IMPROVEMENTS CONNECTED WITH GAS HOLDERS AND THEIR TANKS, ALSO APPLICABLE TO OTHER PURPOSES
Year: 1879

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by William Key at the Office of the
Commissioners of Patents on the 16th December 1879.
WILLIAM KEY, of Glasgow, in the County of Lanark, North Britain, Gas
Engineer. "IMPROVEMENTS CONNECTED WITH GAS HOLDERS AND THEIR TANKS,
ALSO APPLICABLE TO OTHER PURPOSES."
This Invention relates to a new or improved mode or means and appliances or
arrangement of apparatus to be used in connection with gas manufacture, for
preventing the water in gas holder tanks from being frozen or unduly cooled during
frost or inclement weather, for the purpose of avoiding the objectionable precipation,
deposition, or liquefaction of the hydro-carbon vapours in the holder on to the
surface of the cold water in the tank which usually occurs during the winter season;
and the present improvements are also designed to overcome the risk or possibility
of the lute or water seal in telescopic holders freezing, and consequently becoming
not only inoperative but highly dangerous when the inner "lift" would be raised
and held suspended by the ice or frozen water seal, and would suddenly fall on the
occurrence of a thaw.
And the nature and novelty of the said Invention consist as follows:-By one
improvement the water in the tank in which the gas holder is suspended or floated
is heated and kept in circulation around the interior of the holder by means of a
circulating water heater or boiler, of a capacity which would vary with the size of
the holder tank situated near by and preferably a little below the level of the
surface of the water in the tank. The hot or heated water is admitted to the gas
holder tank at one side by a pipe provided with a suitable regulating valve con-
nected to the water heater or boiler near its upper part, and leading therefrom
through the outer wall of the tank, discharging into and near the upper surface of
the water in the tank, whence the heated water circulates round both sides of the
gas holder, and passes off again from the tank by a return pipe fitted below the
discharge pipe leading to the lower end of the circulating water heater or boiler.
The heated water circulating in the tank round the sides of the gas holder parts
with its heat to the sides of the holder, and this heat radiating into the interior
of the holder raises the temperature of the gas within above that of the outer
atmosphere, thus retaining the hydro-carbon in the gaseous or vaporous state, and
avoiding the necessity of as heretofore consuming so much of the better quality of
coal for the manufacture of gas during cold seasons of the year, in order to enrich

page_text: the quality of the gas which has usually been impoverished by the liquefaction of
the hydro-carbons by frost.
By a second improvement applicable to telescopic gas holders the lute water
joint or seal of water between the interior and outer telescopic cylinders of the
holder is also prevented from freezing when the holder is full of gas and the
interior "lift" or cylinder is consequently raised to or near its full height by
supplying this lute with heated water, and causing it to circulate around the lute
to form the water seal, and this heated water is led from the boiler or water heater
through the common pipe supplying the tank below by a branch connected to the
common pipe leading up one of the usual holder columns or its guide post or bar,
and discharging through a flexible or other equivalent tube at the upper end against
the plates of the upper lift or into the lute or joint. The heated water would
circulate round the lute from which it would be conveyed away as it got cooled
either by a siphon pipe or simply by overflowing.
When the hot water would be required to be discharged into the lute at a
considerable height, the boiler may be supplied with water from a main or service
pipe at high pressure, or the admission and dischage valves might be closed and the
water might be heated in the boiler to sufficient pressure to force it up the discharge
branch into the lute.
The water in the stationary service tanks for supplying the water tanks of
locomotive engines and other like exposed supply tanks, may also under the
improvements of the present Invention be kept from freezing in cold weather by
an arrangement similar to that described as applied to gas holder tanks, in which
a circulating water heater or boiler would be fitted below, and connected by
suitable flow and return pipes with the tank, so as to keep up a continuous
circulation of the water in the tank, and also maintain its temperature always
above the freezing point.