IMPROVEMENTS IN OR CONNECTED WITH STEAM BOILERS AND FURNACES OF VARIOUS KINDS
Year: 1882

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Thomas Gilmour and John Gilmour
at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents on the 25th September 1882.
THOMAS GILMOUR, of Kilcattan, in the County of Bute, and JOHN GILMOUR, of
Glasgow, in the County of Lanark, North Britain, "IMPROVEMENTS IN OR
CONNECTED WITH STEAM BOILERS AND FURNACES OF VARIOUS KINDS."
This Invention has for its object to improve the combustion in and efficiency of
steam-boiler and other furnaces, and to substitute for the ordinary kinds of air
supply depending upon steam jets or draught a mode of supplying air which is
more completely under control. The Invention also comprises the combination
with the improved furnace arrangements in the case of steam boilers, of a method
of condensing the steam so that the same water may be continually returned to the
boiler the operation being effected without an air pump.
In carrying out the Invention in the case for example of a marine boiler with
the usual internal furnaces a casing is fixed on the front of the boiler so as to cover
or enclose the ordinary fire door and the ashpit opening or door; and doors are
fitted to this casing opposite the fire door and the ashpit. The requisite air
supply is forced into the casing through a pipe or passage from a fan or blower
which may be arranged to supply several furnaces.. The ordinary fire door is
retained and is provided with the usual openings or valves for admitting air and
thereby regulating the proportions passing above and below the fire bars. When
firing" or supplying fresh coals the upper door of the casing and the inner or
ordinary fire door are opened; and either or both of these doors being suitably
connected to a valve in the air-supply pipe the supply of air is temporarily more or
less diminished. In some cases the valve in the air-supply pipe may be dispensed
with; as when the doors are opened the air will pass out through them instead of
going through and over the fire Or the inner fire door may be arranged so as when
opening to fold downwards and cover the opening by which the air would have
access to the top of the fire.
"
The improved arrangements hereinbefore described are easily applicable to
various kinds of furnaces such for example as metallurgical and other reverberatory
or heating furnaces it being simply necessary to fix a casing so as to cover and
enclose a small space in front of the ordinary fire door and ashpit. In connection
[Price 2dI

page_text: with the improved arrangements for supplying air, a damper is by preference fitted
in the exit flue, funnel, or chimney to control the exit of the fire gases and to
maintain a slight pressure in the fireplaces and flues.
In combination with the herein before described arrangements for supplying air
to the furnace of a steam boiler, there is used for supplying the boiler, the water
due to the steam generated in the boiler, such steam after working in a high-
pressure engine being led through a surface-condenser and the water therein
condensed being heated either by direct contact or through metallic surfaces by the
same steam before it enters the condenser. With the combined arrangements
small high-pressure engines of the simplest kind and without air pumps can be
worked with great economy and without introducing into the boiler sea water or
other unsuitable water containing matters in solution or suspension.