IM- PROVEMENTS IN KILNS AND APPARATUS FOR DRYING AND BURNING BRICKS AND OTHER ARTICLES
Year: 1868

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to Cuthbert Greenwood Johnson, of the North
Yorkshire Iron Works, Stockton-on-Tees, for the Invention of "IM-
PROVEMENTS IN KILNS AND APPARATUS FOR DRYING AND BURNING BRICKS AND
OTHER ARTICLES."
Sealed the 15th January 1869, and dated the 18th July 1868.
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said Cuthbert Greenwood
Johnson at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his
Petition, on the 18th July 1868.
I, CUTHBERT GREENWOOD JOHNSON, of the North Yorkshire Iron
Works, Stockton-on-Tees, do hereby declare the nature of the said Inven;
tion for "IMPROVEMENTS IN KILNS AND APPARATUS FOR DRYING AND BURNING
BRICKS AND OTHER ARTICLES," to be as follows:-
This Invention has more especially for its object the saving of labour.
and fuel in drying and burning bricks and other articles of brick earth,.
but is also applicable for drying and burning other articles requiring to.
be rendered incandescent, or to be calcined or acted upon by the products.
of combustion direct from the fuel.

page_text: For the purpose of burning bricks or like articles they are placed on
the top of trucks and then run into a long flue or kiln fired from the
top or sides. The trucks are made flat on the top, and these flat tops
form the bottom of the kiln, the axles and wheels of the trucks being
below the flat top. Or the bricks or other articles may be placed upon a
sledge sliding upon guides or rolling on fixed rollers, the guides or
rollers being, like the wheels aforesaid, below the flat top of the truck.
For drying bricks or like articles they are placed on similar trucks and
passed through a drying chamber surrounded, or partly so, by flues,
through which the heated gases from the kilns is led.
According to one arrangement the bricks or other articles as they
are moulded are placed on trucks running on rails which pass through
a drying flue heated as above described. The trucks enter the drying
flue at one end, and when the bricks or other articles are sufficiently
dry the trucks are passed out at the opposite end; the bricks or other
articles are then loaded on to other trucks to be burnt. These trucks
are carried on trucks running on rails which pass along in front of a
series of flues or kilns, so that the trucks upon which the bricks or other
articles to be burnt are piled may be brought in front of any one or other
of the series of kilns, and then run off the trucks that carry them on to
lines of rails that pass through such flue or kiln; or any other convenient
arrangement of points and crossings or turntables may be employed to
convey the bricks or other articles from the machine to the drying flue
and thence to the kiln, or from machine to kiln. When a flue or kiln
has thus been filled up from end to end with trucks the kiln is fired
through holes in the top, beginning at one end of the kiln and gradually
passing on to the opposite end, so as to drive forward the heat together
with the smoke and moisture from the bricks or other articles, and the
heated air and smoke is by means of a chimney drawn by return flues
up the two sides and middle of the drying chamber, in which the articles
are dried before being burnt. The firing of the kiln having commenced
at one end is continued by degrees to the other, the amount acted on
at one time being regulated by dampers applied to openings from the
kiln into the flues passing to the chimney. When the whole are burnt
and cooled down the trucks can be run out and discharged and the kilns
refilled as before. The bricks may be made with small coal, breeze,
ashes, coke dust, or similar substance worked into the clay, so as to
reduce the necessity for firing. When it is not desired to heat a drying

