Fuel

“ A New Smelting-Furnace.—The utilization of petroleum for fuel in the various metallurgical operations, in steam generating, and generally where coal is industrially used, has been a favorite project with inventors for a dozen years or more. The advantages of such a fuel are very great, and the reward to the successful inventor of an apparatus that would make its use practicable would be correspondingly large. Like gas, a liquid fuel is under perfect control, and is in a form allowing of perfect combustion if properly burned. ”

“ A fuel is essentially a substance which is capable of generating heat, which is a form of energy, and not static pressure. The heat engine is an instrument which transforms this energy into power which is again dissipated into heat through the friction of the engine itself and by the load that it drives. ”

“ Steaming and Combustion Tests.—The investigations included under the term, fuel efficiency, relate to the utilization of the various types of fuels found in the coal and oil fields, and deal primarily with the combustion of such fuels in gas producers, in the furnaces of steam boilers, in locomotives, etc., and with the efficiency and utilization of petroleum, kerosene, gasoline, etc., in internal-combustion engines. ”

“ Our fuel is coal, which produces a greater quantity of soot, and of black smoke, which is the result of imperfect combustion, than any other fuel, the smoke from wood being thin and pure in comparison. ”

“ The first part discusses the nature of fuel, the source whence it is derived, the best methods of using it economically, the coal question of the day, and solar heat. Fuel is defined as any substance capable of entering into combination with another substance and giving rise to heat in the act, and it is shown to be derived from solar energy acting upon the surface of our earth. The subject is handled in a scientific manner, and has a direct practical bearing on economy of the use of fuel in manufactures, transportation, and the household. ”

“ This compels the products of distillation, produced when fresh fuel is charged in, to pass through the incandescent fuel between the two hanging arches, whereby the tarry products are to a considerable extent converted into permanent gas, and the coal dust arising from the charging is kept back in the producer.
The details of construction of this plant will be easily understood by reference to the diagrams before you.
The fuel we use is a common kind of slack, and contains, on an average, 33.5 per cent. of volatile matter, including water, and 11.5 per cent. of ashes, leaving 55 per cent. ”

“ It should be understood that fuel belongs to that class of substances that will not burn nor evolve energy under any temperature, pressure, or shock, without an outside supply of oxygen. This is the characteristic property of all fuels used with the internal combustion engine. Each element, such as carbon and hydrogen, in a compound fuel, develops a certain definite amount of heat during their complete combustion, and at the close of the process certain compounds are formed that 28represent the lowest chemical form of the compound. ”

“ If we suppose it to realize 2 per cent of the theoretical energy contained in the fuel, we shall be assuming more than was actually obtained. The energy of the fuel cannot be obtained at all, of course, without boiler and engine, whose weight, for the purpose of the following calculation, must be added to that of the fuel; and if we suppose the weight of the boilers, engines and water, for a single minute’s flight, to be collectively ten pounds, we shall take an optimistic view of what may be expected under ordinary conditions. ”

“ It will be observed, that, in the above statement, the inherent power of fuel is, of necessity, greatly under-rated. It is not pretended by engineers that the economy of fuel is yet pushed to its utmost limit, or that the whole effective power is obtained in any application of fire yet devised ”

“ The change from the solid to the gaseous fuel has been made so rapidly, and has effected such marked results in both the processes of manufacture and the product, that it is no exaggeration to say that the eyes of the entire industrial world are turned with envious admiration upon the cities and neighborhoods blessed with so unique and valuable a fuel. ”

“ Enough oxygen or air must get into a furnace so that every atom of carbon will have its atom of oxygen. This means that you must have a good draft and that the air must have a chance to get through the coal or other fuel.
2. The fuel must be kept hot enough all the time so that the carbon and oxygen can unite. Throwing on too much cold fuel at one time will lower the heat beyond the economical point and cause loss in thick smoke. ”

“ The process of making gas, which consists in blowing to incandescence the exterior portion of a body of fuel, forcing fresh fuel into the interior of the body, utilizing the sensible heat of the incandescent fuel in the destructive distillation of the fresh fuel, introducing steam into the interior portion of the body of fuel and causing it to pass, first through the fresh fuel and then through the heated exterior portion of the fuel bed. ”

“ How many slices of bread are required to make 2 cupfuls of crumbs?
How many slices in one loaf of bread?
LESSON III FUELS AND COMBUSTION—SAUTED AND BAKED SQUASH FUEL.—In order to cook foods, heat in some form must be applied. This heat is obtained usually by burning some substance. Thus the first requisite for obtaining heat is something to burn, i.e. a fuel. The fuels commonly used in households are,—wood, coal, kerosene, and gas. Although electricity is not a fuel, its use in cooking is so well established that it should be mentioned as a source of heat. ”

“ We are apt to ignore the greatness of this loss because the gas escapes into the air and we can not see it, or it burns and we see only its effect, not the loss of fuel, but if we could see it in the form of oil we should find that a billion feet of gas is equal to more than a hundred and sixty thousand barrels of petroleum. ”

“ On the other hand, within living memory, new sources of fuel, such as petroleum, have been made available, and old varieties of fuel have been used to better advantage, as witness the internal-combustion engine driven by smoke from sawdust. Moreover, in the ocean tides is a vast energy that one day may take the place of fuel. ”

“ On the contrary, if we suppose a greater quantity of air to rush through the tubes, then the fuel will be consumed or exhausted faster than it is supplied; and in order therefore to reduce the combustion to the proper degree, the quantity of air supplied must be diminished, and the quantity of fuel increased. ”

