AN IMPROVED MOTIVE-POWER ENGINE
Year: 1872

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Edward Thomas Hughes at the
Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the
21st November 1872.-A communication from abroad by Louis
Charles Errani and Richard Anders, of Lüttich, Belgium,
Engineers.
I, EDWARD THOMAS HUGHES, of the Firm of Hughes and Son,
Patent Agents, 128, Chancery Lane, London, do hereby declare the
nature of the said Invention for "AN IMPROVED MOTIVE-POWER ENGINE,”
a communication to me from abroad by Louis Charles Errani, and
Richard Anders, of Lüttich, Belgium, Engineers, to be as follows:—
This Invention is based upon the use of any liquid hydrocarbon, such
as naptha or petroleum, which in a finely divided state mixed with
atmospheric air is injected behind a piston in a cylinder, and when
ignited produces power by the explosion or combustion.
The engine can be so constructed that the explosive gas arising from
combustion acts on only one face of the piston, or on both faces, or it
may act on one face of two pistons in two cylinders; the pistons in all
cases being connected by rods to a crank on a shaft carrying a fly wheel,
as in an ordinary steam engine, and as the action is the same whether

page_text: the engine is single or double acting, the single acting one will for the
sake of simplicity only be described. From the cistern or vessel con-
taining the liquid hydrocarbon there is a pipe connected to the bottom of
a cylinder having in its interior a suction valve and an injection pipe,
and at the top a pipe connected to a blowing apparatus, consisting of an
india-rubber bellows worked by rods in connection with a crank or
eccentric on the cranked shaft of the engine, and at the back or bottom of
the cylinder there is a passage to allow the entrance of the liquid
hydrocarbon mixed with air from the blowing apparatus, there being a
valve worked by a slide or other moving part of the engine to open and
close the passage as required. In the side of the cylinder there is a hole
regulated by a valve worked by a revolving cam or projection, through
which hole an intermittent jet of ignited gas can pass to ignite the
hydrocarbon and air, and near the burner there is another jet of gas
kept alight as long as the engine is working, and in the side of the
cylinder there is another hole in connection with an exhaust or eduction
valve, worked by cranks or levers and rods from the cranked shaft of the
engine, or by any other means. When the engine is to be set to work
the constant burner is lit up and the other burner lit by it, and then the
fly wheel is turned to move the piston towards the regulating valve of
the intermittent jet of gas, and during this operation the india-rubber
bellows sends a jet of air into the injecting apparatus, which causes the
liquid hydrocarbon to rise in the injection pipe and pass into the
cylinder in a dispersed condition mixed with air, the compound occupying
the space between the cylinder bottom and the piston. As the piston
proceeds the bellows is released, and the regulating valve opened to
allow a jet of ignited gas to pass into the cylinder, and ignite the jet
of liquid hydrocarbon and air, thereby causing an explosion which drives
the piston to the end of the cylinder, and then the exhaust valve is
opened to allow the piston to return to its former position to be
afterwards driven forwards as before, and so on continuously, the inter-
mittent light being put out when the explosion takes place, and again
lit up when the piston has passed the valve in its return stroke.