IMPROVEMENTS IN APPARATUS FOR ABSTRACTING HEat
Year: 1869

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to Alexander Carnegie Kirk, of Glasgow, in the
County of Lanark, North Britain, Engineer, for the Invention of
"IMPROVEMENTS IN APPARATUS FOR ABSTRACTING HEat.”
"IMPROVEMENTS IN APPARATUS FOR ABSTracting Heat.”
"
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said Alexander Carnegie Kirk
at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition,
on the 21st July 1869.
I, ALEXANDER CARNEGIE KIRK, of Glasgow, in the County of Lanark,
North Britain, Engineer, do hereby declare the nature of the said
Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN APPARATUS FOR ABSTRACTING HEAT," to be
as follows, that is to say :-
This Invention has for its object to economise the power used in the
kind of apparatus for abstracting heat in which the operation is effected
by means of the alternate compression and expansion of a quantity of
air enclosed therein, and in which the air is transferred backwards and
forwards (through what is known as a "regenerator") so that the com..
pression and expansion may respectively take place in different compart.

page_text: ments, namely, the "hot" and "cold" compartments of the apparatus,
which are respectively on opposite sides of the regenerators. Hitherto
such apparatus has been arranged and worked in such a way that only
a comparatively small proportion of the air that has been compressed is
completely expanded in the cold compartment, and the present Inven-
tion consists principally in arranging and working the apparatus so that
a much larger proportion of the compressed air may be completely
expanded in the cold compartment, and be thus available for abstracting
heat; also in carrying out the Invention the separate compressing
cylinder hitherto used is dispensed with.
In one modification of the improved apparatus arranged for working
with two separate quantities of air, there are two cylinders parallel and
near to each other, and having their ends connected by passages in which
"regenerator" appliances are placed. Each cylinder has a piston
working in it, and one quantity of air is worked at the front ends of the
cylinders and the other at the back ends. The ends of one cylinder
constitute the "hot" compartments, and in them provision is made for
abstracting the heat developed in the air by compression, whilst the
ends of other cylinders constitute the "cold" compartments, provision
being made in them for the expanding air to abstract heat from the
substance to be cooled. The pistons are actuated by revolving cranks
disposed at about 135 degrees of the circle from each other, or in an
equivalent manner, and the effect of this disposition is, that whilst one
piston is approaching one end of its cylinder the other is moving away
from the corresponding end of its cylinder at nearly the same rate for
a considerable part of the stroke, so that the air is transferred from one
cylinder to the other with little alteration of its volume. The com-
pressions and expansions are effected at other periods of the pistons'
strokes when they are not moving at. the same rate. Revolving cranks
are the most convenient, direct, and simple appliances for actuating the
pistons, but levers, cams, or toothed wheels may be used for that purpose
if preferred. An equivalent action may also be obtained in a single
cylinder, the various spaces being separated from each other by suitably
moving pistons and moving or fixed diaphragms, in which latter the
regenerators are placed.
The improved apparatus may either be arranged for the expanding
air to abstract heat from the substance to be cooled through thin sepa-

page_text: rating shells or partitions, or it may be arranged when employed to cool
a liquid for such liquid to be injected amongst the expanding air, and
it may also either be arranged for the liquid which abstracts heat from
the compressed air to do so through thin shells or partitions, or it may
be arranged for such liquid to be injected amongst the compressed air.
In the improved apparatus any suitable gas which is not liquefiable at
the pressures employed may be substituted for the air, if preferred.
SPECIFICATION in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters Patent,
filed by the said Alexander Carnegie Kirk in the Great Seal Patent
Office on the 20th January 1870.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, ALEXANDER
CARNEGIE KIRK, of Glasgow, in the County of Lanark, North Britain,
Engineer, send greeting.
WHEREAS Her most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her
Letters Patent, bearing date the Twenty-first day of July, in the year of
our Lord One thousand eight hundred and sixty-nine, in the thirty-third
year of Her reign, did, for Herself, Her heirs and successors, give and
grant unto me, the said Alexander Carnegie Kirk, Her special licence that
I, the said Alexander Carnegie Kirk, my executors, administrators, and
assigns, or such others as I, the said Alexander Carnegie Kirk, 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 APPARATUS FOR ABSTRACTING HEAT," upon the con-
dition (amongst others) that I, the said Alexander Carnegie Kirk, 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 immie-
diately after the date of the said Letters Patent.