page_text: chamber by the heated gases passing from the kilns, then small chimneys
may be formed at intervals apart along the length of each kiln, one such
chimney being provided, say, for every two trucks. in the kiln.. With
this arrangement the firing is commenced at one end, as in the first
arrangement, and afterwards by lowering the damper of the first.chimney
the heat may be sent forwards, so that one chimney may draw for a
length of four or more trucks, and so on until the whole contents of the
kiln is burnt.
According to another arrangement each kiln or flue is provided with a
chimney at one of its ends, and at this end the trucks carrying the
articles to be burnt are run into the kiln. At a fixed point intermediate
of the length of the kiln fuel is supplied to the trucks as they are passed
below it, so that the articles on the trucks before they have fuel supplied
to them are first dried by the current of heated gases passing over or:
through them to the chimney. As the fuel is supplied to each truck
the articles upon it are burnt, and afterwards, as the truck is moved
towards the exit end of the kiln, the truck is cooled down by the current
of fresh air passing into the burning fuel in the kiln, and is ultimately
discharged at the opposite end of the kiln to that at which it entered.
Hence as every succeeding truck of new bricks or articles is introduced...
into the kiln at the chimney end a truck containing burnt off and cooled.
down bricks or articles will be discharged at the opposite end of the
kiln. When employing this arrangement a sufficient number of kilns
should be provided, so that it shall not be necessary to put fresh bricks
or articles into a kiln till those already in have had time to dry, burn,.
and cool down. Thus to burn 10,000 bricks a day 10 kilns- might be
employed, each containing three trucks drying and burning, and one
truck cooling, then if each truck contain 1,000 bricks one truck may be
entered each day into each kiln, and thus give the bricks 3 days and
3 nights to burn, and 1 day and night to cool.
A drying chamber for drying the articles previous to burning may
also be employed in conjunction with furnaces worked in. the manner
above described, the chamber being heated by the heated gases from the
kiln, as in the arrangement herein first described.
In place of the kilns being fired from the top, as above described, they
may be fired at the sides from fire-places fixed outside.

page_text: SPECIFICATION in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters Patent,
filed by the said Cuthbert Greenwood Johnson in the Great Seal
Patent Office on the 18th January 1869.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, CUTHBERT
GREENWOOD JOHNSON, of the North Yorkshire Iron Works, Stockton-on-
Tees, send greeting.
WHEREAS Her most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her
Letters Patent, bearing date the Eighteenth day of July, in the year of
our Lord One thousand eight hundred and sixty-eight, in the thirty-
second year of Her reign, did, for Herself, Her heirs and successors,
give and grant unto me, the said Cuthbert Greenwood Johnson, Her
special licence that I, the said Cuthbert Greenwood Johnson, my exe-
cutors, administrators, and assigns, or such others as I, the said Cuthbert
Greenwood Johnson, my executors, administrators, and assigns, should at
any time agree with, and no others, from time to time and at all
times thereafter during the term therein expressed, should and lawfully
might make, use, exercise, and vend, within the United Kingdom of
Great Britain and Ireland, the Channel Islands, and Isle of Man, an
Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN KILNS AND APPARATUS FOR DRYING AND
BURNING BRICKS AND OTHER ARTICLES," upon the condition (amongst others)
that I, the said Cuthbert Greenwood Johnson, my executors or adminis-
trators, by an instrument in writing under my, or their, or one of
their hands and seals, should particularly describe and ascertain the
nature of the said Invention, and in what manner the same was to be
performed, and cause the same to be filed in the Great Seal Patent
Office within six calendar months next and immediately after the date
of the said Letters Patent.
NOW KNOW YE, that I, the said Cuthbert Greenwood Johnson, do
hereby declare the nature of the said Invention, and in what manner
the same is to be performed, to be particularly described and ascer-
tained in and by the following statement thereof, that is to say :-
This Invention has more especially for its object the saving of labour
and fuel in drying and burning bricks and other articles of brick earth,
but it is also applicable for drying and burning other articles requiring
to be rendered incandescent, or to be calcined or acted upon by the
product of combustion direct from the fuel.

page_text: For the purpose of burning bricks or like articles they are placed on
the top of trucks and then run into a long flue or kiln fired from the
top or sides. The trucks are made flat on the top, and these flat tops
form the bottom of the kiln, the axles and wheels of the trucks being
below the flat top. Or the bricks or other articles may be placed upon a
sledge sliding upon guides or rolling on fixed rollers, the guides or rollers
being like the wheels aforesaid below the flat top of the truck. For
drying bricks or like articles they are placed on similar trucks and
passed through a drying chamber surrounded, or partly so, by flues,
through which the heated gases from the kilns are led. On the tops of
the trucks are fire-clay slabs 2 inches or more in thickness to protect
the metalwork of the trucks from the heat of the kiln.
According to one arrangement the bricks or other articles as they are
moulded are placed on trucks running on rails which pass through a
drying flue heated as above described. The trucks enter the drying
flue at one end, and when the bricks or other articles are sufficiently
dry the trucks are passed out at the opposite end; the bricks or other
articles are then loaded on to other trucks to be burnt. These trucks
are carried on trucks running on rails which pass along in front of a
series of flues or kilns, so that the trucks upon which the bricks or other
articles to be burnt are piled may be brought in front of any one or
other of the series of kilns, and then run off the trucks that carry them
on to lines of rails that pass through such flue or kiln; or any other
convenient arrangement of points and crossings or turntables may be
employed to convey the bricks or other articles from the machine to
the drying flue and thence to the kiln, or from the machine to the kiln.
When a flue or kiln has thus been filled up from end to end with trucks
the kiln is fired through holes in the top, beginning at one end of the
kiln and gradually passing on to the opposite end, so as to drive forward
the heat together with the smoke and moisture from the bricks or other
articles, and the heated air and smoke is by means of a chimney drawn
by return flues up the two sides and middle of the drying chamber in
which the articles are dried before being burnt. The firing of the kiln
having commenced at one end is continued by degrees to the other, the
amount acted on at one time being regulated by dampers applied to
openings from the kiln into the flues passing to the chimney. When
the whole are burnt and cooled down the trucks can be run out and
discharged, and the kilns refilled as before. The bricks may be made

