullies f and g. The pulley f is fixed upon a shaft h turn-
ing in bearings in the frame of the carriage, and to this pulley one end of the
piston rod is connected by the chain e. On the same shaft h another similar
pulley is also fixed, consequently both pullies f and i, with their shaft h,
revolve together. The pulley 9 is hollow, and turns loosely in one direction
upon the axle of the running wheels, to which the driving power is applied.
Upon this axle is affixed a clutch within the hollow pulley, as represented in
the longitudinal section of the pullies f and g, shewn in Figure 3. To the
inner side of the pulley 9 the click or pall m is attached by a pin, and as the
pulley revolves in the direction of the arrows the point of the click or pawle
in striking against the clutch causes it and the axle k, with the running
wheels, to be driven round. Another similar hollow pulley, with a clutch and
pall, is also in like manner mounted upon the shaft of the running wheels at n,
Fig. 2, opposite to the pulley i, and an crossed endless chain or chains and
rods o, o, attached to and extending round both the pullies 7 and nt, com-

page_text: municates the rotary motion of the pulley i to the pulley n. The elastic force
of the steam in the working cylinder b, by moving the piston in the direction of
the arrow, will give rotary motion to the pulleys f and 9, and cause the click
or pawle m in the pulley g to act against the clutch l, and drive it round with
the running wheel shaft half a revolution. On the returning stroke of the
piston the endless chain e, e, will drive the pulley f, with its shaft h, and the
other fixed pulley i, in the reverse direction to their arrows, when the crossed
endless chain o, o, will give rotary motion to the pulley n in the same direction
that the pulley g moved before, and cause its click or pawle to act upon its
clutch, and thus to complete the entire rotation of the running wheel shaft, the
pulley g slipping round on the shaft k in the reverse direction to that in which
it moved when actuating the running wheels. Thus the force of the recipro-
cating action of the piston in the working cylinder will be converted into a
continuous rotary movement in the shaft k, which may be employed as a
power for driving a locomotive carriage or for actuating any other kind of
machinery.
As it is not my intention to confine myself to the horizontal position in
which the working cylinder is placed in Figures 1 and 2, or to attaching the
chains e, e, to both ends of the piston rod, I have shewn at Fig. 4 a partial
elevation of a locomotive engine in which the improvements are adapted to
work in a vertical direction, and from one end only of the piston rod. The
carrier pullies and i upon their shaft h, and the driving pullies g and n upon
the running wheel shaft k, as well as the connecting chains e, e, and o, o, the
working cylinder b, and piston rod d, are all placed in situations suited to
perform their functions, as described in reference to Figures 1 and 2. The
four pullies f, i, y, and n, as situate in the carriage Figure 4, are shewn
detached and in section at Figures 5 and 6; and here it will be seen that the
clutches 1, 1, are of a snail form, and that the clicks or pawles m, m, are in
this instance acted upon by springs which continually press them against the
peripheries of the clutches, and from the cross head of the piston rod being
connected to both chains, that side of the crossed chain to which it is attached
must be kept in a vertical direction by a guide pulley or otherwise, as shewn
in Figure 6. Figure 7 is a sectional representation of the peculiarly formed
rotary cam and its appendage, by means of which the steam valve is slidden.
The position of this cam, fixed upon the axle k of the running wheel, is shewn
at p in Fig. 2. The cam is formed by the peripheries of two segments of circles
of different radii, and by two inclined planes. A bent lever g, mounted upon a
fulcrum pin or stud r, is connected at top to the rod s of the slide valve, and
at bottom carries an anti-friction roller, which runs against the periphery of

page_text: the cam. Hence by the rotation of the axle k the different elevations of the
revolving cam will cause the lever q to be moved at the opposite points of its
rotation, into such positions as shall open and close the steam valve. On the
outside of the pulley g is represented in Fig. 1 a handle t, which is fixed upon
a square stud extending from the pawle m. By turning this handle the pawle
m may be shifted into the position shewn by dots, when it will take hold of
the opposite side of the clutch 1 to that described above, and in performing its
reciprocating rotary movement will necessarily drive round the axle k and the
running wheels in the reverse direction.
In witness whereof, I, the said Andrew Smith, have hereunto set my