IMPROVEMENTS IN THE STEAM BOILERS OF LOCOMOTIVE, PORTable, AND OTHER STEAM ENGINES
Year: 1878

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Joseph Wilson Ballard at the Office
of the Commissioners of Patents on the 18th April 1878.
JOSEPH WILSON BALLARD, of Ilmington, in the County of Warwick, Engineer and
Machinist. "IMPROVEMENTS IN THE STEAM BOILERS OF LOCOMOTIVE, PORTable,
AND OTHER STEAM ENGINES."
My Invention consists in combining with the fire-box of the locomotive, portable
or other steam engine, boiler, water heating, and circulating apparatus in connection
with the water space of the boiler of the said engine, the said apparatus being con-
structed in the manner herein-after described.
The said apparatus is readily attached to and detached from the fire-box.
By the use of my Invention a very rapid and economical heating and conse-
quent circulation of the water in the boiler is effected, and the fire-box is made
more durable.
My Invention is especially applicable to the steam boilers of locomotive and
portable steam engines, but is also applicable to vertical and other steam engine.
boilers.
The said apparatus consists of a series of one, two, or more rows of compound
water tubes and parts connected with them, depending from the top of the fire-box
of the engine, the said tubes being by preference fixed obliquely in the fire-box so
as to make a small angle with a vertical plane.
Each of the said compound tubes consists of an inner and outer tube. The outer
tubes are closed at bottom and open at top, the tops of the said outer tubes opening
into and being supported by a rectangular chamber. This rectangular chamber also
supports the inner concentric water tubes. These inner tubes are of smaller
diameter, and are open at top and bottom. The said inner and smaller water
tubes are fixed in holes in a perforated plate, which plate is secured between the
two parts, of which the rectangular chamber is composed, the said plate dividing
the chamber into two compartments. At the middle and on the upper side of the
said rectangular chamber is a hollow cylindrical collar or connecting piece, by
means of which the apparatus is connected to the top of the fire-box, and in commu-
nication with the water space of the boiler.

page_text: The upper part of the rectangular chamber and the cylindrical hollow collar
described are divided by a nearly vertical plate or diaphragm into two passages.
The said plate or diaphragm extends upwards some distance into the water space of
the boiler, above the fire-box, and prevents the currents of water passing into and
out of the apparatus in the fire-box from interfering with one another.
The top of the deflecting plate described is bent at right angles, whereby it pro-
duces a more effectual separation of the currents.
The two passages into which the collar and chamber are divided constitute inlet
and outlet channels for the water circulating through the apparatus. The inlet
channel is in communication with the smaller inner tubes of the compound tubes,
and conveys the cool water to them from the boiler while the outlet channel is in
communication with the larger outer tubes of the compound tubes, and conveys the
heated water from them into the boiler.
The flame and heated air in the fire-box acting upon the larger outer tubes of
the apparatus rapidly heats them and the water therein, which heated water rising
in them enters the boilers through the outlet channel in the apparatus, the said
heated water being replaced by cooler water passing from the boiler through the
inlet passage of the apparatus and down the smaller inner water tubes. In this way
a rapid circulation of the water in the boiler is determined through the water tubes
in the fire-box, and the heating of the water is effected with great economy of fuel
and without priming.