IMPROVEMENTS IN AND RELATING TO STEAM AND OTHER FLUID MOTOR ENGINES
Year: 1879

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by William Robert Lake at the Office of
the Commissioners of Patents on the 12th June 1879. A communication from
abroad by Emile Levesque, of La Manche, France, Spinner.
WILLIAM ROBERT LAKE, of the Firm of Haseltine, Lake, & Co., Patent Agents,
Southampton Buildings, London. "IMPROVEMENTS IN AND RELATING TO STEAM
AND OTHER FLUID MOTOR ENGINES." [A communication from abroad by Emile
Levesque, of La Manche, France, Spinner.]
In all engines or machines which have for their object the transformation of heat
into force or power through the medium of a fluid, the pressure of the atmosphere
exercises directly or indirectly a great influence.
If the former were to be considerably increased, hot air engines, for example,
would be greatly improved thereby, since for an equal volume they would produce
more force. The improvement in steam engines would be less noticeable, but it
would become possible to treat steam in a more advantageous manner.
The principle of the present Invention consists essentially in arranging an
enclosed space, which I call an atmospheric chamber, around motive power engines,
in such a manner as to place the latter under such conditions that they operate as
if they were enclosed in a high pressure atmosphere.
Theory demonstrates that in order to obtain from these machines the best
utilization of the heat, it is necessary among other improvements to provide means
whereby the heating of the motive fluid may be effected in a constant volume, and
to allow it to expand without iucrease of heat.
I apply the said Invention to large hot air engines as follows, that is to say :-
I provide an air-chamber with its displacer, the rod of which comes through a
stuffing box; the end of this chamber is heated by an internal furnace or fire box;
one side is constantly cooled by a circulation of water; the driving or working
piston, which is of solid form, moves in a cylinder with a kind of refractory buffer,
the object of which is to protect certain parts from contact with very hot air; the
end of the driving shaft is provided with a crank.
In order to obtain double action another engine exactly similar to the above is
placed at the end in the same axis but in an opposite direction. The two pistons
in this case are united by cross pieces, which by means of a slide actuate directly
the crank of the shaft. The displacers are also connected upon the same rod, and

page_text: when one of them occupies the cold part of its chamber, the other occupies the hot
part of the other, and so on.
Engines thus constructed or arranged may work in ordinary atmosphere.
In order to cause the said engines to work in a high pressure atmosphere, I
enclose them in a chamber with metallic walls, and which is hereinafter called the
atmospheric chamber. Or rather, as access to the furnaces or fire boxes is indis-
pensable, I enclose in this chamber the whole of the engine with the exception of
the furnaces or fire boxes, and of the pipes for the supply and discharge of the
refrigerating water. However in order not to make this chamber inconveniently
large, I cause the walls to follow the contour or configuration of the parts which I
wish to enclose. Thus, for example, a large pipe leads from the chamber in order
to enclose the rod of the displacers and their stuffing-box.
All the moving parts and the valves which previously worked in the open air
are thus enclosed in the said atmospheric chamber, as also the crank of the driving-
shaft. This shaft upon which the force or power produced is developed leads out
of the said chamber through one of the walls and through a special stuffing box
made perfectly steam tight.
I obtain in the said atinospheric chamber a fluid at high-pressure (5 atmospheres,
for example), which penetrates into the cylinders and chambers, and the engine is
put in motion. The working takes place as in the open air, but with the difference
of five times greater pressure. The heat taken from the furnaces or fire boxes and
lost in the coolers is also 5 times greater, but in equal volumo. I obtain more
power and consequently a better result.
I construct small engines on the same principle as above described, but I depend
entirely upon the force of gravity for the alternate and prompt movement of the
displacers.
The hot end of the chamber is surrounded by an envelope, the lower opening
of which receives the heat of a small furnace or firebox, a gas burner, or a lamp,
the light of which serves at the same time for illumination. The cold end is
surrounded by circulating water, but as it is proposed to make the engine, I am
now describing an oscillating one, the water enters and is discharged by means of
two flexible pipes which allow the oscillating movement.
The displacer is traversed right through its centre by a rod or spindle fixed at
its two extremities to the ends of the reservoir cylinder. A tube is provided which
establishes communication between this reservoir and a cylinder, which itself com-
municates with another cylinder by means of a large tube in the manner of a water
level. When the first of these two cylinders is filled with mercury, the level of the
saine only rises a short distance in the other cylinder, and the air contained in the
reservoir maintains this difference of level.
The whole of this apparatus is connected and is supported by a cradle which
allows it to oscillate vertically around a point which is arranged in such a position
that the opening designed for the heat shall not be withdrawn from the fire.
A heavy counterweight forms part of this single acting apparatus, and will be
dispensed with in double acting apparatus.
A vertical coupling rod which actuates a shaft provided with a fly wheel is
placed at a fixed point in the machine.
In order to increase the difference of pressure in this engine and secure a length
of lever which permits results of a certain power with small differences of tein-
perature, I provide an atmospheric chamber which is merely a box filled with
compressed air, which box communicates on the one hand with one of the two 5
cylinders containing mercury, and on the other hand with the reservoir by means
of flexible tubes.
In order to obtain double action, I unite together two apparatuses by placing one
near the other, the two reservoirs upon the same cradle in such manner that the
same furnace or fire may heat them, but taking care that the cold ends should be 5
in opposite directions.
According to another arrangement I construct a hot air engine in which the

page_text: driving piston and the displacer move in the same cylinder, one end of which (the
right hand end, for example) opens into an atmospheric chamber which encloses as
hereinbefore explained all the moving parts. The other end is heated by any kind
of furnace or heating apparatus. The driving piston is of solid form and has a
protecting buffer; the right hand face of the displacer is covered with a thick
coating of refractory and insulating material.
The rod of this displacer crosses centrally the bottom of the driving piston
passing into a metallic packing. A spiral spring which presses against a shoulder
piece invariably connected to the driving piston exerts its pressure upon the head
of the rod of the displacer in such a manner as to bring back quickly into contact
the displacer, and the piston when they have been separated from one another.
Instead of heating this engine with an ordinary furnace which would permit the
escape with the products of combustion of half the heat produced, I introduce the
necessary heat in the midst of the motive power fluid by the instantaneous com-
bustion of a gaseous mixture.
In another arrangement the expansion of the motive power fluid takes place in
a cylinder apart under the piston. The displacer carries in this case a piston
packing which slides with slight friction upon the walls of its reservoir cylinder.
The wall which closes this cylinder from the side of the atmospheric chamber is
fixed, and provided with a valve which opens downwards under the least pressure.
The expanded fluid driven back by the driving piston and by the displacer piston
in their descending movement escapes by a pipe and passes into a cooler placed
behind the apparatus. After a first circulation in a bundle of tubes (similar to a
tubular condenser) the fluid reunites in a large pipe from which extend a great
number of small tubes which carry the fluid to the bottom of the cooler, and cause
it to pass through the water itself before it can return to the surface. It there
loses all its heat and enters, thus deprived, into the atmospheric chamber.
I put the atmospheric chamber into communication by a tube with the steam
chamber of a boiler, and I employ this steam as a fluid in the same manner as
the air.
As will be seen by the above description I may apply the said atmospheric
chamber to all motive power engines using either steam or air, having for their
object the transformation of heat into force or power by the medium of a fluid.
I call the said chamber an atmospheric chamber for the reason that it performs
in the working of these engines the same part as the atmosphere, but withli results
which are proportionate to the pressure of this artificial atmosphere.