Air chamber

“ The working chamber is the space between the tunnel heading where work is in progress and the air-lock. The air-lock is a device used for the purpose of enabling workmen and materials to pass from the portion of the tunnel where the atmospheric pressure is normal into the portion where the air pressure is greater than normal; that is, the working chamber. The air-lock is a cylinder, usually about six feet in diameter and twenty feet in length, with a heavily constructed iron door at each end. ”

“ The fresh air is taken in from the gardens surrounding the theater and is conducted into the cellar, where it passes through a water spray, which removes the dust and cools the air in summer. A suction fan ten feet in diameter is provided, which blows the air through a conduit forty-five square feet in area into a series of three chambers located vertically over each other under the auditorium. The lowest of these chambers is the cold-air chamber; the middle one is the heating chamber and contains steam-heating stacks; the highest chamber is the mixing chamber. ”

“ We would fain linger amid a scene so weird and wonderful; but time fails, and we must return to ‘bank.’ We take a last look at the air-chamber with its busy occupants, and ascending the ladder, not without exertion, for a vertical ladder at all times calls muscle into play, and the pressure we are under by no means lightens our labours, we find ourselves again in the air-lock. ”

“ The Doctor and Will together had devised a most ingenious method of heating the hot-air chamber instantly. By the use of a small air pump hundreds of atmospheres could be compressed into a very strong aluminum chest or cylinder. Beneath this cylinder were a number of burners that heated the compressed air several hundred degrees. As we said before, when they desired to descend, an upper and lower trap were opened, the hot air rushed out above and the cold air in below, causing the globe to descend with great rapidity. ”

“ The roof of the air-chamber was supported by four strong lattice girders 18 ft. in height, and reaching from side to side of the inner shell, but being carried through to the outer shell by means of bulkheads or plate diaphragms set between the two shells, and rivetted through with the end posts of the large girders. At right angles to these latter were carried plate girders 3 ft. deep, and spaced 4 ft. apart, centre to centre, all over the ceiling of the air-chamber. ”

“ By the action of the ram at each stroke, a partial vacuum is formed below the air chamber, and the air rushing through the small hole in the inlet pipe, passes into the air chamber, making good that which the water absorbs. ”

“ The idea of constructing a water-closet or flushing apparatus with double traps underneath the seat, and a confined air chamber between the same, from which the air might be withdrawn when the closet was used, so as to induce a more powerful outflow, was not novel. ”

“ The entrance of the chamber and the two safety apertures in the roof having been closed by disks of paper fastened by paste, the gas is turned on until the desired percentage, has been introduced; the mixture of the air and gas takes merely a short time to effect by diffusion, the difference in density causing the gas to rise on issuing from the jet, which is on the floor of the chamber. ”

“ Take a single room, and suppose on one side a current of outdoor air which has been warmed by passing through the air chamber of a modern furnace. Its temperature need not be above sixty-five,—it answers breathing purposes better at that. On the other side of the room let there be an open wood or coal fire. One cannot conceive the purposes of warmth and ventilation more perfectly combined. ”

“ If the fire-place is to be put up in a chamber, you may have this communication of outer air from the stair-case; or sometimes more easily from between the chamber floor, and the ceiling of the lower room, making only a small hole in the wall of the house entering the space betwixt those two joists with which your air-passage in the hearth communicates. If this air passage be so situated as that mice may enter it, and nestle in the hollow, a little grate of wire will keep them out. ”

“ Behind we have a door which opens upon its hinges. Now, imagine this perfectly closed; imagine it abandoned entirely to itself, left perfectly quiet. In a few days, the floating dust of the air contained in the chamber entirely disappears—it has removed itself by its own subsidence—and then, when you send a beam of light such as we have here through these windows, you see no track of the beam within the chamber. When the air is in this condition, you pour through this pipette infusions of beef, mutton, or vegetables, into these tubes, and allow them to be acted upon by the air. ”

“ The [36] wooden pattens are intended to protect the feet from the heat of the inner rooms, and from the dirty water and slop of the passages.
"The slamming doors are pushed open, and you enter the region of steam;" this is the second chamber, it is low, dark, and small; it feels warm without being hot or oppressive, and the air is moistened with a thin vapour. It is paved with white marble, and a marble platform eighteen inches high occupies its two sides, while the space between serves as the passage from the mustaby to the inner hall. ”

“ There it is deflected by ceiling, floor, and ends of the chamber into the corridor, from whence it is, in due course, again drawn through the tiers of eggs to the propellers. The propellers are operated, and the air moves, continuously. Since the main movement of the air at the top and bottom of the tiers is toward the center corridor, and since the fans draw in air through the middle of the tiers, there are points in the space occupied by the tiers where the movement of the air is toward the corridor until it joins and is turned back by the current moving toward the propellers. ”

“ I had soon made a tour about the chamber, the compass of which was perhaps sixty or seventy feet, and in one corner of it I at last discovered an opening, through which, I did not doubt, came the current of air I have before mentioned. It was, as I found when I held my torch to it, a very low and narrow passage, not above four feet high, and the draught of air was so strong that it made my torch flare, and, indeed, was like to blow it out. ”

“ The inner chamber is the hot one, and is used for ablutions, while the outer one is for cooling down in and dressing. It is not advisable to spend too much time in these hamams, as the air, for want of proper ventilation, is rather foul, and also, as the stone flags are not too well jointed, the gases from the fire get in, so that a prolonged visit generally ends in a bad headache. ”

