IMPROVE- MENTS IN THE CEMENTATION OF IRON, COMBINED WITH THE MANUFACTURE OF COKE
Year: 1857

page_text: Invention received rovisional
rotection,
application for Letters Patent was not given within the time prescribed
by the Act.)
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Aristide Michel Servan at the
Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the
11th September 1857.
I, ARISTIDE MICHEL SERVAN, of Paris, in the Empire of France, Civil
Engineer, do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention for "IMPROVE-
MENTS IN THE CEMENTATION OF IRON, COMBINED WITH THE MANUFACTURE OF COKE,"
to be as follows:-
My Invention relates, first, to the application in peculiar rooms or chambers
of the heat obtained from the gases arising from the distillation of coals in
coke ovens; secondly, to the use of the heat in the interior capacity of coke
ovens or conduits, combined with the use of cucurbit or retort gas, and,
reciprocally, the utility of the cementation ovens producing at the same time
metallurgic coke.
The cementation of iron implies two operations, viz., the first consists in
placing iron in contact with a matter the property of which is to give up to it
some parts of carbon; the second consists in producing the necessary heat or
temperature for such an operation.
I employ the heat of coke ovens, either direct'y in the oven chambers or by
annexing to the coke ovens peculiar rooms or chambers to contain the iron
which is to be submitted to the action of the heat, for the purpose of
cementation (conversion into steel), and simultaneously with the process of

page_text: cementation I produce metallurgic coke. In such an operation I proceed as
follows: To a range of coke ovens I annex chambers or peculiar ovens, having
communication with the coke ovens by means of flues or passages, which
conduct the combustible gases proceeding from the coal submitted in the coke
ovens to carbonization in the cementation rooms or chambers. These gases
are. ignited in the peculiar chambers or rooms of cementation by a current of
hot air, managed according to circumstances. These gases circulate and give
up their heat to the boxes containing the iron to be heated; they then pass
below the floor of the ovens, and contribute if necessary to the reduction of the
coal in the coke ovens after having been used for the process of cementation,
which in such a process is obtained by the carbonization of the coal and not
by its combustion. The combustion of the gases is then complete, and a
common conduit or pipe can be used instead of large chimnies.
The action of such a process of cementation is to enable cementation of guns
and other large masses of wrought iron, for which the capacity of the cementa-
tion room and the quantity of heat can be regulated and combined so as to
obtain results that mere combustion would not effect.
The interior of the coke oven or chamber and cucurbit gas can be used for
the process of cementation; in such case I put the iron with cement in boxes
of wood, which I introduce into iron boxes or boxes of refractory material, and
then place the whole immediately on the coal, when the two operations, viz.,
carbonization and cementation, are carried on in the same chamber.