Improvements in Steam-boilers.
Year: 1887

page_text: Improvements in Steam-boilers.
I, JOSEPH PHILIPPE BORDONE, of 48 rue Lacoudamine, Paris, France, Engineer
do hereby declare the nature of this invention and in what manner the same is to
be performed, to be particularly described and ascertained in and by the following
statement:-
The boiler forming the subject of the present invention has been devised with a view
to render it conformable, as much as possible, to the theoretical boiler so-called, and
consequently to construct it in the least complicated form. Moreover the said boiler
is very little encumbered although of great evaporating power, weighs very little, and
utilizes nearly all the specific heat of the fuel, that is to say it combines with a perfect
combustion the absorption, to the profit of the evaporation of almost all the heat, in
such a manner that the hot gases shall have only a low temperature on passing to the
chimney, lastly it never gets dirty by the adherence of solid deposits and thereby
always preserves the initial conducting power of the plates.
To satisfy all these desiderata, it was first necessary to employ only cylindrical
bodies of small diameter without falling into the inconveniences inherent in multi-
tubular boilers, to use in the construction only plates of little thickness, to ensure to
the water an active circulation, favouring the cooling of the heated and wet sides, and
the disengagement of molecules of steam after having been previously freed of nearly
all the salts which it held in solution or suspension, without any agent for preventing
incrustation being required, and whatever be the quality of the water used, even, if it
were sea water.
The comparative state of rest, in the heaters, of this water raised to a temperature
at which the salts that it retained are precipitated as opposed to the rapid circulation
in the other parts of the boiler, is sufficient to accomplish this result.
Another important feature of this invention is that the boiler can be adapted either
as a vertical or as a horizontal boiler to suit all the requirements of the industry, that
is to say, without change of form and to hold either a large volume of water as the
boilers heretofore used having heating tubes, or to get up pressure very rapidly as the
boilers of the Belleville and Field systems and the modifications devised from them.

page_text: The improved boner Tumis these various
represented in the accompanying drawing in which
11s, and anche dans v
Figure 1 is a longitudinal section of a boiler of the portable or locomotive type
constructed according to my invention.
Figure 2 is a part plan and part horizontal section of the same.
Figure 3 is an end view of the same one half being shown with the end plate
removed.
Figure 4 is a transverse section of a boiler of a modified form of construction.
Figure 5 is a transverse section on the lines A, B, and C, D respectively of
Figure 1.
Figure 7 is a transverse section of a generator of the fixed type or marine boiler
type.
Figures 6, 8, and 9 show various details of construction of various parts of the
generator, as well as the modifications of which certain parts are susceptible.
Similar letters of reference indicate corresponding parts in all the figures; A is the
steam collecting cylinder, B B the feed water heating cylinder; C the mouth of the
furnace; D D D furnace bars, counterweight and lever of the horizontal or vertical
pivoted fire bars as in the half-section on the left of Figure 5.
E is the door of the ash-box; F F¹ F" openings affording access to the flues, for
cleaning and replacing in position the obstructing bars in case of damages and
replacement, of one or more tubes of the obstructing parts. G is the grate tubes;
G the heating tubes; I is the obstructing bars; K the non-conducting coating;
K' the refractory earth; L the small circulating tubes; M the rods for maintaining
the circulating tubes in place; N the movable plate; O and O₁ the domes for drying
the steam; P Fig. 4 the adjunct to the chimney forming a steam drying device; Qa
series of tubes conducting together the water and the molecules of steam accumulated
in the collector; R the tube for returning the water towards the lower part of the
boiler, whence it is taken again into the grate plate slightly inclined from the front to
the rear and from thence it returns to the boiler through other similar tubes situated
in front, that is to say, at the highest part.
S is the movable sheet metal plate closing the upper flue round the cylinder which
supports the motor, whilst serving as a steam dome; T is the motor indicated in
dotted lines; U the small wall of bricks supporting the whole of the boiler through
the medium of heaters and circumscribing the fire place, if it is to be placed at the
exterior of the boiler. V is the water grate which may, if desired be replaced by
ordinary cast iron fire bars and X X are nozzles forming intermediate stays.
The apparatus comprises two uniform tube plates provided externally with two
bottoms concaved inside and movable in order to enable access to and repairs in all
parts of the boiler. These plates are rendered firm by means of three cylindrical
tubes, one, A, serves as a steam collector and carries at its upper part a dome O and
a cylinder O, in which the steam is superheated by the gases that have arrived at the
end of their passage, and the two others B, which are arranged symmetrically and
situated at the lower part, serve at the same time as heaters for the feed water and as
lateral sides to the fire place.
As shown in Figure 9 to a larger scale the cylinders A and B can be rivetted or
bolted to the tube plates by another arrangement than that of the preceding figures;
this latter mode of connection is especially suited in apparatus of large dimensions;
it has the advantage of interposing between the heaters and the other parts of the
boiler a kind of diaphragm retaining in the lower part of the cylinder the dirt
deposited, and which is afterwards extracted during the operation at intervals whose
duration is determined by experience according to the qualities of the water.
The access to and cleaning of these cylinders is moreover very easy through the
holes provided in the bottoms in front and at the rear.
By a series of water tubes, some of which constitute wholly or in part the grate
bars, capable of being replaced by ordinary cast iron bars or by the grate plate having
nozzles, and the others of which G¹, juxtaposed, according to the arrangement shown
in Figures 7 and 8 serve as a casing to the boiler or as obstructors compelling the hot