page_text: NOW KNOW YE, that I, the said Alexander Carnegie Kirk, do hereby
declare the nature of my said Invention, and in what manner the same
is to be performed, to be particularly described and ascertained in and
by the following statement in writing, reference being had to the
accompanying Drawings, that is to say :-
My said Invention has for its object to economise the power used in
the kind of apparatus for abstracting heat in which the operation is
effected by means of the alternate compression and expansion of a
quantity of air enclosed therein, and in which the air is transferred
backwards and forwards (through what is known as a "regenerator")
so that the compression and expansion may respectively take place
in different compartments, namely, the "hot" and "cold" compart-
ments of the apparatus, which are respectively on opposite sides of the
regenerators. Hitherto such apparatus has been arranged and worked
in such a way that only a comparatively small proportion of the air
that has been compressed is completely expanded in the cold com-
partment, and my present Invention consists partly in arranging and
working the apparatus so that a much larger proportion of the compressed
air may be completely expanded in the cold compartment and be thus
available for abstracting heat,
My said Invention consists further in contriving the apparatus so
that the separate compressing cylinder hitherto used may be dispensed
with. The improved apparatus may either be arranged for the expand-
ing air to abstract heat from the substance to be cooled through thin
separating shells or partitions, or it may be arranged when employed
to cool a liquid for such liquid to be injected amongst the expanding
air, and it may also either be arranged for the liquid which abstracts
heat from the compressed air to do so through thin shells or partitions,
or it may be arranged for such liquid to be injected amongst the com-
pressed air.
And in order that my said Invention, and the manner of performing
the same, may be properly understood, I have hereunto appended a
Sheet of explanatory Drawings, to be herein-after referred to, and re-
presenting two modifications of my improved apparatus.
The same
reference numerals and letters are used to mark the same or like parts
in all the Figures in which they occur.

page_text: Figure 1 is a plan partly in horizontal section, Figure 2 is an end
elevation partly in vertical section, and Figure 3 is a side elevation of a
modification of my improved apparatus as arranged for abstracting the
heat from brine or other substance to be cooled through thin separating
shells or partitions. The apparatus comprises two vertical cylinders
1, 2, each formed in the same casting with casings containing accessory
spaces and passages, and mounted in an inverted position on suitable
frame standards 3 over the crank shaft 4, by which their pistons 6
are actuated through connections of a common kind. The shaft 4 is
fitted with a fly wheel 7 and with a pulley 8, the latter receiving a
driving belt from a convenient prime mover. The cylinders, 1, 2, have
ports at both ends, and one half of Figure 1 represents the section as
at the level of the lower ports, but only the port 9 of one cylinder 1
is seen, as the lower port of the other cylinder 2 is at the other side.
From the bottom of cylinder 1 the air can pass through the port 9,
thence through a set of tubes 10 to a regenerator 11, the other side
of which communicates through a second set of tubes 12 with a space 13
having at its upper end a port leading into the top of the other cylinder 2.
This space 13 is very narrow at the level of the section, but increases
in width upwards. The bottom of cylinder 2 communicates through
similar parts in the casings 14, 15, with the top of cylinder 1. The spaces
crossed by the tubes 10 and those in the casing 15 are occupied and
traversed by the water or other liquid used to abstract heat from the
compressed air, such water entering by a pipe 16 and being discharged
by a pipe 17, first however being led by means of pipes 18 through
spaces 19 formed at the outer sides of the cylinder ports (9).
pump 20 worked by a lever 21 connected to one of the piston rod slide
blocks is used for forcing the brine or liquid to be cooled through the
apparatus, and this brine passes by a pipe 22 into the casing 14 crossed
by tubes, passing thence to the space crossed by the tubes 12, and
through pipes 23 and spaces 24 to the outlet pipe 25, it being
preferable to employ in the apparatus air, which in its most expanded
state therein is of a greater than atmospheric pressure. A force
pump 26 is provided for forcing in air to compensate for any leakage,
being arranged to be worked by means of a lever connected to one
of the piston rod slide blocks. The pipes for leading the air from the
pump to the interior of the apparatus are not shown, but may be
arranged in any convenient way in communication with the top and
A

