NEW OR IMPROVED MODES OF OBTAINING AND TRANSMITTING MOTIVE POWER, AND IN THE MACHINERY OR APPARATUS EMPLOYED THEREFOR
Year: 1866

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Robert William Fraser at the
Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the 11th
July 1866.
I, ROBERT WILLIAM FRASER, Master of Arts, and Author of "Eloments of
Physical Science," of the City of Edinburgh, in the County of Mid Lothian,
North Britain, do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention for "NEW
OR IMPROVED MODES OF OBTAINING AND TRANSMITTING MOTIVE POWER, AND IN THE
MACHINERY OR APPARATUS EMPLOYED THEREFOR," to be as follows, that is to
say:
This Invention has reference to a new or improved form or construction, or
forms or constructions, of rotatory engine or engines driven by the force or impact
of a stream or current of steam, water, or other fluid, such engine or engines
being susceptible of several modifications or constructions to suit and be used
as a general motor, particularly and advantageously where high speeds are
required, and also most economically for auxiliary purposes where the
unspent heat and force of the motive fluid, after passing through and actuating
the new or improved engine or engines, can be utilized without loss of heat or
power
The essential feature of this new or improved motive-power engine or

page_text: engines consists of a screw (in the same sense as the screw propeller is
termed a screw) caused to revolve within a close vertical or horizontal
cylinder along with the shaft on which it is keyed or otherwise fixed. The
Journals of the shaft work through fluid-tight bearings or stuffing boxes
formed in the two ends or covers of the cylinder. A stream of steam or other
fluid is admitted through a valve or cock controlling an inlet pipe or pipes
opening into one end of the cylinder, and by its impact or force upon the
screw or angled blades causes the screw and shaft to revolve as it passes to
the other end of the cylinder which is fitted with a pipe or pipes for the
escape or egress of the impelling fluid, which in the case of steam might then
be used after driving an engino of this new or improved construction for
heating purposes or for actuating a high-pressure or condensing engine
which would utilize the heat or expansive force still left in the steam The
screw is preferred to be formed of many "threads" or in the form of a ring
or cylinder or deep disc of radial and longitudinally angled blades working
with their circumferential edges close to the internal circumference of the
fixed cylinder in which the screw revolves, but not in fictional contact there-
with. The screw or blades may in some cases have a thin rim or ring at
their outer circumference revolving with them nearly close to the interior of
the cylinder, and when the cylinder is made long, as for powerful engines,
it is preferred to make a series of these rings or discs of radial angled blades,
with narrow annular spaces between them from the cylinder to their shaft or
eyes, and to "step" or place each set of angled blades in succession in advance
of the other, that is, so that the body of fluid after acting on the blades of
one set and passing through the first radial spaces shall act with a more direct
force in a parallel plano with the axis of the shaft upon the blades of the
next set, and so on throughout the series until the impelling fluid reaches
the end of the cylinder and passes off by the escape pipe or pipes.
Or under another arrangement the cylinders is divided into chambers within
each of which one disc or set of radical blades revolves, these chambers being
formed by thin stationary round diaphragms or end plates placed tightly
within the cylinder and annular spaces between the sets of angular blades,
and having a round hole in the centre for the shaft or "bosses" to revolvo
though very close to it but without contact; these diaphragms are kept at
proper distances apart by thin broad rings inther deeper than the discs of
angled blades and fitting the anterior of the cylinder so that the edges and
cucumferential ends of the blades respectively work close to the sides of the
diaphragms forming the ends of the chambers and to the interior of the deep
ring separating them. These diaphragms have radial slits or slots formed

page_text: all round them extending to within a short distance of their inner and
outer diameter, so that the current of steam or other impelling fluid after
exerting its force on the set of blades in one compartment or chamber
passes through the radial slots of a diaphragm in a plane nearly parallel
with the axis of the shaft, so as to act with a more direct force upon the
set of angled blades filling and revolving within the next chamber than if
the fluid had merely been allowed to glide from one angled surface to the
other, and so on throughout the whole series of chambers and sets of angular
blades filling the cylinder. In some cases, when a number of such sets of
angled blades are employed and the velocity or current force of the actuating
fluid becomes less towards the outer end of the long cylinder, it is preferred
to increase the angle of the sets of blades successively towards the outer end
of the cylinder, so as to utilize a greater amount of the force of the current
before the fluid passes off at the outlet pipes Instead of the angled blades on
which the fluid acts or impinges being radial they may in some cases recedo
in a curved line from the "bos" or eye to the cucumference in the backward
direction to that in which they revolve, so that the great body of fluid whilo
passing through the engine and actuating it will not be carried so much
1ound with the blades. For some kinds of fluids it may also be preferable, in
place of making the acting surfaces of the blades smooth, to make them with
hollow corrugations across the face of the blades for the better retention and
more perfect action of the fluid in the direct line of its current, so as to prevent
a tendency to centrifugal motion in the fluid The currents or other elastic
fluids employed as the motive agent for driving these improved engines are
obtained and conducted in close pipes from any of the usual steam generating
boilers or other beat generating vessels or furnaces usually employed for
obtaining and collecting such elastic fluids under pressure for the use of
motive-power engines, and when currents of water or other non-elastic fluids
are employed they are also conducted in close pipes from the waterfall or
bigb reservoir such as are usually employed for the purpose of giving current
power or momentum to such fluids or liquids. The opening or shutting of the
valve or cock on the inlet pipe conducting the impelling fluid would regulate
the starting and stopping of any of the modifications herein described of this or
these new or improved motive-power engine or engines, and when it is desired
to make any of them capable of reversing or running in the backward as well
as the forward direction, the inlet and outlet branch pipes leading to the two
ends of their cylinders are so connected by a three or four way cock or valve to
the main inlet and outlet pipes conducting the impelling fluid from the steam
boiler, waterfall, or other source of power employed, so that the currents can be

page_text: reversed to either end of the cylinders at pleasure by the simple reversing of
the said cock or valve.
A most useful application of this improved engine is to drive an auxiliary
screw propeller in conrection with a pan of paddle engines or a pan of the
engines for working a direct-acting swivel float propeller (for the construction
of which the petitiones obtained Royal Letters Patent on or about the 5th
day of October 1865, No 2563,) placed on each side of the screw, and the
steam after propelling this new or improved engine and the screw propeller
could afterwards be used for actuating the paddle engine or engines of the
said improved direct-acting propellers respectively as the case might be.