IMPROVEMENTS IN DRY GAS METERS
Year: 1861

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to William James Harris, of Liverpool, for the Inven-
tion of "IMPROVEMENTS IN DRY GAS METERS."-A communication from
abroad by Joseph A. Sabbaton, of New York, in the United States of
America.
Sealed the 10th December 1861, and dated the 19th June 1861.
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said William James Harris
at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the
19th June 1861.
I, WILLIAM JAMES HARRIS, of Liverpool, do hereby declare the nature of
the Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN DRY GAS METERS," to be as follows:-
Dry gas meters, as ordinarily constructed, have a series of measuring
chambers closed by flexible diaphragms, and the gas is admitted into these
chambers, and is permitted to escape from them by means of valves operated
by the flexible diaphragms.
In the dry gas meters now in use, so far as my knowledge extends, the
flexible diaphragms are combined with valves having flat surfaces, and either
sliding or turning upon flat valve seats, which are fitted with ports that com-
municate with the variable chambers in which the gas is measured. Dry meters
of this description, although accurate measurers of the consumption of gas,
when new are speedily affected by the accumulation upon the sliding surfaces
of the valves, of matter deposited by the gas, and this matter intervening

page_text: between the surface of the valve and the surface of the seat on which it moves
causes the valve to rise from its seat and permit the passage of gas through
the meter without measurement.
The object of the first part of the Invention is to obviate this defect, and it
consists in the combination of the series of flexible diaphragms of a dry gas
meter with a turning conical valve fitted with an inlet passage at one of its
heads, with an outlet passage at its opposite head, with two lateral ports com-
municating respectively with the inlet and outlet passages, and turning in a
conical seat fitted with as many ports as there are variable measuring chambers
in the meter. The form of cone for the valve which I prefer is one constructed
upon the principle of Schieles' antifriction curve, as it is an advantage to
reduce the power required to move the valve to the smallest attainable
quantity.
The object of the second part of the Invention is to obviate the use of a
stuffing box between the valve and the register or index of the meter.
In dry
gas meters now generally in use, the gas is admitted into a chamber above the
variable measuring chambers, which upper chamber is commonly called the
gallery, and contains the mechanism for operating the valves and for com-
municating motion to the register.
In order to prevent the escape of gas from the gallery to the register, the
latter is placed in a separate chamber, and the shaft which communicates
motion to the register is passed through a stuffing box. A stuffing box in
such a position is liable to leak, and permit the escape of gas; moreover, the
friction caused by the pressure of its packing upon the shaft that communicates
motion to the register adds materially to the power required to operate the
meter. The second part of the Invention excludes the gas from the gallery of
the meter, and obviates the necessity of a stuffing box, and it consists in the
combination of the valve and valve seat before mentioned with an enclosed
inlet passage (that has no communication with the gallery) by means of a
supplementary port in the valve seat, and a supplementary passage in the a
head of valve.
The object of the third part of the Invention is to obviate the necessity of
using stuffing boxes upon the stems of the diaphragms, which impart motion
to the valves of the meter, and it consists in combining the stems of the
diaphragms with conical stoppers fitted by grinding into conical seats, thus
obviating the employment of any packing between the surfaces of the metal.
And the form of conical stopper and seat which I prefer for this purpose is
that constructed upon the principle of Schieles' antifriction curve.
The Invention is applicable to dry gas meters having two or more

page_text: diaphragms, but I prefer to construct the meter with three diaphragms. The
first part of the Invention may be used without the second or third parts
thereof; the second part thereof may be used without the third part, and the
third part may be used without the first and second; but I believe the best
effect will be attained by using all parts of the Invention in the same meter.
SPECIFICATION in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters Patent, filed
by the said William James Harris in the Great Seal Patent Office on the
19th December 1861.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, WILLIAM
JAMES HARRIS, of Liverpool, send greeting.
WHEREAS Her most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her Letters
Patent, bearing date the Nineteenth day of June, in the year of our Lord
One thousand eight hundred and sixty-one, in the twenty-fourth year of Her
reign, did, for Herself, Her heirs and successors, give and grant unto me
the said William James Harris, Her special licence that I, the said William
James Harris, my executors, administrators, and assigns, or such others
as I, the said William James Harris, 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 DRY GAS METERS," a communication to him from abroad by
Joseph A. Sabbaton, of New York, in the United States of America, upon the
condition (amongst others) that I, the said William James Harris, my executors
or administrators, 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 William James Harris, do hereby
declare the nature of the said Invention, and in what manner the same is
to be performed, to be particularly described and ascertained in and by the
following statement thereof, reference being had to the accompanying Drawing,
in which Figure 1 represents an elevation of a three-diaphragm meter, with

