IMPROVEMENTS IN APPARATUS FOR HEATING AND EVAPORATING LIQUIDS, AND FOR GENERATING STEAM
Year: 1874

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to. Alfred Fryer, of Manchester, in the County of
Lancaster, for the Invention of "IMPROVEMENTS IN APPARATUS FOR
HEATING AND EVAPORATING LIQUIDS, AND FOR GENERATING STEAM."
Sealed the 14th July 1874, and dated the 19th May 1874.
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said Alfred Fryer at the
Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the
19th May 1874.
I, ALFRED FRYER, of Manchester, in the County of Lancaster, do
5 hereby declare the nature of the said Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN
APPARATUS FOR HEATING AND EVAPORATING LIQUIDS, AND FOR GENERATing Steam,'
to be as follows:-
:-
}
"
-
My Invention consists chiefly in improvements in steani boilers and
feed water licater's, although substantially the same apparatus may in
O some instances be used for other heating and evaporating purposes, but
for convenience of description I will here describe my Invention only
as applied to steam boilers.

page_text: My improvements relate, first, to that class of steam boiler in which
the heating surface consists mainly of tubes of small diameter; and
secondly, to the setting and scraping of cylindrical boilers; thirdly, to
the regulating of the blow-off apparatus; and fourthly, to apparatus for
regulating the admission of air above. the incandescent fuel in the
.furnace.
In my improved boiler I arrange a grid of tubes filled with water,
placed very close together, say, for the sake of illustration, an eighth of
an inch apart. Through this grid I cause the products of combustion
to pass on their way to the chimney, and thus, being divided into finely
laminated layers, and every portion of them being brought within, say,
the sixteenth of an inch of the metallic absorbing surface, they part
with the greater portion of their heat in passing through one such grid.
These tubes are usually bent nearly to a right angle at such a distanco
from the points of attachment as will allow each of them to expand
when heat is applied without injury to the joint or attachment. These
bent, tubes are attached at each end to larger horizontal tubes, and I
usually place their longer ends in a nearly vertical position, but having
the upper ends slightly inclined toward the furnace, so that as steam is
formed it may tend to leave the licated surface of the tube, and also so
that dust striking the tubes may fall clear of them.
In order to place these tubes closely together without too much
weakening the vessels to which they are attached I take two sets of grid
work, the spaces between tube and tube in each set being severally
rather greater than the diameter of the tubes, and I interlace these two
sets of tubes so as to form a single grid.
If found desirable the products of combustion may be passed through
a second gridwork of tubes (which may be used as a feed water heater)
in order to extract a further portion of their heat.
In order to clean the soot from the exterior of the tubes, when this is
necessary, I make use of revolving cylindrical brushes. -
To keep the interior of the boiler clean, and to prevent the water in it
from becoming too heavily charged with salts, I arrange a connection
between the feed pump and the blow-off cock in such a way that a
definite but adjustable relation shall exist between the feed water
supplied to the boiler and the quantity of water blown off.

page_text: In order to let off the fouled water I provide a vessel furnished with
inlet and outlet cocks, the former connected with the boiler and the
latter with the air. These are suddenly alternately opened and closed
by the action of the feed pump, so that the fouled water is driven out in
flushes.
This arrangement is applicable to all kinds of steam boilers.
In order to furnish and regulate a supply of air admitted over the
burning fuel, I suspend a pendulum which swings backwards and
forwards in front of an opening which admits such supply of air. This
pendulum is put in motion as a necessary consequence of the opening.
and closing of the firing door, and its oscillations are regulated to suit.
the fuel and the draught by means of an adjustable brake. It will be
evident that as these oscillations gradually diminish a continually
diminishing supply of air is admitted. This arrangement is also.
applicable to other kinds of furnaces wherein it is desirable gradually to
decrease the admission of air after fresh fuel has been supplied.
My improvements in setting and scraping or cleaning the outer
surface of cylindrical boilers consist in so setting the boiler that the
whole of the products of combustion shall be spread out in a very thin
sheet not exceeding an inch in thickness over a portion of its sides.
This I effect by leading the products of combustion into a flue under-
neath the boiler, thence I conduct them into side flues by leading them
in a thin layer between the sides of the boiler and a screen or false flue
side placed as close to the boiler sides as may be desired. This screen
or false flue side I make readily removable for the purpose of inspection,
repair, or cleaning.
In order to keep the exterior surface of the boiler clean I cause to
work in this narrow space a series of reciprocating scrapers, each scraper
being so arranged as to move backwards and forwards over the surface
of one plate only. These scrapers may be actuated by a special machine
or by hand, but I usually prefer to attach them to the feed pump.
Although I have described these scrapers as applicable to my improved
arrangements of setting boilers it is to be understood that they are also
applicable to boilers set in a different manner; what is new in them
being the combination of a series of scrapers to scrape the shell of a
boiler, each scraper scraping a surface not exceeding the width of one of
the plates of the boiler shell.

