In- PROVEMENTS APPLICABLE TO STEAM BOILERS, FURNACES, AND FLUES
Year: 1861

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by James Leeming at the Office of
the Commissioners of Patents, with his. Petition, on the 14th June
1861.
I, JAMES LEEMING, of Manchester, in the County of Lancaster, Worsted
Spinner, do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention for "In-
PROVEMENTS APPLICABLE TO STEAM BOILERS, FURNACES, AND FLUES," to be as
follows:-
The object of my improvements is to increase the temperature of feed water
supplied to steam boilers, and to effect the more perfect combustion of the
fuel consumed, & the reduction of smoke, and consequently to utilize and
economize much of the heat which is usually passed off and wasted in the
working of steam boilers.
In describing my improvements, I will do so as applicable to one steam
boiler only. At the ends of the furnace place or places of the boiler, as the case
may be (as to whether there be one or more), at. or about the bridge I con-
tract or reduce the width laterally of the opening or entrance into the flue, by
preference by means of fire-bricks or masonry, as being generally more
efficient and convenient than when such are formed as water spaces, and where
necessary in existing boilers, in order to obtain sufficient opening for the
product of combustion from the furnaces to pass with requisite draft, I reduce
the height of the bridge; the opening or exit from the furnace place or places
will therefore be comparatively narrow transversely, instead, as usually, of the

page_text: whole breadth of the furnace place; the effect is to more intimately bring the
products of combustion and air admitted into combination, and effect more
perfect combustion, and reduce the production of smoke.
In those classes of boilers where the products of combustion from two
furnaces pass immediately on leaving the furnace places into one common flue,
I prefer to make the contraction or reduction in width at one side of each
furnace place only, so that the products of combustion from both furnace places
will be brought into more intimate combination than where the contraction is
made in both sides of each. And in those classes where such is not the case,
I prefer to make the contraction on both sides.
The products of combustion pass onward through the flues of the boiler in
the usual manner, at the exit of which I place my improved heating appa-
ratus; this consists of, by preference, a cylindrical vessel containing a number
of tubes passing through & secured to the ends, and through which the pro-
ducts of combustion pass before arriving at the main flue or the chimney.
The feed water supplied by pump or other means is passed into the bottom of
the vessel, and consequently around the contained tubes, receiving heat from
the products of combustion-passing-through-the-tubes, and thonce passes to
the boiler, thus utilizing a considerable portion of the heat which has escaped
extraction by the flues of the boiler, and which would otherwise be passed into
the main flue or chimney and be wasted.
The heating vessels may be placed in any convenient situation & position
relative to the boilers, but I prefer generally to place them at the back ends
of the boilers, and in a vertical position, as being then more effective.