N. Hawkins

“ As these particles ascend it leaves a space which the cooler air eagerly hastens to fill; in the boiler furnace, the hot air pushing its way up the chimney, is replaced through the grate bars with cool, fresh air.
It is the mingling of this fresh air with the combustibles that produces heat, and the power of the draught is absolutely necessary to the reliable operation of the furnace.
An excess of draught can be corrected by the use of a damper or even by the closing of the ash pit doors, but no more unhappy position for an engineer can be imagined than a deficiency of draught. ”

“ How to avoid these actual evils is of the first importance in steam economy. The subject at first sight seems to the average student a difficult one to master, but like all other matters pertaining to mechanics, investigation that is backed with reason, will show that much that appears obscure is really very plain indeed; this is because nature, even down to the sediment remaining in a boiler after the conversion of water into steam, operates in its formation with infinite exactness and along well known lines. ”

“ It is difficult to overestimate the importance, in connection with a steam plant, of the appliance which supplies water for the boiler, not only, but a hundred other uses. Upon the steady operation of the pump depends the safety and comfort of the engineer, owner and employee, and indirectly of the success of the business with which the “plant” is connected. Hence the necessity of acquiring complete knowledge of the operation of a device so important. ”

“ But it must be borne in mind that the element of hydrogen is, nevertheless, to a greater or less degree neutralized by the other element, oxygen, when it is present as a constituent of the fuel; since the affinity of hydrogen for oxygen is superior to that of carbon, and the oxygen saturated with hydrogen is converted into steam and rises in this form from the fuel bed without producing heat. Thus it is that the more oxygen there is in the fuel the less is its power for developing heat by combustion.
Nitrogen is also an elementary body. It neither supports life nor combustion ”

“ Steam fitting, with galvanized pipe and an elaborate system of connections and devices is a new department of mechanism—almost of the present generation—and at first sight would seem able soon to supercede lead piping of all kinds, but it is safe to say that nothing can ever take the place of lead, for this admirable metal can be made to answer where no other material can be worked; for instance, lead pipe can be made to conform to any angle or obstruction where no other system of piping will. ”

“ Where dirty or muddy water is fed into the boilers the surface blow-off is one of the cheapest and most efficient means for keeping the boiler clean. The efficiency of the surface blow-off is not so great as that of some of the mechanical boiler-cleaners, as by their use it is not required that any hot water shall be wasted, and this is the greatest objection to the surface blow-off, as in the hands of some people a large amount of boiling water is wasted each time it is used. ”

“ Steam generators, as they are exposed to more or less of trying service in steam production, develop almost an unending number and variety of defects.
When a boiler is new and first set up it is supposed to be clean, inside and out, but even one day’s service changes its condition; sediment has collected within and soot and ashes without.
Unlike animals and plants they have no recuperative powers of their own—whenever they become weakened at any point the natural course of the defect is to become continually worse. ”

“ In the operation of firing under a boiler the three first elements are totally consumed and form heat; the nitrogen, and water in the form of steam, escapes to the flue, and the ashes and cinders fall under the grates.
The anthracite coal retain their shape while burning, though if too rapidly heated they fall to pieces. The flame is generally short, of a blue color. The coal is ignited with difficulty; it yields an intense local or concentrated heat; and the combustion generally becomes extinct while yet a considerable quantity of the fuel remains on the grate. ”

“ The hydraulic test is a very convenient method of testing the tightness of the work in a new boiler, in conjunction with inspection to a greater or lesser degree, in the passing of new work. As a detector of leakages it has no rival, and its application enables faulty caulking to be made good before the boiler has left the works, and before a leak has time to enter on its insidious career of corrosion. ”

“ Too much emphasis cannot be laid upon the necessity for the use of the very best iron and steel that can be manufactured, and the most skillful and thorough workmanship that can be performed in constructing the boiler.
It is becoming the practice, both for land and marine boilers, for boiler plate makers to furnish “test pieces” from each sheet or plate that goes into the construction of a boiler, and a sheet showing the tensile strength of each sheet or plate that enters into its make up. ”

“ A practical and familiar instance of imperfect combustion is exhibited when a lamp smokes and the unconsumed carbon is deposited all about in the form of soot. When the evolving or disengagement of the carbon is reduced by lowering the wick to meet the supply of oxygen, the carbon is all consumed and the smoke ceases. What takes place in a lamp also occurs in a furnace, so that the proper supply of air is a primary thing, relating to economy, both as regards its quantity and its mode of admission to a fire. ”

