Improvements in Acetylene Gas Generators.
Year: 1899

page_text: Date of Application, 5th July, 1899-Accepted, 23rd Sept., 1899
COMPLETE SPECIFICATION.
Improvements in Acetylene Gas Generators.
I, PAUL LACROIX, of 36, Rue de Chateaudun, Paris, in the Republic of France,
Directeur de la Cie Universelle d'Acetylene, 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 improvement which forms the subject of this invention is applicable to
an entire category of appliances the operation of which is based upon the prin-
ciple of the fall of the water upon the calcium carbide, and in which the water
serving to generate the gas is not taken directly from the gasometer by the
generators.
In the greater number of appliances which have been devised to operate in this.
manner, the constructors have sought to couple two or more generators in such a.
manner as to ensure a continuous production of gas by successively rendering
them operative.
When this procedure is adopted it is possible to recharge the exhausted generator
whilst the other is operating and to avoid any loss of gas or of calcium carbide,
the generators being dismounted only after they have been completely exhausted.
In order that this method of coupling the generators may fulfill the demands
of a practical installation, it is indispensable, as will be readily understood, that
the successive operation of the generators should be automatically produced by
the apparatus itself, without any interruption and without its being necessary to
intervene in any manner or to consider at what period the second generator:
should be rendered operative.
Without considering the numerous devices assuring the passage from one
generator to the other by means of a cock or valve operated by the displacements
of a gasometer, we would point out that hitherto the water has invariably been
directed into one of the generators and is able to reach the second generator only
by overflowing from the first when this latter is completely exhausted of gas.
This arrangement presents several serious defects.
1. Not more than one generator can ever he attacked at one time. Now in
all appliances in which the water falls upon the carbide it is necessary to adopt
inlet apertures for the water of relatively very small section in order to obviate
over-production when sudden variations in the consumption of the gas take place,
that is to say it is necessary to limit the admission aperture to the section which
is strictly necessary for the passage of the quantity of water corresponding to
the maximum supply of gas for which the apparatus is constructed. If, how-
ever, for any reason it should be desired to obtain from the apparatus a produc-
tion of gas which is greater than that for which it was designed, the water will
enter in too small a quantity to produce all the gas required, from which will
result either the extinction of the lights or at least a diminution of pressure
which is incompatible with the conditions for obtaining efficient lighting.
2. The method consisting of the successive operation of the generators by:
allowing the excess of water to overflow from the exhausted generator is subject to

page_text: the same defects. Whatever may be the various arrangements adopted, an appre-
ciable space of time will always elapse between the exhaustion of the first gene-
rator and the operation of the second, and during this time the apparatus pro-
duces no gas although the consumption continues.
In either case there is no equilibrium between the production of the apparatus
and the supply which is required for it. It has been sought to obviate this
defect by creating large reserves of gas by means of gasometers of great capacity,
but the evil is only diminished and not entirely obviated.
On the other hand, the device which forms the subject of this invention com-
pletely obviates this defect by enabling the water to reach the two generators
simultaneously immediately this becomes necessary, whether one of them is
entirely exhausted or merely inadequate to produce the volume of gas necessary
for consumption, the section available for the flow of water being capable of
increase, if necessary, in proportions which are practically indefinite.
This arrangement is diagrammatically represented in the accompanying draw-
ing, in which:
Figure 1 is a vertical section of the apparatus, the generators being omitted.
Figure 2 is a front elevation of the apparatus showing the two generators in
Bection.
Figure 3 is a front elevation of the distributor upon a large scale, and
Figure 4 is a sectional elevation of the same.
The improved apparatus comprises a special distributor r connected to a syphon t
and placed in communication, by means of a tube f, with a variable-pressure
gasometer g.
I have adopted the water-displacement gasometer, but the result would be the
same with a dome gasometer the internal pressure of which is caused to vary
at the proper moment by means of a suitably arranged excess load.
The syphon is connected with an elevated reservoir e of large section and
adapted to be supplied with water by means of a ball-cock as shown in Figure 1.
The distributor (Figures 1, 2, 3, and 4) consists of three cocks da, a¹ con-
nected and communicating one with the other.
The cock regulates the admission of water to the distributor, and the cocks.a
and a permit of its flow into the generator or serve to cut off the supply from
these latter during recharging, as the case may be.
The plug of the cock d is formed with a principal aperture or port the section
of which is at least equal to that of the syphon, and with a secondary aperture o
at right angles to the first and of greatly reduced section.
The plug of the cock d is provided with an operating handle arranged in the
direction of the aperture o, so that the plug may be displaced in a socket provided
with two lateral apertures vel which form prolongations of the aperture o when
the handle occupies a horizontal position; this socket is surmounted by a vertical
tube or shaft c open at its upper portion and which may itself be provided with two
other apertures equal in section to the aperture o of the cock d. The sum of
the sections of the apertures or is at the most equal to the section of the
syphon.
A stop, suitably arranged upon this cock, limits its displacement to 180°,
enabling the handle to be placed horizontally either upon the right hand or the
left, as indicated in Figure 3, or to be raised to a vertical position for the.
purpose of entirely blocking admission to the syphon t.
We are now in a position to consider precisely the operation of the syphon and..
of the distributor which has just been described, as a whole.
We will assume, as is shown in Figure 1, that the gasometer and the syphon
are in equilibrium of pressure beneath a column of water equal to the difference
of height between the level of the water in the vessel e and the aperture o of the
cock d, this aperture being opposite the aperture v in the socket of the cock.
If gas is taken from the gasometer at u, the pressure will diminish and the
water in the syphon t rising in the distributor will pass through the aperture o

