Fuel bunker

“ A litter of coal and oily scum showers from angles of the wrecked bunker and stokehold to the floor of the dock, and leaves the fractured beams and tubes to stand out in gaunt twist and deformity. Through the breaches the shattered cylinders and broken columns of the engines lie distorted in a piled raffle of wrenched pipe sections, valves and levers, footplates, skeleton ladders, and shafting. The mass of distorted metal has still a shine and token of polish, and these signs of late care and attention only serve to make the ruin seem the more complete and irremediable. ”

“ The necessity for using the coal as a means of protection from shot and shell leads to the bunkers being subdivided into a host of "pockets" holding but a few tons and communicating with each other deviously. The work of getting the coal passed from one to the other of these is far worse than anything of the kind in the Merchant Service, as much worse as is the firing under forced draught for a Belleville boiler than the steady supply of fuel to a well-equipped, natural-draught stokehold of any of our great merchant steamships, where Belleville boilers, thank God, will never be used. ”

“ The grates may be placed directly under the gas burners in a standard position or may be placed between two bridge walls back of the gas furnace and fired from the side of the boiler. An advantage is claimed for the standard grate position that it minimizes the danger of explosion on the re-ignition of gas after a temporary stoppage of the supply and also that a considerable amount of dirt, of which there is a good deal with this class of fuel and which is difficult to remove, deposits on the fire and is taken out when the fires are cleaned. ”

“ In the iron mills the puddlers have whitewashed the coal bunkers belonging to their furnaces. I need not here say how much pleasure it will afford me to arrange that any fellow members of the Institute who may visit the republic are afforded an opportunity to see for themselves this latest and most interesting development of the fuel question. Good Mother Earth supplies us with all the fuel we can use and more, and only asks us to lead it under our boilers and into our heating and puddling furnaces, and apply the match. ”

“ I don’t wish to be wearisome to the benevolent reader, but I want to put his finger, so to speak, on the inanity of the objection raised by the expert. A bunker is an enclosed space for holding coals, generally located against the ship’s side, and having an opening, a doorway in fact, into the stokehold. Men called trimmers go in there, and by means of implements called slices make the coal run through that opening on to the floor of the stokehold, where it is within reach of the stokers’ (firemen’s) shovels. ”

“ The coal from the coal bunkers is allowed to flow down into the boiler room through two rows of downtakes, one on each side of the central gangway or firing place. Each bunker has eight cast-iron outlets, four on each side, and to these outlets are bolted gate valves for shutting off the coal from the corresponding downtakes. From these gates the downtakes lead to hoppers which are on the economizer floor, and from these hoppers the lower sets of downtakes extend down to the boilers. ”

“ Next place on the bottom of the combustion chamber a piece of cotton waste, or a handful of shavings saturated with petroleum and burning with a flame. Then by opening first the steam valve of the spray injector, and next the petroleum valve gently, the very first spray of oil coming on the flaming waste immediately ignites without any explosion whatever; after which the quantity of fuel can be increased at pleasure. By looking at the top of the chimney, the supply of petroleum can be regulated by observing the smoke. ”

“ Putting one thing with another, experts agree that the explosion engine is the prime mover of the future. Steam has apparently been developed almost to its limit. Its rival is but half-grown, though already a giant.
Some internal combustion engines use petroleum as their fuel, converting it into gas before it is mixed with air to form the charge; others use coal-gas drawn from the lighting mains; "poor gas" made in special plants for power purposes; or natural gas issuing from the ground. ”

“ If the engines, boilers, and bunkers are in separate compartments, measure each compartment, as above set forth, and add together the results of the several measurements. The bunkers measured for fuel deduction shall include only those bunkers that are absolutely permanent, from which the coal can be trimmed directly into the engine room or stokehole, and into which access can be obtained only through the ordinary coal chutes on deck and from doors opening into the engine room or stokehole. ”

“ Water, urine, wine, or any other simple liquid you can get in reasonably large quantities will dilute gasoline fuel to a point where no combustion will occur in the cylinder and the engine will not move. One pint to 20 gallons of gasoline is sufficient. If salt water is used, it will cause corrosion and permanent motor damage.
(5) In the case of Diesel engines, put low flashpoint oil into the fuel tank; the engine will not move. If there already is proper oil in the tank when the wrong kind is added, the engine will only limp and sputter along. ”

“ In modern practice, where the blast is heated by hot blast stoves, approximately 15 per cent of the total amount of gas is used for this purpose, leaving 85 per cent of the total for use under boilers or in gas engines, that is, approximately 8500 pounds of gas per ton of pig iron produced. In a modern blast furnace plant, the gas serves ordinarily as the only fuel required. ”

“ The fire, which broke out at 11.15 A. M. in the basement of the main tannery building, spread so quickly that the employees at work on the upper floors had difficulty in escaping to the street. Even before the first alarm had been sent in, the advancing flames reached a large tank of oil, used for fuel in the power house. A heavy explosion followed and the fire gained irresistible headway, since the power house stood in the centre of the plant and was flanked on three sides by the tanning houses. ”

“ Contrary to general belief, it is improbable that the fuel tank win explode and quickly engulf the car in flame, even after the car is burning. Experience and tests indicate that a sound fuel tank will usually remain intact in a burning car.
Buildings can sometimes be used Temporary shelter can also be found in or behind buildings that are in good condition and not easily ignited, particularly where the surrounding fuel loading is not heavy. ”

