IMPROVEMENTS IN APPARATUS FOR CONSUMING OR PREVENTING THE FORMATION OF. SMOKE IN. STEAM BOILER AND OTHER FURNACES
Year: 1867

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Walter Kendrick and Job Wooldridge
at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with their Petition, on the
30th December 1867.
We, WALTER KENDRICK and JOB WOOLDRIDGE, of, West Bromwich, in the,
County of Stafford, Ironfounders, do hereby declare the nature of the said
Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN APPARATUS FOR CONSUMING OR PREVENTING THE
FORMATION OF. SMOKE IN. STEAM BOILER AND OTHER FURNACES," to be as
follows:-
Our Invention' consists. of. the improvements herein-after described in
apparatus to be applied to furnaces for the purpose of preventing or diminishing..
the smoke which is usually evolved after firing or charging the furnace with:
fuel...
Our Invention is especially applicable to. the furnaces of steam boilers, but
may also be applied to other furnaces. We make the furnace door of a box
or chamber open at front and back, and by preference wider at front than at
back.
In the said box or chamber we fix vertically a series of corrugated or
zig-zag plates, made preferably of cast iron, the said plates extending from
front to back. By means of projections on the tops and bottoms of the said
plates they are kept at a small distance from one another. The said box or
chamber is filled with these vertical corrugated plates. In front of the said
box or chamber constituting the furnace door we fix a frame of horizontal or
nearly horizontal bars or narrow plates, and in front of these is a flap or thin
door turning upon a binge, so as to be capable of rising and falling, and

page_text: thereby either exposing or covering the said frame of bars or plates. When
the said flap or thin door is depressed no air enters through the chamber or
box into the furnace, but when the said flap or thin door is raised upon its
hinge more or less a greater or less quantity of air passes through the frame
of horizontal bars and between the vertical corrugated plates into the furnace.
Connected with the said flap or thin door is a collapsible vessel somewhat
similar to a circular bellows, the said flap and collapsible vessel being connected
together by means of a cord or chain passing over pulleys. When the said
collapsible vessel is filled with air the flap or thin door is raised into a nearly
horizontal position, and as the said vessel empties itself of air through a small
aperture made for that purpose the flap or thin door gradually falls and covers
the frame of bars 'described.
In using the apparatus the stoker after firing and closing the furnace
door fills the collapsible vessel with air, thereby raising the flap or thin door
described; a large quantity of atmospheric air is thereby permitted to pass
through the frame of bars and between the vertical corrugated plates, which
air is heated by the said plates and combines with or burns the gases and
volatile matter driven off from the fuel when it is first thrown upon the fire.
By the gradual fall of the flap or thin door the supply of air is gradually cut
off, and the formation of smoke after firing thereby wholly or in part
prevented.
In order more effectually to prevent the formation of smoke we prefer to
use in combination with the apparatus described a hollow bridge, through
which jets of air are admitted to the furnace.
The arrangement of corrugated plates described may also be applied to the
hollow bridge, so that the air supplied at the bridge may pass between and
become heated by the said plates.
The arrangement we have described applied to the door of the furnace may
be applied to other parts of the furnace with the same or nearly the same
effect.