page_text: gases to follow several alternate passages, either from the front to the rear, or from the
rear to the front, as indicated in Figures 1 to 5, or from right to left or from left to
right as shown in Figure 7, or lastly from below upwards or from above downwards,
then from the front to the rear into the dome cylinder as in the half section on the left
of Figure 4.
The circulating tubes L are bent to a right angle and maintained in place by means
of small rods M placed across their vertical part and fixed against the tube plate. The
lower orifice of these circulating tubes takes the water from the coldest part of the
boiler and conducts it in a continuous manner to the hottest part, in the interior of
the heating tubes, without intercepting the current of water passing from these tubes
with the molecules of steam.
The heating tubes, of the casing or of the obstructors, are open at the two extremi-
ties as shown in Figure 7 and are of a variable diameter in a part of their length, or
only one of the extremities, either when between the tubes is to be provided a space
sufficient to allow the gases of one flue to pass into the other, or when simply the
connection with the tube plates is intended.
The tubes are fixed in the plates by expanding them with a suitable mandrel no
ferrules being employed. Tight joints are secured by forming slight threads in the
holes in the tube plate; into these threads the smooth portion of the tubes is forced
by the action of the mandrel when the said tubes are expanded.
This method of fixing the tubes is preferable to those heretofore used and is simpler
than any of them. It converts the tubes into real stays opposed to the deformation of
the tube plates by the pressure.
The effects of the expansion are not in the least to be feared for the tubes, they tend
on the contrary to consolidate the joints the more as the pressure is exerted thereon
from the interior to the outside, and as they are generally shorter than those of other
tubular boilers of the same horse power.
To facilitate the placing or replacing of the tubes of the casing or obstructors which
are supposed to be juxtaposed, a space of one millimetre is left between them, but this
space is filled up: first for the casing by any non-conducting coating K obviating at
the same time the effects of radiation, and extending from the heating cylinders to
above the highest row of obstructing tubes and second for the obstructors by
obstructing bars I of prismatic shape, ensuring perfect closing up thereof where it is
useful in preventing the escape of the hot gases which might intercept the regular
draught of the flues, and if necessary by a thin sheet of asbestos filling up the small
interstices between the tubes of the obstructors and the casing.
17
The tubes forming a part of the grate, completed by the pivoted fire bars D, and
those corresponding to the openings F F¹ provided for the access to, and the clearing
of the flues as well as for the replacement of the obstructing bars in case of the
replacement of one or more tubes of the obstructors, are closed at one of the ends as
those of boilers having pendentive tubes.
The tubes forming a grate wholly or in part are always of iron; the others can be
indiscriminately of iron, red copper, or brass; they are of a uniform external diameter
of six centimetres as shown in the figures of the accompanying drawing. However,
they may receive a larger or smaller diameter if the boiler were of larger or smaller
size, also the number of obstructors can be augmented or diminished in proportion to
the length of the passages for the gases, that are to be obtained.
Above the last row of casing tubes the upper flue is completed by a simple plate of
slight thickness, provided with openings F as those, thinner still, which cover the
non conducting coating of the circumference of the boiler, this plate continues around
the dome above which is placed the chimney so as to convert the latter into a steam
drier. As shown in the half section on the left of Figure 4 employed more especially
for locomotive boilers designed to carry their motor, this plate completing the upper
flue can extend directly from the sides of the dome cylinder to the plate of the circum-
ference covering the non conducting coating as indicated in the half section on the
left of Figure 4.
Arrows indicate the direction taken by the gases, they pass either as indicated in