page_text: SPECIFICATION in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters Patent,
filed by the said Alfred Fryer in the Great Seal Patent Office
on the 19th November 1874.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, ALFRED
FRYER, of Manchester, in the County of Lancaster, send greeting.
WHEREAS Her most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her
Letters Patent, bearing, date the Nineteenth day of May, in the year
of our Lord One thousand eight hundred and seventy-four, in the thirty-
seventh year of Her reign, did, for Herself, Her heirs and successors,
give and grant unto me, the said Alfred Fryer, Her special license
that I, the said Alfred Fryer, my executors, administrators, and
assigns, or such others as I, the said Alfred Fryer, 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, usc, 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 HEATING AND EVAPORATING LIQUIDS, AND FOR GENERATING
STEAM," upon the condition (amongst others) that I, the said Alfred
Fryer, 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 Scal Patent Office within six calendar months next
and immediately after the date of the said Letters Patent..
.
NOW KNOW YE, that I, the said Alfred Fryer, 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 and accompanying Drawings (that is to say):-
.
· My Invention consists chiefly in improvements in steam boilers and
feed water heaters, although substantially the same apparatus may in
some instances be used for other heating and evaporating purposes, but
for convenience of description I will here describe my Invention only as
applied to steam boilers.
My improvements relate, first, to that class of steam boilers in which
the heating surface consists mainly of tubes of small diameter; and

page_text: secondly, to the setting and scraping of cylindrical boilers; thirdly, to
the regulating of the blow-off apparatus; and fourthly, to apparatus for
regulating the admission of air above the incandescent fuel in the
furnace.
In my improved boiler I arrange a grid of tubes filled with water
placed very close together, say, for the sake of illustration, an eighth of
an inch apart. Through this grid I cause the products of combustion.
to pass on their way to the chimney, and thus being divided into finely
laminated layers, and every portion of them being brought within, say, .
the sixteenth of an inch of the metallic absorbing surface, they part
with the greater portion of their heat in passing through one such grid.
These tubes are usually bent nearly to a right angle at such a distanco
from the points of attachment as will allow cach of them to expand
when heat is applied without injury to the joint or attachment. These
bent tubes are attached at each end to larger horizontal tubes, and I
usually place their longer ends in a nearly vertical position, but having
the upper ends slightly inclined towards the furnace, so that as steam is
formed it may tend to leave the heated surface of the tube, and also so
that dust striking the tubes may fall clean off them.
In order to place these tubes closely together without too much
weakening the vessels to which they are attached I take two sets of grid
work, the spaces between tube and tube in each set being severally.
rather greater than the diameter of the tubes, and I interlace these two
sets of tubes so as to form a single grid.
If found desirable the products of combustion may be passed through
a second gridwork of tubes (which may be used as a feed water heater).
in order to extract a further portion of their heat.
In order to clean the soot from the exterior of the tubes, when this is
necessary, I make use of revolving cylindrical brushes.
To keep the interior of the boiler clean and to prevent the water in it
from becoming too heavily charged with salts I arrange a connection
between the feed pump and the blow-off cock in such a way that a definite
but adjustable relation shall exist between the feed water supplied to
the boiler and the quantity of water blown off.
In order to let off the fouled water I provide a vessel furnished with
inlet and outlet cocks, the former connected with the boiler, and the latter