“ Air and fuel enter the producer at the top, and the gas exit is in the center of the bottom so that the air is forced to pass through the center of the producer, decomposing the volatile matter into gases of calorific value. The moisture which is present in the peat fuel in considerable quantities must be taken into consideration. ”

“ To realize the question of economy of fuel, it is necessary to consider, in the first place, what a given quantity of fuel is capable of doing. As regards hot water, if water is kept at a temperature of 200°, or from that to 210°, the gases from the fire can, after communicating the heat to the boiler, pass off into the chimney at a temperature of little beyond that point ”

“ There is, however, a mineral fuel in which this distribution of the elements is very different. Petroleum is a natural fluid, consisting of hydrogen and carbon, which has been distilled in the great laboratory of nature, and which exists in large quantities in various parts of the world. ”

“ It is a matter of common observation that when all solid fuels—coal, wood, paper—burn, they decrease in size, and that fuel gas is consumed. Apparently only a few ashes remain when solid fuels have been burned, and only a disagreeable odor remains when gas has been burned. ”

“ The great increase in the consumption of petroleum is ascribable partly to the more extensive use of it as a fuel, in substitution for coal, but mainly to the greater use of gasoline which is directly attributable to the automobile. ”

“ The first and greatest source of loss resides in the difficulty—I may, I think, safely say the impossibility—of burning solid fuel economically in any form of furnace that has yet been devised; and this prime difficulty is an unanswerable argument in favor of the substitution of liquid or gaseous fuel for steam-making as for other purposes. Let us analyze the matter: The buyer of coal purchases at the outset at least 10 to 15 per cent. of non-combustible and useless material with every pound of coal, in the form of ash; while at least 5 per cent. ”

“ Yet the study of the various models and contrivances for Gas-burning there presented, fixed me in the novel faith that Gas is ultimately to be not only the main agent of illumination but the chief fuel also of all cities and villages; that the time is at hand when the head of a family, the solitary lodger, requiring either heat or light, will simply touch a bell in his own room and be supplied with the indicated quantity of Gas, whether for culinary purposes, for warmth, for light, or altogether ”

“ We have always known that the locomotive operates by the burning of coal or oil in the fire box. A moment’s thought will show us, if we have not realized it before, that the explosion of the air-gas mixture in the automobile cylinders is also a burning. Every steam-driven power plant depends on burning fuel for its power. Evidently fuel materials contain abundant power, if it can be extracted, and burning is a good method for doing the extracting. The word “burning” is the common name for a chemical process known technically as “oxidation,” meaning the union of oxygen with the fuel. ”

“ Water boils in an uncovered vessel at 212 degrees Fahrenheit, and no amount of heat applied to it will make it any hotter. When a pot of food has reached the boiling point, a smaller flame will keep it boiling. Turn the gas as low as it may be safely turned and still keep the pot boiling, and the food will cook as rapidly as when the gas is turned on full.
Fig. 10. Single top burner
and valve.
Gas is a safe fuel in most hands; it saves the housekeeper much labor because it makes so little dirt. When properly managed, it is the cheapest fuel to be had at the present time. ”

“ This includes the action of the heart; the movement of the lungs in breathing; the digestion, absorption, and assimilation of food elements; the tearing down and elimination of waste; and the muscular activity of body movements.
Just as any engine requires fuel, water, and air to create the force necessary to run the machinery, so does the human engine require fuel, air, and water. The fuel for the engine consists of coal, wood, or oil. As these are rapidly brought in combination with oxygen, combustion, or oxidation, takes place, liberating heat and setting the engine in motion. ”

“ Natural Gas the Fuel of the Future.—The house of the near future will have no fireplace, steam pipes, chimneys, or flues. Wood, coal oil, and other forms of fuel are about to disappear altogether in places having factories. Gas has become so cheap that already it is supplanting fuels. A single jet fairly heats a small room in cold weather. It is a well known fact that gas throws off no smoke, soot, or dirt. In a brazier filled with chunks of colored glass, and several jets placed beneath, the glass soon became heated sufficiently to thoroughly warm a room 10x30 feet in size. ”

“ A. Producer Gas, Siemens Gas.—As we have seen above, this gas is made by the incomplete combustion of fuel. The materials generally employed for its production are anthracite, coke or other fuels which are not liable to cake during the operation, and thus stop the draught or otherwise disturb the process, but by special measures also bituminous coal, lignite, peat and other fuel may be utilized for gas producers. The fuel is arranged in a deep layer, generally from 4 ft. ”

“ We shall now give some account of the structural arrangements adopted for producing cheap gaseous fuel, and for turning that fuel to the greatest advantage in firing the retorts for the purpose of carbonizing the cannel coal used as the source of the gas. ”

“ The greater efficiency of gas as a fuel results chiefly from the circumstance that a pound of gas yields in combustion twenty-two thousand heat-units, or exactly double the heat produced in the combustion of a pound of ordinary coal. This extra heating power is due partly to the freedom of the gas from earthy constituents, but chiefly to the heat imparted to it in effecting its distillation. ”

“ If the gas is to be used for heating ovens or furnaces in connection with the generation of power, the character of the fuel will be determined to a great extent by the requirements of the ovens and by the type of producer used, as each fuel will give the gas certain properties. ”

“ That is where we have the advantage over other automobiles, which can’t pick out the part they want but have to take the air as it comes. Still it all comes to the same thing in the end. With all animals the oxygen gets mixed with the fuel and explodes.
Our fuel, moreover, is a good deal like gasoline. Gasoline, as you know, is related to kerosene, benzine, paraffine, and the rest, which are all products of rock oil. They are, then, themselves oils; and gasoline is an oil. ”