“ Although it is pitch dark, it is perfectly ventilated through invisible openings to the upper air, the outlets of which have long been lost sight of, and we easily made our way from one circular chamber to another by the light of candles along the barrel-shaped passages, which are of convenient width and more than a man’s height, and I was delighted at finding such an opportunity for study at my own door, as it were. ”

“ Steam apparatus for public buildings has been constructed where the radiators have been bunched, that is, put into a single chamber, the air passing through the chamber containing the radiators, where it is heated to the proper temperature, and the moisture afterwards supplied before it enters the room. ”

“ First, never have long underground fresh-air ducts. Second, never allow a sewer, soil-pipe, foul-air flue, or smoke-flue, to come near the fresh-air supply-flue, for fear of some connection being made between them by carelessness or accident. Third, never heat a building exclusively by currents of warm air. Fourth, always put the heating flues on the outside walls instead of on the inside walls. Fifth, endeavor strenuously to avoid the fresh-air chamber becoming a common receptacle for all the rubbish of a filthy cellar.
Sardines.—Mr. ”

“ The channels enter near the floor, so that impure air issuing and coming in contact with the highly heated surfaces of the hot water coil in the chamber, the foul air immediately rises to the roof, and is being constantly carried away through louvres into the open air. ”

“ Another reason why it is difficult to make a room an air-tight chamber is that if a stove or fire-place be in the room, a strong suction is produced through the flame, and such suction requires the entrance of outside air. ”

“ There are no curtains or similar means of guiding the air currents set in motion by the fans. Two fans are placed on the side wall at the back of the chamber. They turn continuously, and are so constructed and operated as to propel currents of air, which proceed along the sides and the ceiling and floor of the chamber to the front wall, where they are deflected in the direction of the fans and there 'drawn' toward them through the central part of the chamber. ”

“ An extra air inlet, controllable by the driver, is generally added, unless the carburetter be of a type which automatically maintains constant proportions of air and vapour. The jet chamber is often surrounded by a jacket, through which part of the hot exhaust gases circulate. ”

“ Inasmuch as we cannot watch the air under the house as we can that in a room and would not always know its quality if we could, it has been found better to dig out a chamber under the house and line it with stones or cement, or even leave it just a hole in the earth into which air can be admitted. ”

“ Wind tunnel—A chamber through which air is forced at controlled velocities, up to several thousand miles an hour, and in which airfoils, airplanes, missiles, scale models of airplanes, or other objects are mounted in order to observe and study the airflow about such objects, as well as the aerodynamic effects upon them. ”

“ The house is thus made to assume a handsome appearance. Air is introduced into the house at the sides, through underground wooden air chambers opening on the inside near the walk. Instead of these wooden air chambers, we now use six inch glazed pipes, as being more convenient and durable. It is an effective and excellent mode of introducing fresh air, without letting it directly on the plants. Ventilation is effected by the sash over the end doors, and also by ventilators placed along the ridge board. ”

“ An improved air-lock, by which access is given from the exterior to the working chamber at the part where the men work in an atmosphere sufficiently condensed to exclude water from the lower open end—like a tumbler inverted in water—is the principal addition which America has made to the device. ”

“ Riding in an air-tight chamber would not be pleasant if much time were to be occupied in that way, but the cars are propelled so swiftly that the time from one station to another is hardly appreciable. At every stop the cars are opened and apparatus set in motion which changes the air completely almost in a moment. Where the tubes run under water shafts for air are put in at the stations. There is always a double line, one tube for each direction. No chance is left for accidents. ”

“ Before the air is allowed to reach the intervening chamber it is made to pass into the sole of the furnace and into the walls of the chamber, so that to the advantage of having the air heated there is joined the additional one of having those portions of the furnace cooled that cannot be heated with impunity. ”

“ Houses cannot be kept too airy, no room or chamber should ever be kept permanently closed for days together. Never mind about the improvement of ventilatory contrivances: patent "ventilators" are mostly calculated to humor the prejudice against perceptible air-currents. They are intended to smuggle in a modicum of fresh air unnoticed, near the edge of the ceiling, in a roundabout way through halls and antechambers. One open window is worth a dozen of such compromise tricks. ”

“ So the idea of air-chambers developed: and later the curved keel was made of iron, to aid in ballasting the craft: so that the modern life-boat, with curved iron keel, cork padding, air chambers, and tubes to permit water to flow out, cannot be sunk, or made to float bottom up. The men may sometimes be washed out of it, or a side stove in, but the boat will always be found right side up. ”

“ The great mammoth now rode easily with the wind, moored by three stout cables to the great tower which rose above the roof gardens of the air-station. An electric lift conveyed the passengers and mails to the summit of this lofty tower, from whence a covered-in gangway led to the long corridors which lined the interior of the rigid airship.
"Have all the engines been tested?" the captain asks of the chief engineer, as he comes aboard with his navigating officer. ”

“ Where open fireplaces are not used, several plans of ventilation may be used, as they all operate on the same principle. Two openings should be in the room, one of them near the floor, through which the fresh air may enter, the other higher up, and connected with a shaft or chimney, which producing a draft, may serve to free the room from impure air. ”

“ Then came a deadly circuit of the tower, clinging to whatever holds the slimy wall could give; till finally my testing hand found the barrier yielding, and I turned upward again, pushing the slab or door with my head as I used both hands in my fearful ascent. There was no light revealed above, and as my hands went higher I knew that my climb was for the nonce ended; since the slab was the trap-door of an aperture leading to a level stone surface of greater circumference than the lower tower, no doubt the floor of some lofty and capacious observation chamber. ”