page_text: with the air. These are suddenly and alternately opened and closed
by the action of the feed pump so that the fouled water is driven out
in flushes. This arrangement is applicable to all kinds of steam boilers.
In inder to furnish and regulate a supply of air admitted over the
burning fuel I suspend a pendulum damper which swings backwards
and forwards over, before, or in front of an opening which admits such
supply of air. This pendulum damper is put in motion as a necessary
consequence of the opening and closing of the fire door, and its
oscillations are regulated to suit the fuel and the draught by means of
an adjustable brake. It will be evident that as these oscillations
gradually diminish a continually diminishing supply of air is admitted.
This arrangement is also applicable to other kinds of furnaces wherein it
is desirable gradually to decrease the admission of air after fresh fuel
has been supplied.
My improvements in setting and scraping or cleaning the outer
surface of cylindrical boilers consist in so setting the boiler that the
whole of the products of combustion shall be spread out in a very thin
sheet, not exceeding an inch in thickness, over a portion of its sides.
This I effect by leading the products of combustion into a flue under-
neath the boiler, thence I conduct them into side flues by leading them
in a thin layer between the sides of the boiler and a screen or false side
placed as close to the boiler sides as may be desired. This screen or
false flue side I make readily removable for the purpose of inspection,
repair, or cleaning.
In order to keep the exterior surface of the boiler clean I cause to
work in this narrow space a series of reciprocating scrapers, cach scraper
being so arranged as to move backwards and forwards over the surface
of one plate only. These scrapers may be actuated by a special machine
or by hand, but I usually prefer to attach them to the feed pump.
Although I have described these scrapers as applicable to my improved
arrangements of setting boilers it is to be understood that they are also
applicable to boilers set in a different manner; what is new in them
being the combination of a series of scrapers to scrape the shell of a
boiler, each scraper scraping a surface not exceeding the width of one of
the plates of the boiler shell.
Such being the nature and object of my said Invention I will now
proceed to describe-more in detail the manner in which the same is to be

page_text: or may be performed or carried into practical effect, and in order that
the same may be clearly understood, I have annexed hereunto a Sheet
of Drawings illustrative thereof, and have marked the same with figures
and letters of reference corresponding with those in the following
explanation thereof :-
or may be performed or carried into practical effect, and in order that
the same may be clearly understood, I have annexed hereunto a Sheet
of Drawings illustrative thereof, and have marked the same with figures
and letters of reference corresponding with those in the following
explanation thereof :-
Fig. 1 represents an end elevation (partly in section) of a boiler made
on my improved system.
Fig. 2 represents an end elevation of a tripple feed water heater,
showing the position of the cylindrical brushes used for cleaning the
tubes.
Fig. 3 is a front view of a pendulum arranged according to my Inven-
tion for regulating the supply of air above the fire.
.
In Fig. 1, A represents the main receptacle for steam and water, which
I prefer to keep about half full of water, the remaining half forming a
steam reservoir. This receptacle runs the whole length of the boiler,
and I prefer to make it horizontal. It is connected with the smaller
horizontal tubes A', A', below it by means of the down tubes a, a, and
the bent tubes a¹, a', which are shown bent near to the receptacle A, but
still sufficiently distant from it to prevent injury to the joints from
expansion. The tubes a¹, a', alternate with similar bent tubes b¹, b¹,
which are attached at the top to the horizontal tubes B, B, and at the
bottom to the horizontal tubes B', B'. The tubes B, B, are connected
to the receptacle A by the short piece C. D, represents the furnace
door; E, the fire-bars; and F, an arch of fire-brick, or other suitable
material, extending over the furnace and abutting upon the tubes A', A'.
I prefer to place a furnace at each end of the boiler, as by so doing, and
firing each furnace alternately, the smoke from the fresh fuel of the one
will be consumed on mixing with the intensely hot gases from the other,
which is in perfect combustion. The intensity of the fire is increased
by the fire-brick arch F above it, which reverberates the heat back upon
the incandescent fuel. The products of combustion, after passing from
beneath the fire-brick arch, dissiminate themselves within the chamber G,
which forms a large combustion chamber. The only way in which they
can escape from this and pass to the chimney is by passing through the
gridwork of tubes a', a', and b', 6', because the ends of this chamber
are enclosed. Since the tubes a¹ and 6¹ are very close together (I prefer
to place them only about onc-eighth of an inch apart), and they are
0