page_text: the improvements applied thereto, a portion of the case being removed to
show the interior construction.
Figure 2 represents a plan of the meter, with the portion of the case above,
A, B, of Figure 1 removed.
And Figures 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, and 11 represent various views of the
valve and passages of the meter detached from the remainder thereof.
Dry gas meters have a series of measuring chambers closed by flexible
diaphragms, and the gas is admitted into these chambers, and is permitted to
escape from them by means of valves operated by the flexible diaphragms.
In the dry gas meters now in use, so far as my knowledge extends, the flexible
diaphragms are combined with valves having flat surfaces, and either sliding
or turning upon flat valve seats, which are fitted with ports that communicate
with the variable chambers in which the gas is measured. Dry meters of this
description, although accurate measurers of the consumption of gas when new,
are speedily affected by the accumulation upon the sliding surfaces of the valves
of matter deposited by the gas, and this matter, intervening between the surface
of the valve and the surface of the seat on which it moves, causes the valve to
rise from its seat and permit the passage of gas through the meter without
measurement.
The object of the first part of the Invention is to obviate this defect, and it
consists in the combination of the series of flexible diaphragms of a
dry gas
meter, with a turning conical valve fitted with an inlet passage at one of its
beads, with an outlet passage at its opposite head, with two lateral ports com-
municating respectively with the inlet and outlet passages, and turning in a
conical seat fitted with as many ports as there are variable measuring chambers
in the meter. The form of cone for the valve which I prefer is one constructed
.upon
the principle of Schieles' antifriction curve, as it is an advantage to reduce
the power required to move the valve to the smallest attainable quantity.
The object of the second part of the Invention is to obviate the use of a
stuffing box between the valve and the register or index of the meter. In dry
.gas meters now generally in use the gas is admitted into a chamber above the
variable measuring chambers, which upper chamber is commonly called the
gallery, and contains the mechanism for operating the valves, and for com-
municating motion to the register.
In order to prevent the escape of gas from the gallery to the register, the
latter is placed in a separate chamber, and the shaft which communicates
motion to the register is passed through a stuffing box. A stuffing box in
such a position is liable to leak and permit the escape of gas; moreover, the
friction caused by the pressure of its packing upon the shaft that commu-

page_text: nicates motion to the register adds materially to the power required to operate
the meter.
The second part of the Invention excludes the gas from the gallery of the
meter and obviates the necessity of a stuffing box, and it consists in the com-
bination of the valve and valve seat before mentioned, with an enclosed inlet
passage (that has no communication with the gallery) by means of a sup-
plementary port in the valve seat, and a supplementary passage in the head
of valve.
The object of the third part of the Invention is to obviate the necessity of
using stuffing boxes upon the stems of the diaphragms, which impart motion
to the valves of the meter, and it consists in combining the stems of the
diaphragms with conical stoppers, fitted by grinding into conical seats, thus
obviating the employment of any packing between the surfaces of the metal;
and the form of conical stopper and seat which I prefer for this purpose is
that constructed upon the principle of Schiele's antifriction curve.
The Invention is applicable to dry gas meters having two or more
diaphragms, but I prefer to construct the meter with three diaphragms. The
first part of the Invention may be used without the second or third parts
thereof;
the second part thereof may be used without the third part, and the third
part may be used without the first and second; but I believe the best effect will
be attained by using all parts of the Invention in the same meter; and the meter
represented in the accompanying Drawing embodies them all. This meter is
divided into two main divisions by a horizontal partition. A, the body of the
meter below; this partition is divided into three compartments by three
radiating partitions b, b, b, (shewn in dotted lines in Figure 2,) and each of
these compartments is subdivided into two measuring chambers by a flexible
diaphragm (shewn in dotted lines at d, d, d, Figure 2). There are thus three
flexible diaphragms and six measuring chambers in the meter, and as the con-
struction and arrangement of these are the same as those of three diaphragm
meters in common use, it is not deemed necessary to describe them in detail.
The portion of the meter above the horizontal partition A is commonly called
the gallery, and contains the mechanism for imparting motion to the valve and
to the indices of the register, whose dial faces are located in a rectangular
box C, secured to the side of the meter, and are covered with a glass plate.
The inner edges of the three radiating partitions of the measuring chambers
abut against a vertical tube, at the upper end of which the conical valve seat D
is secured. This tube receives the gas from the outlet passage at the lower
head of the valve, and it is connected by means of a thin horizontal passage m
with the outlet pipe E at the side of the meter, so that the gas passing from

