Improvements in Gas Pressure Regulators.
Year: 1887

page_text: Date of Application, 13th June, 1887.
Specification Accepted, 15th July, 1887.
COMPLETE SPECIFICATION.
Improvements in Gas Pressure Regulators.
1. WILLIAM HENRY METCALF of the City and County of New Haven in the State
of Connecticut, one of the United States of America Doctor of Dental Surgery 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:-
My invention relates to dry regulators for individual burners, and for systems of
distribution comprising the general service and consists of the improved automatic
graduating valve regulator hereinafter described and claimed by which it is designed
to provide more simple, efficient and reliable regulators than any now in use reference
being made to the accompanying drawing in which:
Fig. 1 is a sectional elevation of my improved regulator as I prefer to arrange it
for an individual burner.
Fig. 2 is a sectional elevation showing a modified arrangement of the shell or case.
Fig. 3 is a sectional elevation of the shell or case of fig. 1, without the valve, and
Fig. 4 is a sectional elevation of the valve alone.
In the interior surface of a vertical cylindrical tube a, which may be the tube of a
burner and have the tip b, in the upper end where the regulator is to be adapted for a
single burner, 1 make any approved number of vertical grooves c, tapering from the
lower end upward so as to gradually diminish in transverse dimensions and to finally
vanish in the surface at the upper end as in figs. 1 and 3, or I make a slightly tapered
smooth bored tube as in fig. 2, and I arrange on said tube any approved form of float
valve d, to rise and fall along said grooved or tapered tube as it may be lifted or
lowered by the varying pressure of the gas under it, and thus vary the capacity of the
passage or passages for the escape of the gas between the valve and the case to the burner
or the distributing pipe above; and to graduate the weight of the float to correspond with
the varying pressure of the gas and thereby secure more effective regulation than a
valve of unvarying weight is capable of. I suspend a chain e, so that as the float rises
it will take up and become loaded with portions of the chain in proportion as the valve
is raised by the increasing pressure of the gas.

page_text: In this arrangement the increasing weight of the valve will effect a much wider
range of graduation, and is thereby calculated to maintain more uniform pressure at the
burner with greater variations in the mains than is possible with a valve of uniform
weight. The chain is in this case suspended from the rod f, to be held for diminishing
the weight of the valve when the latter descends and it is connected to the valve by
its lower end for a stop to limit the descent of the valve at the lower end of its range.
The rod, also forms a stop to prevent the valve from rising too high with the chain
connected to the valve no stop is needed below. The valve is to be so adjusted that the
passages for the escape of the gas at the valve will be more contracted than at the
burner or burners to avoid too much back pressure on the valve which would diminish
its efficiency.
The size of the tube and the valve will vary according to the desired capacity of the
regulators, and when it is constructed for more than one burner, a suitable pipe
connection will be substituted for the tip b..
the
I am aware that a valve has been used in a tube having similar taper passages for
gas, the valve being provided with a coiled spring on its upper surface to graduate
the resistance of the valve to the increasing pressure of the gas by the compression of
the spring. But in this service which cannot be satisfactory without the most sensitive
and regular graduation the spring is practically useless, because in the first place it is
not possible in the present state of the art of making springs to make them sufficiently
uniform in power, range and flexibility to be put to this use without special adjustment
of each spring for its particular place which would make the spring too expensive,
and secondly, springs quickly change in temper, and consequently in power and range,
by the action of the gas, and particularly by the effect of the heat of the burner when
located in the burner tube where most of theso regulators will be used.
It is manifest that chain graduators can be made exactly uniform in range and
power and that no change can be caused by the gas or heat, nor can they be changed
in weight by the accumulations of deposits of solid matter from the gas as springs will,
because the rubbing contact of the links with each other prevents the collection to any
material extent. The chain also enables a graduation by an increasing or diminishing
size and weight of the links, besides that of the lodging of the links on the valve
which is a further advantage of the chain in respect of more sensitive graduation.
Having now particularly described and ascertained the nature of my said invention
and in what manner the same is to be performed I declare that what I claim is :
"The float valve and graduating chain in combination with a tube in which the
¡nterior space gradually diminishes upward substantially as described.
Dated this 3rd day of June 1887.