“ The fireman, so called, in steam service of any description, should and does on the average receive double the compensation of a man who has only his labor to bargain for.
In addition, he exercises his skillful vocation in sheltered places and is almost the last of the employees of a plant to be “laid off” and is certainly the first to be called on again after stoppage.
Still further, the fireman has an almost equal opportunity, with the best shop trained machinist, for advancement to the position of engineer in charge of the most extensive steam plants. ”

“ It is an important point to remember that when water is expanded about 1,700 times into steam, it is simply expanded water, as ice is hardened water, i.e., in expanding into steam the two constituent gases do not separate. Hence, in dealing with the impurities inside the boiler, it is to be observed that in no sense do they change the essential nature of water itself. The impurities are simply foreign bodies, which have no legitimate place in the boiler, and are to be expelled as dangerous foes. ”

“ In nothing can an engineer better show his true fitness than in the treatment of the beginnings of defects as they show themselves by well-known signs of distress, such as leaks of water about the tube ends, and in the boiler below the water line, or escaping steam above it. In more serious cases, the professional services of a skillful and honest boiler maker is the best for the occasion. ”

“ STEAM ENGINE PRACTICE $2
“It has been well said that engineers are born, not made; those in demand to fill the positions created by the great installations of power-producing machinery now so common, are men who are familiar with the contents of good books, and as well, are the product of a hard bought practical experience.” ”

“ The severity of the accident depends mainly, 1, on the intensity of the heat of the burning body, together with, 2, the extent of surface, and, 3, the vitality of the parts involved in the injury, thus: a person may have a finger burned off with less danger to life than an extensive scald of his back.
The immediate effect of scalds is generally less violent than that of burns; fluids not being capable of acquiring so high a temperature as some solids, but flowing about with great facility, their effects become most serious by extending to a large surface of the body. ”

“ Nearly all foreign matter held in solution in water, on first becoming separated by boiling, rises to the top in the form of what is commonly called scum, in which condition much of it may be removed by the surface blow-off. If not removed, however, the heavier particles will be attracted to each other until they have become sufficiently dense to fall to the bottom, where they will be deposited in the form of scale, covering the whole internal surface of the boiler below the water line, with a more or less perfect non-conductor of heat. ”

“ Then, again, a boiler that might furnish a sufficient quantity of steam to work a certain type of engine up to 40 horse power without forcing the fire might, with another style of engine, in order to generate the same power and perform the same duty, require to be forced beyond the limits of safety or economy. Therefore, considering the varying conditions under which all steam boilers are placed, there is no such a thing as any reliable standard rule for calculating the horse power of boilers, but only an approximate one at the best. ”

“ When both exhaust and live steam are used for heating, many engineers prefer to use independent lines of pipe for each, rather than run the risk of interference and waste caused by admitting exhaust and live steam into the same system at the same time. Nevertheless, the advantages gained by being able to increase the heating power of a system in extremely cold weather by utilizing the entire radiating surface for high pressure steam, are so great that it is probably better so to arrange the system of pipes and connections that this can be done. ”

“ Testing new boilers under steam pressure is both dangerous and unwise—the hot water expansion test is just as efficient, less costly and safe in every respect—hence, there is no occasion for a steam test. A manufacturer was testing a boiler in the way mentioned when a rivet in a brace blew out and the contents of the boiler rushed out, striking a man in the face, and parboiling him from head to foot. ”

“ There are other evils sometimes inherent in hard waters over and above the mere production of a crust. Some waters contain a great deal of soluble magnesia salts, together with common salt. When this is the case there is a great chance of corrosion, for the former is acted on by steam at high pressure in such a way that muriatic acid fumes are produced, which seriously corrodes the boiler, and, what is far worse, passes with the steam into the engine, and produces corrosion in the cylinders and other delicate fittings into contact with which the steam passes. ”

“ In generating steam from cold water all the free air is liberated and driven off into the pipe, with the air left in them, all of which is forced up to the highest point of the coils or radiators, and compressed equal to the steam pressure following it. Now, by placing a valve or vent at the return end of the pieces to be heated, the air will be driven out by the compression. Why the vent is placed at the return is, that the momentum of the steam, it being the lightest body, will pass in the direction of it, falling down into the return as it condenses, thus liberating the air. ”