US Patent: 41,612
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| Reciprocating Steam Engine
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Patentee:
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| John Ericsson (exact or similar names) - New York, NY |
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Patent Dates:
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| Granted: |
Feb. 16, 1864 |
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Joel Havens
"Vintage Machinery" entry for Massachusetts Caloric Engine Co.
Ericsson Steam Engine, Patent Model
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Description: |
| Abstract:
In all reciprocating steam-engines heretofore constructed, the movement of the piston has produced a concussion or shaking of the bed or foundation upon which the engine has been supported, and a tendency to tear the engine away from said bed or foundation in many cases, to the great detriment of the structure in which the engine is contained. This action has been especially injurious in the case of horizontal engines arranged transversely to the keels of vessels for driving screw-propellers, and has been the great obstacle to the running of such engines at sufficiently high speeds to drive the propeller without the intervention of gearing or its equivalent between the crankshaft and propeller-shaft. In such engines the weight of the piston and its attached piston-rods and crosshead is frequently many thousand pounds, and the inertia of this mass in the starting of the piston-reacts against one end of the cylinder and tends to move the cylinder and bed of the engine toward one side of the vessel, and the force required to arrest the piston as it completes its stroke, after having acquired a great momentum, reacts upon the framing and bed of the engine in the opposite direction to the reaction first mentioned, and tends to move the bed of the engine toward the other side of the vessel. In this way two distinct concussions are produced upon the vessel in a lateral direction during every stroke of the engine, or in every stroke of each piston, when more than one engine or an engine with more than one cylinder is used. The object of this invention is to counteract the above-mentioned effect or tendency of the movements of the piston of an engine and to this end it consists in the connection with such piston of a weight which has a corresponding reciprocating motion, but always moves in an opposite direction to the piston, such weight being equal or nearly equal to the weight of the piston, its rod or rods and their connections with the crank, and moving the same distance, or being heavier and moving a correspondently less distance, or lighter and1 moving a correspondently greater distance.
Claim:
The employment of a reciprocating weigh so connected with the piston of a steam o other engine as to move always in the oppo site direction to the motion of the piston. |
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