IMPROVEMENTS IN SPIRAL PUMPS
Year: 1870

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Thomas Schoenberger Blair at
the Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on
the 31st October 1870.
I, THOMAS SCHOENBERGER BLAIR, of Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, in the
United States of America, but at present residing at Swansea, in the
County of Glamorgan, do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention
for "IMPROVEMENTS IN SPIRAL PUMPS," to be as follows:-
In a Provisional Specification filed by me on the 22nd October 1870,
No. 2786, I have described certain methods whereby I am enabled to
obtain a high degree of useful effect from spiral pumps when constructed
on a large scale by utilizing to a full extent the motive power repre-
sented by the compressed air passing from the pump together with the
water or other fluid.
My present improvements have reference to a further method whereby
not only a more intimate admixture of the air and water or other fluid
may be obtained than in spiral pumps of ordinary construction, and thus
the escape of compressed air be more or less prevented, but which will

page_text: also tend to obviate certain other inconveniences that may arise in such
pumps when of large dimensions.
My Invention consists in employing in place of one single spiral or
helical passage, as in pumps of present construction, two, three, or more
such spiral passages upon one and the same drum, which channels all
communicate at the outlet end with one and the same delivery pipe,
but of which the inlet orifices are arranged at equal distances apart
round the circumference of the drum carrying them. By this means
instead of taking in the whole volume of water or other fluid required
to be raised by the pump at one point of its revolution only, such taking
in of the water (as also of the air) and consequently also the delivery of
the same at the outlet end will take place consecutively at two or more
different points of a revolution, thus splitting up as it were each delivery
of water and air of the ordinary spiral pump into as many consecutive
smaller deliveries of water and air as there may be spiral passages on the
pump. The effect of this arrangement will be not only a more intimate
admixture of the air and water, but also a subdivision of the more or less
severe shocks that may take place on the entrance of a large volume of
air under pressure into the rising main or the air vessel into a greater or
less number of consecutive shocks of a less severe nature, and thus the
prevention of any disturbing influence upon the action of the pump that
may arise from such shocks may be anticipated.
In place of arranging the several spiral passages upon one and the
same drum they may also be arranged each on a separate drum, but all
communicating with the same rising main or air vessel, the rotation of
the several drums being so arranged relative to each other that the inlet
orifices of the spiral passages become immersed consecutively in pre-
cisely the same manner as described with reference to the previous
arrangement.
The above improved construction of the spiral pump may be employed
either by itself or in combination with any one of the various improve-
ments comprised in my previous Provisional Specification aforesaid.