page_text: of the cock d and the aperture v into the generator b in such a manner as to
maintain the pressure constant in the apparatus until the calcium carbide con-
tained in this generator is exhausted.
This being so, if gas is still withdrawn from the gasometer, as the generator b
is no longer producing gas, the pressure will diminish simultaneously in the
gasometer and in the syphon, and the water will rise in this latter.
..
Now it has been stated that the section of the aperture o of the cock d is con-
siderably less than that of the syphon, it follows that this aperture, seeing that
it is only capable of permitting the passage of a small portion of the water that
the syphion is able to furnish, will be submerged, and that the water, rising in
the principal aperture of the cock d and in the vertical tube c will flow into the
generator bwliilst the generator b is being recliarged. It will be noticed that
the recharging of the generator 6 has no influence upon rendering the gene-
rator operative, this being effected not by an overflow of water in excess from
the generator but because the diminution of pressure in the apparatus, result-
ing from the continuity of the consumption of the gas, has enabled the water
to rise in the vertical tube or shaft owing to the difference of the sections of tho
ways or aportures in the cock d.
The effect would be the same in the case of a consumption greater than that
for which the apparatus was originally constructed. The aperture becoming too
small to permit of the passage of the whole volume of water .necessary for the
required production, it would rapidly become submerged and the water would
rise as far as the aperture and even to the top of the shaft if necessary, BO
as to cause both generators to operate simultaneously in order to produce the gas
required.
The apertures are not indispensable; the flow by way of the top of the
shaft would be sufficient. The object of such apertures is to regulate the flow
of water into the second generator more efficiently than would be done by the
upper orifice of the shaft.
It will have been noticed that the characteristic feature of this invention con-
sists in the relation between the section of the syphon and the flow aperture o
of the cock d, the section of which should be small enough to become consider-
ably submerged as soon as, for one cause or another, the pressure diminishes
abnormally in the gasometer with which the syphon and distributor are in con-
stant communication of pressure.
This apparatus affords a certainty of operation such that it enables the reserve
of gas of the gasometer to be suppressed to a certain extent, the role of the gaso-
meter being limited to that of a regulating fly-wheel (so to speak) assuring by
means of the mass of water that it contains the complete cooling of the gas and
collecting the over-production which is always inevitable when an important part
of the consumption is suddenly stopped.
The results are especially remarkable in the case of the adaptation of the device
which has just been described to a water-displacement gasometer, as shown in
Figure 1 of the accompanying drawing.
In gasometers of this kind, the pressure supported by the gas increases in direct
ratio with the storage.
Now it follows from the construction of this gasometer, that when the gas
forces the water into the upper compartment, the water rises in this latter by a
quantity equal to that which it has fallen in the lower compartment. It follows
from this that the pressure supported by the gas varies in the ratio of twice the
displacement of the water in the gas chamber m. On the other hand, as the
section of the syphon with respect to that of the reservoir e may be considered
as negligible, it follows that any displacement of water in the lower compartment
of the gasometer will cause twice that displacement in the distributor owing to
the equilibrium of pressure.
The flow of water into the generators will thus be regulated with the greatest
sensitiveness.

page_text: Having now particularly described and ascertained the nature of my said
invention and in what manner the same is to be performed, I declaro that what
I claim is:
1
1. A distributing apparatus, of any form; combined with a single syphon for
the admission of water, and provided internally with apertures communicating
with the generators, arranged as above described and of relative sections such
that, with respect to the section of the water admission syphon, this latter may
be capable, when necessary, of supplying the two generatora simultaneously by
submerging the aperture giving access to the first, this arrangement assuring the
passage from one generator to the other without its being necessary that the first
generator should first of all be filled, this claim applying to the distributor and
syphon as a whole even when not adapted to the water-displacement gasometer
shewn in the drawing.
เ
2. The special form of distributor provided with three cocks as described and
represented in the drawing, the central cock, by its arrangement, enabling the
order of operation of the generators to be reversed at will whatever may be the
kind of acetylene gas generator to which this distributor is applied, and also
whatever may be the form or the arrangement of the syphon with which it is
combined.
1
HASELTINE, LAKE & Co.,
45, Southampton Buildings, London, W.C., Agents for the Applicant.