page_text: the valve at the centre of the meter is discharged at the side thereof. The
valve seat D has the form of a hollow cone generated by the revolution of
Schieles antifriction curve around a central axis, and has six ports, a', a², a³,
a, a, a, in its periphery, corresponding with the six measuring chambers.
Moreover, as this meter embodies the second part of the Invention, the valve
seat has a supplementary port e in its periphery that is connected by an
enclosed inlet passage n with the inlet passage F at the side of the meter.
The conical valve seat receives the conical valve I, which is ground to fit it,
and has an inlet passages at its upper head, an outlet passage g at its lower
head to discharge the gas into the central tube beneath a lateral inlet port t,
at one side communicating with the inlet passages, and a lateral outlet port
(at the opposite side to the inlet port) communicating with the outlet passage g.
Moreover, it is fitted with a supplementary passage h, in the form of a ring,
which is in free communication with the supplementary port e, in whatever
position the valve may be. As this supplementary passage in the valve is sur-
mounted by the disk cap k, whose edges are ground to fit the valve seat, the
escape of gas upwards into the gallery of the meter is effectually prevented.
Each of the six ports a¹, a², a³, a, a, a, in the valve seat is connected with an
independent passago leading to a separate variable chamber. The three
passages c, c, c, communicating directly with the adjacent variable chambers,
(beneath the letters G², G*, G, on the inner sides of the flexible diaphragms),
the three passages c¹, c³, c, communicating with the variable chambers
(beneath the letters G¹, G³, G³, on the outer side of the flexible diaphragms)
through the intervention of three skewed passages f¹, f³, f, and the breadth of
the outlet and inlet ports of the valve I, is as great as that of two adjacent
ports in the valve seat, so that while three of the chambers communicate
through their respective ports a¹, a², a³, and passages with the inlet port of the
valve (as shewn at Figure 5), and are filling, the remaining three commu-
nicate through their respective ports a, a, a, and passages with the outlet
port of the valve, and are discharging. The change of the position of the
valve, so as to change each chamber in rotation from a filling to a discharging
chamber, is effected by turning the valve in its seat, and this is effected by the
movement of the flexible diaphragms. To this end each diaphragm is fitted
with a stem j, which passes upwards into the gallery of the meter.
The upper
end of each stem has an arm 1 secured to it, and each arm is connected by a
rod u with the pin of a crank II, which is secured to the upper end of the
stem K of the valve I. Hence, as the chambers fill, the movement of the
diaphragms imparts a rotary motion to the valve in the direction of the arrow
in Figure 2, carrying its outlet and inlet ports in succession past the ports of

page_text: the variable chambers, so that each chamber in its proper order is brought
into communication with the outlet and inlet pipe of the meter. In order to
regulate the working capacity of the chambers, the crank pini is fitted to
slide upon the crank, so that the stroke of the diaphragms can be adjusted,
and the crank pin is secured, in the proper position by screw nuts. Motion
is imparted to the indices of the register from the valve stem K, so that the
indices shall register the amount of gas passed through the meter by each
filling and discharge of the measuring chambers. To this end the valve
stem K is fitted with a worm M, which engages with the teeth of a worm
wheel N, secured to a shaft P that connects with the train of wheels of the
register. The register is constructed in the usual manner to indicate by the
positions of its indices upon their dials the number of cubic feet of gas passed
through the meter. The stem of each flexible diaphragm passes upwards
into the gallery through a short tube, and has a conical stopper v secured to
it, which is ground to fit into a hollow conical seat X at the upper extremity
of the short tube. The stopper and its seat are formed as represented upon
the principal of Schieles' antifriction curve, so as to wear equally, and generate
but little friction by the movement of the one on the other.
A dry gas meter, constructed as above described, operates with an exceed-
ingly small amount of friction, the amount being found by experiment to be
so small that a considerable weight can be placed upon the conical valve to
press it into its seat, and upon the conical stoppers of the stems of the
diaphragms, without materially affecting the pressure of the gas at the outlet
pipe. Experiments of one of these meters operated in connection with a
standard fluid meter have demonstrated that it is an accurate measurer of gas,
and it is found that the valve is not caused to leak by the deposit of matter
between its surface and that of its seat.
When the first part of the Invention is to be used without the second part
thereof, the enclosed inlet passage (n) is omitted, together with the supple-
mentary inlet port (e) in the valve seat, the supplementary passage (h,) and the
cap of the valve. The valve and seat, then, have the form shown at
Figure 12, where the parts denoted by letters correspond with those denoted
by the same letters in Figure 7.
Having thus described a dry gas meter, embodying all the improvements,
what I claim as the Invention, and desire to secure by Letters Patent, is,
the combination of a series of flexible diaphragms, with a conical valve,
having an inlet passage at one of its heads, an outlet passage at its other
heads, two latteral ports communicating respectively with the inlet and outlet
passages, and turning in a conical valve seat fitted with as many ports as there.

page_text: are chambers in the meter; the whole constructed, arranged, and operating
substantially as described.
I also claim the combination of the said valve and valve seat, with an
enclosed inlet passage, a supplementary port in the valve seat, and a supple-
mentary passage in the valve substantially as described.
I also claim the combination of the stems of the flexible diaphragms, with
conical stoppers and stopper seats substantially as described.
In witness whereof, I, the said William James Harris, have hereunto
set my hand, this Twelfth day of December, in the year of our Lord
One thousand eight hundred and sixty-one.
W. J. HARRIS. (L.S.)