page_text: with small coal, breeze, ashes, coke dust, or similar substance worked
into the clay, so as to reduce the necessity for firing. When it is not
desired to heat a drying chamber by the heated gases passing from the
kilns, then small chimneys may be formed at intervals apart along the
length of each kiln, one such chimney being provided, say, for every two
trucks in the kiln. With this arrangement the firing is to commence at
one end, as in the first arrangement, and afterwards by lowering the
damper of the first chimney the heat may be sent forward, so that one
chimney may draw for a length of four or more trucks, and so on unti
the whole contents of the kiln is burnt.
Figures 1, 2, and 3 on Sheet 1 of the Drawings hereunto annexed shew
respectively a plan view, side view, and transverse section of a series of
six parallel kilns or flues A, A, A, built together side by side, each flue
having a pair of rails running through it to receive trucks, the tops of
which are to form the bottoms of the kilns and are covered with fire-clay,
as is shown in the sectional view, Figures 3. Other lines of rails B are
in the arrangement shewn laid along in front of the two ends of the sets
of kilns, upon each of which runs a traversing truck C, on to which the
trucks as they are laden with the articles to be burnt may be run one
by one, and by the traversing of the truck may be brought opposite the
end of any one of the kilns and be run off the truck on to the line of rails
running through such kiln, and similarly at the opposite end of the kilns
the trucks may be run from the kilns on to a traversing truck and be by
it carried opposite to a line of rails leading away from the kilns. As
above mentioned a system of points and crossings or turntables might be
similarly combined with a series of parallel kilns built together side by
side in place of combining such series of kilns with a traversing truck,
as above described. By thus combining together a number of kilns
working with trucks in the manner above described with a traversing
truck, or with other traversing or shunting arrangements for facilitating
the filling and emptying of the kilns, much time and labor will be saved.
Each of the kilns or flues is formed with openings a, a, fitted with lids
or doors all along its top through which small coal or fuel for the firing
can be fed into any part of the kiln; there are also small chimneys b
passing from it at intervals for the escape of the products of combustion,
and dampers are fitted to these chimneys, so that the firing may be com-
menced at one end of the kiln and be continued by degrees to the other,
the amount acted on at one time being regulated by the dampers of the

page_text: chimneys. Or, as above stated, if drying chambers are used in con-
junction with the kilns the outlets from the kilns may open into a flue
which is led around the sides of drying chambers, and from thence to a
chimney, in the manner shewn at Figures 4, 5, and 6, Sheet 2. In this
arrangement there are flues c, c, running along between the kilns; these
flues have openings fitted with dampers formed into them from the kilns
at intervals along their length, so that the kilns may be fired in the
manner above described, and each of the flues c at one end terminates in
a chimney, and also by passing down passages in the side walls opens
into one general flue, shewn by dotted lines as running beneath the exit
ends of the kilns; this flue or culvert leads to the flues which surround
the drying chambers D. Dampers are applied to the ends of the flues c,
so that the products of combustion passing through them may either be
caused to pass away through the small chimneys or to pass into the flues
which heat the drying chambers. The flues passing round the drying
chambers terminate in a chimney, as shown. With kilns arranged to be
fired in the manner above described the wagons may be run into the kilns
from either end, and as one wagon is run up to the end of another
wagon they link together by weighted catch levers, as shewn. When any
one of the kilns has thus been filled the kiln is closed by shutting doors at
its ends, and the firing is commenced at one end and continued gra-
dually to the other end, as before described. When the firing is completed
and the contents sufficiently cooled down the waggons are withdrawn
from the opposite end of the kiln to that at which they were introduced
into it. I would here remark that kilus or flues working with waggons
in place of being fired by introducing fuel through holes in the top might
be heated by means of fire-places opening into the kilns either at the
sides or top and at intervals along its length, so that the kiln may be
fired in the manner above described. Kilns or flues working with
waggons as above described might also be built separately one from the
other, and be similarly constructed with firing holes, or with fire-places or
furnaces opening into it at intervals along its length, and with dampers
and chimneys, or it might be dampers fitted to openings into a flue, so
that the firing of the kiln may be conducted in the manner above
described.

