IMPROVEMENTS IN APPARATUS FOR THE EVAPORATION OF BRINE, WATER, AND OTHER LIQUIDS, AND ALSO IN THE FURNACES TO BE USED IN CONNECTION THEREWITH
Year: 1875

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by James Thomas Lockey at the
Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on
the 16th August 1875.
I, JAMES THOMAS LOCKEY, of Northwich, in the County of Chester,
Mechanical Engineer, do hereby declare the nature of the said
Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN APPARATUS FOR THE EVAPORATION OF BRINE,
WATER, AND OTHER LIQUIDS, AND ALSO IN THE FURNACES TO BE USED IN CONNECTION
THEREWITH," to be as follows:-
This Invention relates to improvements upon apparatus for which
Letters Patent No. 875 of the series for the year 1873, dated 11 March,
1873, were granted to Thomas Bright Wilson, and consists chiefly of
the use for the above purposes of two ordinary furnaces, which I will
henceforth call "the furnaces."
In connection with these furnaces I use a reverberatory furnace or
calcining kiln placed between the first mentioned furnaces, and separated
from them by a party wall on cach side. This furnace or kiln I will.
henceforth call "the kiln."
The two first mentioned furnaces and kiln are constructed parallel to
cach other, their fronts being in the same vertical plane; all three are
lined and arched with fire-bricks or other refractory material, and their

page_text: front and back walls are in line. On these walls, above the arches, and
extending back a long distance on walls and pillars in the usual manner,
I place a salt or evaporating pan or drying floor, as may be required,
having flues below separated from the furnaces and kiln by the brick
wall. The hinder part of each furnace communicates with the kiln, and
through these communications the products of combustion pass into the
said kiln; after permeating the reverberatory furnace or calcining kilu
and the material therein, the heated gases escape through a slit in the
top of the kiln near the front wall and procced into the flue under the
pan or drying floor to the other extremity, and thence up an outlet to the
atmosphere, or the heated gases may be used for heating the feed brine.
Sometimes, when the salt pans are thus heated, the effluent products of
combustion are passed under the drying floors to still farther utilize the
heat.
In order to increase the draught I place one or more fire-brick tubes
or flues over the kiln or the party walls, in both or either of which the
gases from the kiln arc drawn (after passing through the slit) by means
of a steam jet. This causes a pressure under the pan slightly greator
than that of the atmosphere. There is thus a constant pressure
outwards, causing a sufficient draught without the use of a chimney,
and entirely preventing in-draughts of cold air through defective walls.
To prevent the steam jet causing a strong current through the centre
only of the fluc, beneath the pan I place cross walls so arranged as to
cause a split draught and make the products of combustion follow a
circuitous course.
The arches over the furnaces may be dispensed with altogether, or
made, if desirable, with numerous vent holes so as to allow a portion of
the gases to ascend at once and heat that part of the pan above them.
I, however, prefer to use the arches, the main object of their use being
to protect the pans from the fierce direct heat of the furnaces, which
has been found so destructive in the arrangements hitherto employed.
The apparatus, the nature of which I have above described, may
be advantageously used for heating steam boilers or other heating
purposes.