page_text: Figures 1 to 5 from the front to the rear or from the rear to the front, entering the
spaces left free by the diminution of the diameter of the obstructing tubes, or they
circulate in those produced by the suppression of one part of these tubes as shown in
Figure 1, or they rise and descend alternately on the two sides, then to unite again in
the central body of the dome, to pass off to the chimney as in the half section of
Figure 4. What is to be retained as one of the great advantages resulting from the
arrangements above described, is that the feed water, otherwise called the relatively
cold water having once left the heaters always follows a direction inverse to that of the
hot gases.
According to the type of boiler adopted, the mouth C can be placed as in Figures 1
to 5 between the plate of the bottom and the corresponding tube plate, or as in
Figure 6 between one of the heating cylinders and the row of obstructor bars; in
this latter case the tubes of the casing are interrupted at the level of the space reserved
for the mouth. It can also be placed below the heater, in case an external fire place
comprised between the small walls of refractory brick is to be obtained, as in the half
section of Figure 4.
In case of the employment of the whole or part of the grate bar tubes, the space
between them for the passage of the air is filled up with refractory earth K K' behind
the fire bridge and also in front of the fire bridge itself, as shown in Figures 1 to 5.
The above described arrangements, according to the circumstances and the nature
of the fuel, enables grates of large, mean or small size to be used, and consequently
any kind of fuel to be advantageously burnt, the section of the flucs to be regulated,
and to be progressively diminished as they pass from the combustion chamber towards
the entrance to the chimney, (which despite its evident utility) does not exist in any
other boiler having an internal fire place. If in this boiler is to be made an apparatus
having an external fire place it would only be necessary to let the heaters rest directly
upon brick walls, in the interior of which is placed an ordinary grate of cast metal or
the grate plate having nozzles at a suitable height for heating.
These arrangements dispense entirely with the large ferrules of the casing and
those of the fire place, representing about half the weight of the apparatus in other
boilers, and they enable a very large development to be given to the combustion
chamber without proportionately augmenting the total diameter of the whole
apparatus.
It is easy to understand that in this boiler the whole of the plates serves as it were
as a heating surface, and that there are no sterile spaces as in other boilers.
In the apparatus that has been described, on the contrary all the parts have a useful
function, and neither the choking nor the extinction of the gases which are caused in
tubes of small diameter employed in most tubular boilers is to be feared.
It is due to all these combinations that the power of this boiler, according as the
apparatus is of small or large size, attains 92 kilogrammes or 102 kilogrammes of dry
steam per kilogramme of ordinary coal consumed, which power is nearly equal to the
theoretical power of the fuel, less that which escapes through the chimney where the
pyrometer indicates only 180 to 190 degrees according as it is worked at mean or high
pressure, instead of 300 degrees on the average indicated in all other boilers.
In order to classify this generator in one or the other of the four categories under
the rules, the space between the tubular plates and the corresponding movable bottoms
can be augmented or diminished, without augmenting the thickness of the plates, and
to do the same for the diameter of the heating cylinders.
If the boiler is of great length, use can also be made of the movable plates N
located in the interior of the heating cylinders and steam collector and connecting the
two bottoms together; but for ordinary boilers this precaution is superfluous; like-
wise, if less thickness is to be given to the tube plates and to those of the bottoms,
movable plates which are put in position through an opening can be placed between
them, but these plates are superfluous, the two movable buttons being chased and the
expansion of the other parts being uniform and free as it were, especially if the boiler
rests upon the heaters.
From the whole of these arrangements results a very great saving of weight, space,

page_text: and manual labour, besides other advantages such as the inexplosiveness, incrustability,
the smoke consuming power, and the considerable economy of fuel.
The arrangements shown in the half section on the left of Figure 4 can likewise be
applied to vertical boilers and in this case the dome cylinder becomes a heater
whilst the real dome rests upon the upper movable bottom.
Having now particularly described and ascertained the nature of my said inven-
tion and in what manner the same is to be performed I declare that what I
claim is
First. The employment of tubes of a special form placed close together and consti-
tuting the external part or casing proper, also of baffle tubes and plates or obstructors
causing the circulation of the flames and hot gases and other tubes, placed at a
suitable distance apart to serve for the heating of the water substantially as herein-
before described.
Second. The improved tubes for ensuring a rapid and constant circulation of the
water between the coldest part and the hottest part of the boiler substantially as here-
inbefore described.
Third. Heating cylinders or tubes forming also the sides of the fire place, and
retaining the feed water in a state of repose the said water being animated with an
energetic circulating motion in the other parts of the boiler, thus ensuring all the
deposits from the water being precipitated in the lower part of the said cylinder or
tubes from which the said deposits can be removed when convenient, in the state of
inud more or less thick, substantially as hereinbefore described.
Fourth. The improved grate plate having air-nozzles forming stays and external
tubes connecting the said grate plate to the body of the boiler serving for the admission
of water and for the discharge of the said water when mixed with molecules of steam
substantially as hereinbefore described.
Fifth. The improved boiler constructed and arranged substantially as described with
reference to the accompanying drawing.
HASELTINE, LAKE & Co.,
45, Southampton Buildings, London, W.C.,
Agents for the Applicant.