IMPROVEMENTS IN APPARATUS FOR HEATING WATER AND FOR GENERATING Steam
Year: 1875

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Robert Lees Hilton at the
Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the
3rd April 1875.
I, ROBERT LEES HILTON, of Hyde, in the County of Chester,
Engineer, do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention for
"IMPROVEMENTS IN APPARATUS FOR HEATING WATER AND FOR GENERATING
Steam,” to be as follows :—
My Invention relates to apparatus to be employed in the generation
of steam, and to apparatus for heating the feed water of steam generators
or for heating water to be used in the warming of horticultural
erections or other buildings, or parts of buildings, or to be otherwise
employed.
In such apparatus as constructed in accordance with my Invention a
series of tubes each closed at one end and connected by the other end
with a chamber are provided with a second series of inner tubes, each
of which is connected by one end with a second chamber, the other end
extending witlun the outer tubo nearly to the closed end thereof.

page_text: When used as a steam generator the said chambers are connected by
means of pipes with a steam chamber or reservoir, the connecting pipe
or pipes extending from the first-named chamber, which I will style the
flow chamber, being preferably of larger area than the pipe or pipes
which connect the second or return chamber with the said steam 5
reservoir. The said connections are so arranged as that when sufficiently
heated the water will flow upwards into the steam reservoir, and will
return through the return chamber and inner tubes.
When used for heating feed water the water may be pumped into the
return chamber and be conveyed to the steam generator, or to the return 1
chamber of another series, and when used for heating a circulating
current of water the flow may proceed from the flow chamber, and tho
return current be conveyed into the return chamber.
In case more than one set or series of heating tubes be required the
water may flow from one set of tubes to another, or the current may be 1
divided and flow through all the sets of tubes collectively.
The outer tubes may be exposed to flames or heated gases or to steam
or heated vapour, according to the conditions in cach case.
In an arrangement which I consider to be suitable the said chambers
arc contained in a casting, which is provided with a removeable cover, 2
which can be secured by means of bolts. A tube plate, to which arc
secured the ends of the inner tubes, forms a partition between the said
flow and return chambers and the said tube plate, and attached tubes
can be withdrawn when the said cover is removed. A number of
sections so formed may be arranged together to constitute a steam 2
generator, and the back end section or sections may act in lieu of an
economiser to heat the feed water.
I prefer to provide the tubes of one or more of the back end sections
with scrapers, as in the case of economiscrs.
When mounting the said sections I may erect vertical partition walls 3
between the sections with openings alternately at the top and bottom,
or near the bottom of the said walls side doors through which accumu-
lations of dust may be removed being provided, and I may also fit a
regulating door or regulating doors, through which air can be admitted

page_text: to meet and mingle with the current or currents descending through tho
space at the back of the bridge in order to promote the combustion of
the gases. I also provide the lower end of one or more of the outer
tubes in each section, or in each of a number of the front sections, with
a fusible plug or with fusible plugs.