IMPROVEMENTS IN APPARATUS FOR ICE MAKING AND COOLING
Year: 1871

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Frederick Arthur Paget and
John Willis Asher at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents,
with their Petition, on the 25th February 1871.
We, FREDERICK ARTHUR PAGET, of 1, Seymour Chambers, Adelphi,
W.C., in the County of Middlesex, Engineer, and JOHN WILLis Asher,
of 2, Brooklyn Villas, New Wimbledon, in the County of Surrey,
Merchant, do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention for
"IMPROVEMENTS IN APPARATUS FOR ICE MAKING AND COOLING," to be as
follows:-
This Invention have for their object improvements in the modes of
utilizing for the abstraction of heat that transmutation of heat into
motive power which takes place wherever gases or vapours are made to
perform work.
The mixture of gases we prefer to employ is common atmospheric air
alternately compressed and cooled, then expanded to do work, and
thereby abstract heat for making ice, cooling various liquids, and for
other applications of machinery for abstracting heat.

page_text: All the different forms of machinery we employ for
uires purposes
whether using reciprocating or rotary pistons or vanes embody an
apparatus for (1), compressing the air to a greater or less extent; (2), a
means of cooling it; and (3), an apparatus within which the air is
allowed to expand while returning useful work to the prime mover
and being thus brought into the state necessary for performing its
cooling functions.
In all the forms of apparatus we employ in which the air is compressed
by a piston reciprocating in a cylinder, this cylinder when it is to be
placed horizontally is cast with an upright chamber at each end. On
the top of each chamber are inlet and delivery air valves. The delivery
valves open into an air vessel between the two chambers, a pipe from
which conveys the compressed air into a receiver. The cylinder and
one chamber are filled witli water and on the piston being reciprocated
the water alternately rises up into the other chamber and so on, com-
pressing the air and cooling it at the same time by a mechanical process
similar to that of injection, but with the relative parts of the fluid and
liquid reversed. A supply of water may be kept constantly flowing
into the inlet valves by means of a pipe regulated by taps or otherwise;
the surplus water making its way through an air vessel into the receiver
whence it is discharged by suitable pipes. When the use of a vertical
cylinder is preferred a somewhat different construction is employed.
Two vertical barrels communicating one with the other at the bottom
by a chamber have both their upper ends cast with valve boxes, ench
fitted with a pair of valves. One of both these pairs of valves opens
inwards, the other outwards, for the admission and eduction respectively
of air. Both barrels are almost filled with water and in one of the barrels
a piston works up and down. Water can also be kept flowing through
the air inlet valves. These two forms of apparatus for bringing air
into immediate contact with what may be termed water pistons, and of
passing it through water, are instances which may be varied in detail
of what we find to be a process offering very considerable economical
and other advantages for the purposes of our Invention, and more
especially that of making icc. This mode of simultaneously compressing
and cooling air is not in itself novel, but it has never been employed for
compressing air, such air to be afterwards specially used for ice-making
and cooling purposes. The force with which the surplus water issues
1.

page_text: from the receiver may be utilized for giving motion to other parts or for
raising itself to a higher level.
As means of cooling the air auxiliary to that just now described the
compressing cylinder may be cast or otherwise formed with a water
jacket through which a current of water is caused to flow, or it may be
immersed in an open water tank, or the cooling action may also be
aided by injecting water into the air receiver. The air being thus com-
pressed and cooled is led from the receiver into a cylinder fitted with
a piston connected with the compressing piston and against which it is
allowed to expand by preference down to or nearly down to atmospheric
pressure.
This expanding cylinder may be constructed in different ways and its
piston may be connected in different ways with the compressing piston.
Thus the air with its inlet and escape regulated by suitable valves can
simply be allowed to expand in direct contact with the piston with or
without a partial injection of brine, spirit, or other liquid uncongealable
at the freezing point of water. The air cooled down by expanding
against a moving piston is then conducted with or without the brine,
as the case may be, past the objects it is wished to cool and thence back
into the compressing cylinder. Or the expanding cylinder can be
constructed in a similar way to the compresser, having, when horizontal,
chambers at both ends. The cylinder and chambers contain brine,
spirit, or other liquid uncongealable at the freezing point of water and
are fitted with delivery valves alternately communicating through an
air vessel with the air receiver and escape valves, through which a
surplus portion of brine with the expanded air is conveyed, to be used
for refrigerating purposes.
When the use of a vertical expanding cylinder is preferred a con-
struction similar to that indicated for a vertical compressing cylinder
is employed. In both cases the air is allowed to expand in contact with
the brine from which it abstracts heat while exerting energy against the
piston.
It is very important in all the four above cited constructions that the
area of the piston of the expanding cylinder should be somewhat less
than that of the compressing cylinder, the difference being dependent
upon the degree of cold produced. In these arrangements either the
cooled liquid or the air can be separately used for abstracting heat, or

page_text: both can be used, and the air can be separately returned to the com-
presser and the liquid to the expander. The piston rods of the two
cylinders can be connected in different ways either by being fitted on
the same rod passing through both cylinders, or by connecting rods
acting on double cranks set at a right or other angle to each other.
Within the upright chambers of the compressor there may be inserted
a number of thin vertical rods of metal. The conducting surface thus
presented will enable the air at the moment of compression to readily
part with its heat. The reverse effect is obtained in the expanding
cylinder by inserting within its upright chambers, when such are used,
a similar series of rods.