Improvements relating to Refuse Destructors.
Year: 1893

page_text: te of Application, 21st Apr., 1893—Accepted, 27th May, 1893
COMPLETE SPECIFICATION.
[Communicated from abroad by BEAUMONT RICHARD HARRINGTON, of 1, Wood
Street, in the City of Calcutta, Empire of India, Civil Engineer.]
Improvements relating to Refuse Destructors.
I HENRY EDWARD NEWTON of the Office for Patents 6 Bream's Buildings,
Chancery Lane in the County of London, Patent Agent, 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 :-
This invention has for its object the more perfect destruction than heretofore, of
refuse, sweepings, sewage, organic matter, excrement, and other waste and offensive
materials, and the invention consists in the construction and arrangement of the
apparatus for effecting this object.
In carrying out this invention, an apparatus is employed consisting of a furnace
constructed of brickwork or other fire resisting material, a furnace hearth composed
of a bed of ash and cinder, the residue of the burnt refuse being itself applicable
for the purpose, a special arrangement of furnace door and shoot, whereby the
refuse is introduced and directed into the furnace, a flue connecting the furnace
and the chimney or chimney flue; a forced draught tunnel or arrangement for
introducing, when desirable, a forced draught to the furnace or furnaces, and a
special arrangement of fire bars.
In the accompanying drawings
Fig. 1, Sheet I, is a sectional plan on the line e*, *, Fig. 2, of a series of
furnaces arranged in accordance with this invention, and having a common
chimney.
Fig. 2 is a vertical section on the line c*, d*, Fig. 1.
Fig. 3 is a vertical section on the line a, b, Fig. 1.
Fig. 4, Sheet II, is a sectional plan on the line e*, * of Fig. 5, showing a slight
modification.
Fig. 5 is a vertical section on the line a*, 6*, Fig. 4; and
Fig. 6 is a vertical section on the line C d", of Fig. 4.
,
A A are the furnaces, which preferably consist each of two grates A' A' and two
ash hearths A* A³.
The furnace is rectangular in shape, and the walls, which may be 8 feet or there-
abouts in height above the floor, support a roof in the form of a reverberatory arch,
which may be semicircular or segmental. The grates A¹ A', or fire bar grids, are
raised 3 feet, more or less, above the furnace floor, and have fenders a a on either
side (see Fig. 3), to protect the ash hearth material from falling into the space
below the fire bars called the ash pit. The fenders are sufficiently raised above the
floor of the furnace, to enable the ash hearth material to be raked or shovelled out
from underneath.
The dimensions are subject to alterations suiting the description and quantity of
material to be daily incinerated. The furnace doors bb are in front, as usual. c is
the refuse door, and d the shoot, which are situated behind the furnace, and through
these the refuse is discharged into the furnace; the refuse shoot door is level with
a raised embankment B, or roadway, which is an advantage for carts delivering the
material to be incinerated. The door c and shoot d are arranged for the special
convenience of carters, and the quality and quantity of refuse to be burnt. The
inclination of the shoot may be varied, according to the nature and character of
the material to be burnt.

page_text: C is a flue connected with a chimney flue D, common to the series of furnaces and
leading to the chimney E, and is arranged at a slight inclination downwards to the
rear, so that it may not become choked with refuse which would impede the
draught. The position of the flue may be varied; thus, while in the drawing it is
shown to be in the end wall, in some cases, such, for instance, as in the case of a
tubular boiler, to be hereafter referred to, it may be placed in the reverberatory
arch of the furnace. F is the stoking floor in front of the furnace.
The method of working the incinerator is as follows:-The refuse is dumped
down from the earts near against the refuse doors. It is then forked or shovelled
through the door, down the shoot, into the furnace; and may be distributed over
the furnace by long-handled forks. Night soil is discharged, or tipped, straight
through the refuse doors, or a door specially provided for the purpose, into the
furnace.
The spaces A2 A2² between the two fire bar grids, or grates, A' A, and the fire
bar grid and end wall, and which is termed the "ash hearth," is intended for
accumulated ash or cinder, and the mode of stoking the furnace fires would be to
remove only a certain quantity of the ash or cinder, such as may be cold and well
burnt, always leaving a depth of two, three, or more feet of the accumulated ash in
the furnace. The ash and cinder has to be extracted from the furnace front doors
in such a way, that as it is extracted, the unburnt ash and refuse sink. A special
feature of the ash hearth is, that the liquids contained in the refuse, such as urine,
slush, etc., shall drain into and become absorbed by the material of which the hearth
is composed. The ash hearths may be provided on both sides of, and behind every
grid in the system, instead of on one side only, if necessary, as will be hereafter
referred to, and the size of the ash hearths may be increased or reduced as most
suitable to the description and quantity of refuse &c., to be daily incinerated.
The fire bars are stoked in the ordinary way employed in coal furnaces.
The fire bars may be horizontal, or sloping forward, or may be partly straight
and partly sloping, or they may be partly oscillating and partly fixed.
Gis a tunnel provided behind the furnace, under the refuse shoot, for the purpose
of supplying either natural or forced draught below the furnace bars, through the
passages 9 g, which may be provided with dampers g', to shut off the draught when
necessary.
When a force draught is not needed, the tunnel may obviously be omitted,
without interfering with my invention.
The main flue D (which must necessarily be distinguished from the "furnace
flue" C) forms no part of my invention, and can be located in any other position,
as may be found convenient.
Referring now to Sheet II,-H represents a boiler placed over the furnace. In
this case, the boiler takes the place of the reverberatory arch, which position
admirably suits boilers of the Lancashire or Cornish types. It is desirable,
however, that tubular boilers be not built in the furnace, as are Lancashire boilers,
because of the dusty nature of the fuel which tends to choke or coat the tubes, but
rather, that tubular boilers should be set outside of the furnace, over the roof and
the flue connection C should be introduced to what would otherwise be the boiler fire
box. The direction of the draught would then be conveyed through the tubes and
boiler flues to the main chimney flue D. This latter arrangement is indicated at
Fig. 7, Sheet I.
fis the night soil shoot before referred to. hh are ash hearth pits, which are
necessary in the case of ash hearths on both sides of the fire grates, as clearly
shown in Figs. and 6, in order to remove the burnt-up refuse, as before
described.
In Figs. 4 and 5, part of the grate A' is fixed, the other portion marked A³
being so constructed as to oscillate.
In the same figures, part of the ash hearth is shown at the back of the grate, as
before referred to, and the forced draught tunnel is dispensed with.

page_text: Having now particularly described and ascertained the nature of the said inven-
tion, and in what manner the same is to be performed, as communicated to me from
abroad, I declare that what I claim is :-
1. A refuse destructor constructed, arranged, and operating substantially as
herein shown and described.
2. In the furnace of a refuse destructor, the combination with a fire-grate or
bars, of an "ash hearth," as and for the purposes set forth.
3. The use and application in the furnace of a refuse destructor, of a furnace
hearth composed of ashes, cinders, or residue of incinerated material, as and for
the purposes set forth.
4. The arrangements of the grates or fire bars for use in combination with an
"ash hearth," substantially as herein shown and described.
Dated this 21st day of April 1893.
NEWTON & SON,
Agents for the Applicant.