IMPROVE. MENTS IN ROTARY STEAM ENGINES
Year: 1868

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Clinton Edgcumbe Brooman at
the Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on
the 23rd July 1868.-A communication from abroad by Jean
Vander Hielakker, of Pontoise, France.
I, CLINTON EDGCUMBE BROOMAN, of the Firm of Robertson, Brooman,
and Company, of 166, Fleet Street, in the City of London, Patent
Agents, do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention for "IMPROVE.
MENTS IN ROTARY STEAM ENGINES," to be as follows:-
This Invention consists in a new arrangement of rotary steam engines
in which the steam acts by reaction on hollow radii disposed in a special
manner, which reaction produces a rotary motion in the contrary sense
to the escape of the steam.
The machine is composed as follows:-A movable cylinder or disc
is mounted on a hollow axle. This cylinder or disc has a number
of apertures leading to its periphery, and is free to turn in a fixed
circular casing, which has a number of projections or stops on its inner
periphery to divide it into a number of compartments. The axle is
furnished with two distributing apertures formed near one of the bearings

page_text: in which the axle turns, through which apertures the steam enters
the interior of the axle intermittently. The bearing is kept pressed
against the axle by means of tightening screws, so as to prevent all
escape of steam. At each turn of the axle it makes two distributions
of steam. The steam having entered the axle passes through the
apertures in the revolving cylinder leading to the periphery, and enters
at the same time all the compartments of the fixed casing, and pressing
against the projections or stops (points d'appui) formed in this casing
imparts by the reaction a rotary motion to the movable cylinder.
After the steam has entered all the compartments of the fixed casing
it proceeds through a corresponding number of curved pipes in the
movable cylinder placed by the side of the others, and escapes by an
aperture formed at the opposite extremity of the hollow axle to that
at which it entered, imparting in escaping an equal and similar impulse
to that it imparted on entering. In order that the steam may escape
only by the aperture last mentioned, a stuffing box pressing lightly
against the end of the axle is fitted by screws on the bearing at this
end of the machine. The stuffing boxes round the axle at either side
of the cylinder are composed of two rings of bronze, which are pressed
against the movable cylinder by means of springs to prevent all escape
of steam; they produce but very little friction.
Another arrangement of rotary steam engines consists in placing the
steam supply pipe on the fixed envelope or casing. The steam enters
the space or chamber between the movable cylinder and casing, and
striking against a stop enters the apertures in the cylinder successively
as the chambers approach the supply opening, where it presses against
spring pistons, one of which is placed at the end of each of these
chambers. The recoil of the spring closes that aperture, and the steam
passes through apertures leading to the centre, where it escapes
through the hollow axle. The steam as in the other arrangement
imparts a rotary movement to the movable cylinder by pressing against
the springs in the chambers and thus causing the axle with the cylinder
to revolve. A great advantage in this machine is that the movable
cylinder has no friction against the fixed casing.