page_text: the bottom of either cylinder, provision being made as usual for
drying the air so forced in. The cylinder (2) and the parts in connection
therewith in which the compressed air expands are shown in Figures 2
and 3 as enclosed in an outer casing 27, to prevent as far as possible
the communication of heat from the atmosphere, and the jacket space
enclosed by this casing is to be filled with any suitable non-conducting
substance.
°
Figure 4 is a plan, partly in horizontal section, and Figure 5 is an end
elevation, partly in vertical section, of a simplified modification arranged
for injecting liquids to be cooled and for abstracting heat from the
compressed air amongst the air itself. The cylinders 1, 2, are placed
horizontally side by side, and their ends communicate by passages 9, 9,
disposed directly across at each end, each passage having in the middle
of it a regenerator 11. The liquids are injected by pipes 28 having
nozzles disposed so as to throw them in spray amongst the air, and they
drain down into casings 29 containing floats 30, which act by levers on
equilibrium valves 31 so as to allow of their escape as they accumulate.
This modification is not suitable for cooling any liquid excepting such
as will not freeze or solidify at the lowest temperature produced in the
apparatus. The piston of the cold cylinder is made of the elongated
form shown, in order that the heat generated by the friction of the
leather or other packings may not be easily communicated to the air
and liquid.
In the improved apparatus herein-before described the two pistons
serve for compressing and expanding the air and also for transferring it
backwards and forwards between the hot and cold compartments, so that
a third cylinder is dispensed with; and in order that the movements may
be properly timed relatively to each other the cranks working the two
pistons are set as shown in the diagram, Figure 6. The line a, c, being
the position of the crank working the piston 6 of the cold cylinder 2,
then when the bottom of one cylinder communicates with the top of
the other, as in the modification herein-before described, the line a, h,
is the position for the other crank; but if the top of one cylinder
communicates with the top of the other, then the second crank must
be in the equivalent position shown by the dotted line a, k.
Figure 7 is a diagram showing the effect of the disposition of the
cranks as indicated in Figure 6, and in this diagram equal distances

page_text: measured horizontally correspond to equal angles of revolution of the
shaft, whilst the curve c, c, shows the changing position of what may be
termed the cold piston, and the curve h, h, that of the hot piston. The
vertical distance between the two curves varies in length just as the
space varies that is occupied by the air in the apparatus, and from an
examination of the diagram it will be evident that a large portion of the
transference of the air is effected with little or no change of volume,
and that the air is expanded for the most part in the cold compartment,
and compressed for the most part in the hot compartment. The distance
between the lines d, d, and y, g, represents the capacity of the passages
between the cylinders, which is the same throughout. Levers, cams, or
toothed wheels may be used for actuating the pistons, but I prefer to
adopt revolving cranks for that purpose as the most convenient, simple,
and durable appliances, but whilst the use of revolving cranks conduces
to continuity and smoothness of motion, it has necessarily associated
with it the gradual and not sudden change of one stage of the action
into the succeeding stage, so that the transference of the air is not
completely effected without change of volume, and the expansion or
compression is not completely effected whilst the air is altogether in the
cold or hot compartment respectively. The relative positions of the
cranks herein-before indicated with reference to Figure 6 appear to be
about the best, but those precise positions may be departed from in either
direction to some extent without materially affecting the results. Thus
if the angle c, ah, is increased it will involve a greater difference
between the extreme volumes of the air, the advantage of which in
enabling a machine of a given size to abstract a larger quantity of heat
may in some cases compensate for any disadvantage due otherwise to the
alteration of the conditions, and I may state that good results are
obtainable even with the angle c, a h, as much as ninety degrees of the
circle.
Having thus particularly described my said Invention, and the manner
in which the same is to be performed, I have to state that I do not
restrict myself to the precise details herein described or delineated;
but that what I believe to be novel and original, and claim as the
Invention secured to me by the herein-before in part recited Letters
Patent is, the constructing of apparatus for abstracting heat by the
alternate compression and expansion of air with two cylinders and

page_text: communications arranged and worked so as to dispense with a separate
compressing cylinder, substantially as herein-before described.
In witness whereof, I, the said Alexander Carnegie Kirk, have here-
unto set my hand and seal, this Nineteenth day of January, in
the year of our Lord One thousand eight hundred and seventy.
Witness,
EDMUND HUNT,
Patent Agent,
Glasgow.
ALEXANDER C. KIRK. (L.S.)