“ The torpedo exploded on a bulkhead separating two fire rooms, the explosive effect being apparently equal in both fire rooms, yet, in one fire room not a man was saved, while in the other fire room two of the men escaped. The explosion blasted through the outer and inner skin of the ship and through an intervening coal bunker and bulkhead, hurling overboard seven hundred and fifty tons of coal. The two men saved were working the fires within thirty feet of the explosion and just below the level where the torpedo struck. ”

“ But let us see how these comfortable, easy-moving chaps manage to handle the fuel sufficient to send twenty-five or thirty thousand tons of steel hurtling through the seas with so little apparent haste or effort. The running back of a sliding steel door brings a stream of coal running out of one of the bunkers, coal which, dumped from sacks into the entrance of a chute on one of the upper decks, has worked its way downward by gravity as that beneath it has been fed to the furnaces. ”

“ A blast up to 3 inches of water should be available for the finer sizes supplied by engine driven fans, automatically controlled by the boiler pressure. The blast required will increase as the depth of the fuel bed increases, and the slight suction should be maintained in the furnace by damper regulation.
The use of blast with the finer sizes causes rapid fouling of the heating surfaces of the boiler, the dust often amounting to over 10 per cent of the total fuel fired. Economical disposal of dust and ashes is of the utmost importance in burning fuel of this nature. ”

“ A violent explosion can only come from the general disruption of a boiler and the liberation at once of large masses of steam and water.”
Economy—The requirement probably next in importance to safety in a steam boiler is economy in the use of fuel. To fulfill such a requirement, the three items, of [Pg 63] proper grate for the class of fuel to be burned, a combustion chamber permitting complete combustion of gases before their escape to the stack, and the heating surface of such a character and arrangement that the maximum amount of available heat may be extracted, must be co-ordinated. ”

“ In order to prevent explosions caused by the entrance of air, the feed-hopper should remain hermetically closed during the removal of the incandescent fuel through the doors of the combustion-chamber.
If the apparatus is placed in a room poorly ventilated, the cleaning should be attended to by two men, so that one may assist the other in case he is overcome by the gas. In all cases there should be a strict prohibition against the use of any light having an exposed flame liable to set on fire the explosive mixtures which may be formed. ”

“ We must digress for a moment to notice more fully the importance of a strategic position, from the point of view of commerce, not of war. It is a well-known fact that one of the greatest hindrances to a more general adoption of liquid fuel, apart from the question of permanence of supplies, is the [263] absence of regular oiling-stations, so that steamers burning petroleum are handicapped as to freedom of movement in a way in which coal-burning boats are not. ”

“ A chief object therefore of man’s policy in economizing fire, in subduing it to his use, and in governing its decomposing and destructive powers, should be to prevent its finding fuel in the ascent. No connected timbers ought therefore to join an inferior floor with a superior, so that, if one floor were on fire, its feeble lateral combustion might easily be extinguished with a mop and a pail of water, provided no train of combustibles were extended to the floor above. ”

“ On the other hand, coal has been relied upon, when placed in the side bunkers of unarmoured ships, as a protection against shot and shell, and this advantage, if it really exists, could not be claimed in regard to liquid fuel. ”

“ Ned hastened off while the two officers remained in grave consultation on the bridge.
“Nasty situation, Briggs,” said Captain Dunham.
“Very, sir. The storm makes it all the worse. It is dangerous work in the bunkers in such weather as this. There’s some fear, too, of the [141] coal sliding as the men get it out, even though we’ve got it timbered.”
“Then your plan is to empty the bunker?”
“If necessary, sir. Half-way measures will be no good in a case of this kind. We shall have to get the coal out from below till we reach the fire. ”

“ There were, for instance, twenty-four double end and five single end boilers, each 16 feet 9 inches in diameter, the larger 20 feet long and the smaller 11 feet 9 inches long. The larger boilers had six fires under each of them and the smaller three furnaces. Coal was stored in bunker space along the side of the ship between the lower and middle decks, and was first shipped from there into bunkers running all the way across the vessel in the lowest part. From there the stokers handed it into the furnaces. ”

“ But seeing that these fires resembled the laughter of the wicked, inasmuch as they were brief-lived as the crackling of thorns under pots, the girls were driven to make predatory attacks on fuel wherever it could be found. Sometimes, one is sorry to say, they robbed each other’s fireplaces, and concealed the coal in their pockets. ”

“ The cost of fuel would be far less than with existing arrangements, and the labor of attending to the one or two fires and the valves would also be less than that now required in the carrying of coal-scuttles, the removal of ashes, the cleaning of fireplaces, and the curtains and furniture they befoul by their escaping dust and smoke.
It is obvious that such a system of ventilation may even be applied to existing houses by mending the ill-fitting windows, shutting up the existing fire-holes, and using the chimneys as upcast shafts in the manner above described. ”

“ If the air-current is good, this is blown away before it can do any harm. If the ventilation is bad, the gas collects gradually at the top of a room. Pretty soon it will get low enough to touch the flame in one of the lamps, and then usually there is a big explosion which wrecks all that part of the mine. If there isn’t enough of it to explode, it catches fire and rolls back and forth across the roof, and if the miners aren’t burnt to death, they’re pretty likely to be suffocated by the after-damp. ”

“ The fuel burns best when not disturbed in the furnace. Each fuel chute, when a proper distance from the grates and with the piles maintained at their proper height, will supply about 30 or 35 square feet of grate surface. While large quantities of air are required for burning this fuel, excess air is as harmful as with coal, and care must be taken that such an excess is not admitted through fire doors or fuel chutes. A strong natural draft usually is preferable to a blast with this fuel. ”