In addition to the physical laboratory on the lower floor of Building
No. 21, and the house-heating boiler plant with the necessary coal
storage, there are rooms devoted to the storage of heavy supplies,
samples of fuels and oils, and miscellaneous commercial apparatus. One
room is occupied by the ventilating fan and one is used for the
necessary crushers, rolls, sizing screens, etc., required in connection
with the sampling of coal prior to analysis.
The Quartermaster’s Department having expressed a wish that tests be
made of the heating value and efficiency of the various fuels offered
that Department, in connection with the heating of military posts
throughout the country, three house-heating boilers were procured which
represent, in a general way, the types and sizes used in a medium-sized
hospital or other similar building, and in smaller residences (Fig. 2,
Plate XVI). The larger apparatus is a horizontal return-tubular boiler,
60 in. in diameter, 16 ft. long, and having fifty-four 4-in. tubes.[14]
In order to determine whether such a boiler may be operated under
heating conditions without making smoke, when burning various kinds of
coal, it has been installed in accordance with accepted ideas regarding
the prevention of smoke. A fire-brick arch extends over the entire grate
surface and past the bridge wall. A baffle wall has been built in the
combustion chamber, which compels the gases to pass downward and to
divide through two openings before they reach the boiler shell.
Provision has been made for the admission of air at the front of the
furnace, underneath the arch, and at the rear end of the bridge wall,
thus furnishing air both above and below the fire. It is not expected
that all coals can be burned without smoke in this furnace, but it is
desirable to determine under what conditions some kinds of coals may be
burned without objectionable smoke.[15]
For sampling the gases in the smokebox of the horizontal return-tubular
boiler, a special flue-gas sampler was designed, in order to obtain a
composite sample of the gases escaping from the boiler.
The other heaters are two cast-iron house-heating boilers. One can
supply 400 sq. ft. of radiation and the other about 4,000 sq. ft. They
were installed primarily for the purpose of testing coals to determine
their relative value when burned for heating purposes. They are piped to
a specially designed separator, and from this to a pressure-reducing
valve. Beyond this valve an orifice allows the steam to escape into the
regular heating mains. This arrangement makes it possible to maintain a
practically constant load on the boilers.
[Illustration: PLATE XVIII.
Fig. 1.--Long Combustion Chamber.