page_text: formed of comparatively thin metal, the products of combustion part
with the greater portion of their heat in passing once through this grid-
work; if desirable, a further portion of the heat may be absorbed by
passing the products of combustion, thus almost exhausted, through
other similar grids of tubes, which may be used as a water heater. In
the small tubes a', a', b', b', (which are intensely heated for a con-
siderable portion of their circumference by the products of combustion
which strike against and pass between) there is a strong upward
current of steam and water mixed. As the upper ends of these tubes
incline towards the combustion chamber, and it is this side of the tube
which is most intensely heated, and as the particles of steam will tend
to rise vertically, each particle of steam as it is formed will rise away
from the heated side of the tube leaving its place to be occupied by a
fresh portion of water, while the steam which thus rises will collect at
and flow up the back or cooler side of the tube until it reaches the main
receptacle A, cither directly or by passing through the tubes B, B, C, C.
Here suitable baffle plates H are placed to facilitate the separation of
the steam from the water. From this receptacle the steam is taken off.
The tubes a, a, which are but little exposed to heat, conduct the
downward current of water from the receptacle A to one end of the
tubes A, A', which in turn supply the tubes a¹, a¹, the other ends of
the tubes A', A¹, are connected to the tubes B', B', which are in this
way kept supplied with the water necessary to keep up the rapid
circulation in the tubes 61, 6. To the far end of the tubes B', B', (the
position of which, of course, is the quietest in the boiler) I prefer to
attach the blow-off arrangement. In the Drawing of the boiler shown
almost all of the brickwork is supposed to have been removed in. order
the better to show the details of the boiler itself.
.
:
In Fig. 2 the water to be heated enters through the tube A and
thence passes into B, a horizontal tube running from end to end of the
apparatus. To this tube B a number of smaller tubes C are attached
through which the water rises into the upper horizontal tube D. From
this it passes through the pipe E into the horizontal tube F, and thence
through the smaller tubes G, similar to those at C, to the lower
horizontal tube H; hence it passes through the tube I to the horizontal
tube J, and again through the smaller. tubes K into the tube L, from
which it is led through the pipe M to the boiler. N represents a pipe
connected with the tubes F and L into which any steam which
may.
bo

page_text: formed may readily pass, and whence it may escape if of high enough
pressure into the boiler. O, O, represent the cylindrical brushes used
surface of the pipes C, G,
These brushes are caused to
The products of combustion
according to my Invention for brushing the
and K, and keeping them clean from soot.
rotate as they are moved up and down.
pass between the vertical tubes C, G, and K, in the direction shown by
the arrow. The water heater is here shown with wide spaces between
the tubes, but the brushes are equally applicable to the cleansing of
interlocking grids, such as are described in the earlier part of this
Specification.
In Fig. 3 A represents the furnace door. Within the door and
attached thereto is a perforated guard arranged in the usual way. The
space between this guard and the door communicates with the outer air
by means of gridwork B, B. This gridwork follows the curve described
by the pendulum damper C, which is suspended from the point. D,
oscillates above, so disposed that when the pendulum damper is at rest
the solid portions of the pendulum grid are opposed to the opening in
the fixed grid work. The adjustable break is placed at E.
The means by which the quantity of fouled water blown off may be
regulated by the feed pump are so obvious as not to need Drawings to
illustrate them. This purpose may be effected by attaching a train
of wheelwork to the crank shaft of the feed pump. This wheelwork
would, after a certain fixed but adjustable number of revolutions of the
the pump, pull a trigger, and so open the cock on the boiler. The
receptacle spoken of in the earlier part of this Specification will thus
become charged, and after a certain number of revolutions the wheel-
work will again close this cock and will immediately after release a
second trigger and so open the cock, by which means the receptacle is
emptied. This cock will again be closed by the wheelwork after a
certain number of the revolutions of the pump, and the operations liere
described will again commence.
The descriptions already given of my improved methods of setting
and scraping cylindrical boilers are so clear as to render Drawings
unnecessary.
Having now described the nature and object of my said Invention,
together with the manner in which the same is to be or may be per-
formed or carried into practical effect, I wish it to be understood that
I claim,-

page_text: Firstly. The construction of a water-tube boiler, substantially as
described and represented at Fig. 1 of the annexed Drawing.
Secondly. The use in such boilers of a gridwork of tubes placed so
close together that the products of combustion in passing through one
such grid shall part with the greater proportion of their heat.
Thirdly. The interlacing of two or more sets of water tubes to form a
single grid for the purpose of getting the tubes to lic, close together
without too much weakening the attachments at each end of the
same.
Fourthly. The use of revolving cylindrical brushes made substantially
as described for cleaning the exterior of the gridwork of tubes.
Fifthly. The arrangements as described for producing a regulated
blow off of water and mud from the boiler, such blow off taking place at
intervals and in flushes.
Sixthly. The use of a pendulum damper for regulating the safety of 1
air above the furnace fire, substantially as described.
Seventhly. The method of setting cylindrical boilers, and the method
of and apparatus for scraping such boilers, substantially as described.
In witness whereof, I, the said Alfred Fryer, have hercunto set my
hand and seal, this Twenty-second day of September, in the year 2
of our Lord One thousand eight hundred and seventy-four.
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