Seller's Exhaust Feed-water Heater Injector, 1925
date: label: date made
content: 1929
notes: label: Description
content: This is a boiler water injector built ca 1929 by the William Sellers & Company, Inc. of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Early boilers operated at such low steam pressures that introducing feed water into the boiler could be done by simple pumps that filled elevated reservoirs. The water flowed into the boiler by its own weight. However, as pressures increased it became necessary to force water into the boiler by increasingly powerful pumps.
label: Description
content: The William Sellers Company had the U.S. manufacturing rights for the design patented by Henri Giffard (that patent model can be found in the collections under ID Number MC.309368). Giffard found a way of forcing water into the boiler solely by use of the boiler’s own steam without any other moving parts. The William Sellers Company made a series of improvements in design with the goal of making an entirely self-acting unit. Early injectors required constant hand adjustment to maintain the flow of feed water as the steam pressure and other conditions changed. This injector is based on Sellers' latest model at the time, a design made in 1925 after successive improvements over the 1887 design.
label: Description
content: Two separate jets of steam were used in the injector. One was used to maintain a vacuum over the feed water tube so that, even if the water supply was interrupted, the vacuum would restart it. The second steam jet forced the water into the boiler.
label: Description
content: Sellers was a prolific inventor, and his most notable work was in the area of standardized screw and bolt threads. One of his patent models, for an oscillating steam engine, is also in the collections under ID Number MC.251296.
label: Description
content: The injector is made of brass and is sectioned to illustrate the internal parts. It weighs about three hundred pounds.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
setName: label: See more items in
content: Work and Industry: Mechanical and Civil Engineering
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Gift of William Sellers & Co., Inc., Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: MC.309561
label: catalog number
content: 309561
label: accession number
content: 104292
objectType: label: Object Name
content: Injector, feed-water heater
label: Object Name
content: water heater injector