IMPROVEMENTS IN APPLYING COMBUSTIBLE GASES OBTAINED FROM SMELTING FURNACES, OR FROM GAS PRODUCERS FOR HEATING PUDDLING AND OTHER FURNACES, AND IN APPARATUS CONNECTED THEREWITH
Year: 1872

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by William Ferrie at the Office
of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the 12th
October 1872.
I, WILLIAM FERRIE, of the Monkland Iron and Steel Works,
Airdrie, in the County of Lanark, North Britain, do hereby declare the
nature of the said Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN APPLYING COMBUSTIBLE
GASES OBTAINED FROM SMELTING FURNACES, OR FROM GAS PRODUCERS FOR HEATING
PUDDLING AND OTHER FURNACES, AND IN APPARATUS CONNECTED THEREWITH," to
be as follows, that is to say :-
This Invention has principally for its object the more satisfactory
utilisation of the combustible gases obtained as bye products from
smelting furnaces, the improvements, or some of them being also
advantageously applicable when employing the similar combustible gases
obtained from what are known as gas producers."
The combustible gases referred to carry in a state of vapor or
mechanical suspension various matters which become deposited in the
pipes, ducts, or passages through which the gases flow, and after

page_text: proceeding along them to a certain distance from the smelting furnace
or producer this deposition causes inconvenience by choking the
passages, necessitating considerable expences and delays for cleaning
them periodically, and leads to a waste or loss of heating power, which
it is the object of one part of the present. Invention to avoid.
The first part of the Invention consists in arranging scrapers inside
the pipes, ducts, or passages, through which the gases pass, such
scrapers being worked continuously or intermittently by means of steam
engines. It is also preferred to heat the gases so that the condensation
of vapor may be prevented.
The details may obviously be arranged in a variety of ways, but in
one modification vertical pockets or chambers are constructed at
intervals in communication with the horizontal passages, these vertical
chambers serving not only to receive the matters scraped from the
horizontal passages, but also for heating the gases.
The scrapers consist of plates carried by an open cage and shaped
like the passage, and the cage is drawn along the passage by chains
passing through small openings in the ends of the passages and round
external pulleys and worked by an engine fitted with gearing which
causes it to reverse when the cage reaches either end of its course. In
another modification an endless chain is carried by pulleys placed inside
the passage, and is fitted with a series of scrapers which proceed along
the bottom of the passage in one direction, and return along the top.
The shafts of the pulleys pass through to the outside to be connected
with the engine by which they are worked.
In applying the combustible gases for heating puddling or other
reverberatory furnaces flues are constructed, by preference, beneath the
reverberatory chamber, such flues being arranged in vertical sets beside
each other, whilst each flue is led horizontally forwards and backwards
in forming a vertical set to whatever depth or number of traverses may a
be found desirable in practice. The combustible gas passes through a
central vertical set of the flues and enters the reverberatory chamber by
two openings at what would be the bridge of a common furnace. The
exhausted gases pass away from the other end of the chamber by two
vertical sets of flues, one on each side of the central gas flue, whilst the 3
next outer vertical sets of flues serve for the entrance of tho air
required for combustion, so that the heat of the exhaust gases will bo to

page_text: some extent communicated through the sides of the flues to the
combustible gas on the inner sides, and to the air on the other sides.
To still further heat the air two other vertical sets of flues are provided
on the outer sides of the air flues, and into these flues portions of the
combustible gases are admitted and are ignited, the air for combustion
entering by inlet apertures provided for the purpose.