page_text: chimneys or flues, so that the kilns may be fired in the manner above
described; also similarly combining such kilns with fire-places or
furnaces opening into them at the sides or at the top at intervals along
their length, so that the whole contents of the kilns may be fired in the
manner above described; also combining drying chambers with such
description of kilns, the flues from the kiln being led around or along
the drying chambers.
I also claim combining together side by side a number of parallel
kilns working with trucks as above described with a traversing truck or
other traversing or shunting apparatus to facilitate the filling and
emptying of such kilns.
According to another arrangement each kiln or flue is provided with
a chimney at or near one of its ends, and at this end the trucks carrying
the articles to be burnt are run into the kiln. At a fixed point inter-
mediate of the length of the kiln fuel is supplied to the trucks as they
are passed below it, so that the articles on the trucks before they have fuel
supplied to them are first dried by the current of heated gases passing
over (or through) them to the chimney. As the fuel is supplied to each
truck the articles upon it are burnt, and afterwards as the truck is moved
towards the exit end of the kiln the truck is cooled down by the current
of fresh air passing into the burning fuel in the kiln, and is ultimately
discharged at the opposite end of the kiln to that at which it entered.
Hence as every succeeding truck of new bricks or articles is introduced
into the kiln at the chimney end a truck containing burnt off and
cooled down bricks or other articles will be discharged at the opposite end
of the kiln; the wagons are arranged to catch or link together as in the
arrangement first described. When employing this arrangement a suffi-
cient number of kilns should be provided, so that it shall not be necessary
to put fresh bricks or articles into a kiln till those already in have had
time to dry, burn, and cool down. Thus, to burn 10,000 bricks a day
10 kilns might be employed, each containing three trucks drying and
burning, and one truck cooling, then if each truck contain a 1,000 bricks
one truck may be entered each day into each kiln, and thus give the
bricks 3 days and 3 nights to burn, and one day and night to cool; or
the kiln might contain a greater number of trucks and so allow of their
remaining a longer time in the kiln.
Figures 7, 8, and 9, Sheet 3, show respectively a plan, side view, and
section of six kilns A combined together side by side, and arranged to be

page_text: worked in the manner above described; the kilns are also combined with
apparatus for traversing or shunting the trucks laden with the articles
to be burnt or fired, so as to facilitate both the filling and emptying of
the kilns; as this traversing or shunting apparatus is exactly similar
to that already described it is unnecessary again to describe it in detail.
B, B, are the chimneys of the kilns at the end at which the trucks
laden with the articles to be burnt are passed into them; C, C, are the
openings through which the fuel is supplied to the articles to be burnt.
When the trucks are moved on beyond this opening the air entering
the kilns at the ends through which the trucks are withdrawn from
the kiln passes over the heated truck to the part of the kiln at which
the fuel is burning, and products of combustion from the burning
fuel pass over the trucks which have last been introduced into the kiln
and escape by the chimney. A drying chamber for drying the articles
previous to burning may also be employed in conjunction with furnaces
worked in the manner above described, the chamber being heated by
the heated gases from the kiln as in the arrangement herein first
described.
What I claim as regards this part of my Invention is, constructing
kilns working with waggons in the manner above described with openings
in their top, so that fuel may be dropt down on to the waggons or the
articles upon them, and the articles thus fired in the manner above
described; also combining drying chambers with such description of
kiln, the flues from the kiln being led around or along the drying
chamber.
I also claim combining together side by side a number of parallel
kilns working with trucks as above described with a traversing truck
or with other shunting apparatus to facilitate the filling and emptying
of such kilns.
In witness whereof, I, the said Cuthbert Greenwood Johnson, have
hereunto set my hand and scal, this Sixteenth day of January, in
the year of our Lord One thousand eight hundred and sixty-nine.